The Islam scholar Daniel Pipes appears to have a radically different take on the 9/11 Commission report from Amir Taheri (see post below). Pipes approves of the report for two reasons. First, it identifies the threat to the west correctly, something few are prepared to do:

‘In contrast to those analysts who wishfully dismiss the Islamists as a few fanatics, the 9/11 commission acknowledges their true importance, noting that Osama bin Laden’s message “has attracted active support from thousands of disaffected young Muslims and resonates powerfully with a far larger number who do not actively support his methods.” The Islamist outlook represents not a hijacking of Islam, as is often but wrongly claimed; rather it emerges from a “long tradition of extreme intolerance” within Islam, one going back centuries and in recent times associated with Wahhabism, the Muslim Brethren, and the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb.’

Second, Pipes says the report identifies correctly what the west’s goal should be:

‘The commission carefully distinguishes between the enemy’s twofold nature: “al Qaeda, a stateless network of terrorists” and the “radical ideological movement in the Islamic world.” It correctly finds the first weakened, yet posing “a grave threat.” The second is the greater concern, however, for it is still gathering and “will menace Americans and American interests long after Usama Bin Ladin and his cohorts are killed or captured.”American strategy, therefore, must be to dismantle Al Qaeda’s network and prevail over “the ideology that gives rise to Islamist terrorism.” In other words, “the United States has to help defeat an ideology, not just a group of people.” Doing so means nothing less than changing the way Muslims see themselves, something Washington can help with but cannot do on its own: “Tolerance, the rule of law, political and economic openness, the extension of greater opportunities to women - these cures must come from within Muslim societies themselves. The United States must support such developments.” ‘

I guess Taheri wouldn’t quarrel with that, as far as it goes. The problem seems to be, though, that the Commission doesn’t tell us how the west should do this. In particular, as Taheri says:

‘…the United States would need, and can find, allies, including among a majority of the Muslims who have been the first victims of Islamic fascism and its ideology of terror. The commission has no suggestions about how to engage in those battles, who to choose as allies and who to identify as neutrals. The commission makes an even bigger mistake. By speaking of “political grievances” it tries to explain the Islamists within the parameters of classical logic. Having accused the administration of lack of imagination, the commission, is itself unable to imagine a conflict that is not political in the normal sense of the term.’

I agree with Taheri that the Commission report was platitudinous, although I agree with Pipes that it performed a valuable service in articulating the nature of the threat so clearly. But what strikes me most of all, as someone writing in Britain, is that these issues are not being aired, let alone debated, in Britain at all. The mainstream media here, along with the intellectual and political class, are silent: silenced by ignorance, prejudice and fear.