The West Must Confront the Muslim Brotherhood Without Turning Against Muslims

There is a distinction the West must learn to make, and quickly: Islam is a religion. Islamism is a political ideology. Failing to understand that distinction produces two equally dangerous mistakes. The first is cowardice: refusing to scrutinize Islamist movements because doing so might be portrayed as hostility toward Muslims. The second is prejudice: treating Muslims themselves as a political or security threat. Both are intellectually lazy. Both are dangerous. And both strengthen the very extremists democratic societies should be isolating.

I say this as a Muslim, an American, a U.S. Army veteran, a human rights activist, and someone who has spent much of my life confronting religious extremism. I unequivocally condemn the Muslim Brotherhood and its project of political Islam.

I also reject the notion that organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, should automatically be treated as representative of America’s extraordinarily diverse Muslim population. They do not speak for me. And they certainly do not speak for all American Muslims.

The Brotherhood’s greatest asset is patience. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna. Its significance cannot be understood merely by looking for terrorism or overt calls for revolution. That misses the larger ideological question.

Political movements do not need to overthrow a government tomorrow to influence a society over decades. Influence can be cultivated through institutions, education, political relationships, advocacy organizations, community leadership, youth engagement, media access, and the gradual normalization of ideas.

This is precisely why democratic societies must stop thinking about extremism exclusively in terms of violence. A bomb is easy to recognize. An ideology wearing the language of democracy, civil rights, victimhood, and inclusion can be considerably more difficult to examine.

None of this means every Muslim organization, mosque, activist, or political........

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