Obama on Islam

I'm a little surprised none of the other Muslim blogs I read picked up on this yesterday. This is an excerpt from an interview conducted by CNN's Fareed Zakaria with Barack Obama on foreign policy issues. Comments below the excerpt.

ZAKARIA: But how do you view the problem within Islam? As somebody who saw it in Indonesia ... the largest Muslim country in the world?

OBAMA: Well, it was interesting. When I lived in Indonesia -- this would be '67, '68, late '60s, early '70s -- Indonesia was never the same culture as the Arab Middle East. The brand of Islam was always different.

But around the world, there was no -- there was not the sense that Islam was inherently opposed to the West, or inherently opposed to modern life, or inherently opposed to universal traditions like rule of law.

And now in Indonesia, you see some of those extremist elements. And what's interesting is, you can see some correlation between the economic crash during the Asian financial crisis, where about a third of Indonesia's GDP was wiped out, and the acceleration of these Islamic extremist forces.

It isn't to say that there is a direct correlation, but what is absolutely true is that there has been a shift in Islam that I believe is connected to the failures of governments and the failures of the West to work with many of these countries, in order to make sure that opportunities are there, that there's bottom-up economic growth.

You know, the way we have to approach, I think, this problem of Islamic extremism ... is we have to hunt down those who would resort to violence to move their agenda, their ideology forward. We should be going after al Qaeda and those networks fiercely and effectively.

But what we also want to do is to shrink the pool of potential recruits. And that involves engaging the Islamic world rather than vilifying it, and making sure that we understand that not only are those in Islam who would resort to violence a tiny fraction of the Islamic world, but that also, the Islamic world itself is diverse.

And that lumping together Shia extremists with Sunni extremists, assuming that Persian culture is the same as Arab culture, that those kinds of errors in lumping Islam together result in us not only being less effective in hunting down and isolating terrorists, but also in alienating what need to be our long-term allies on a whole host of issues.

There are some good points and one bad point about this excerpt. First, the bad point:

The reason why I read this interview in the first place was because CNN had placed a banner on TV saying Obama "linked Islam to economics." As you can see in the article, Obama tries to tie Islamic militancy in Indonesia with the 1997 Asian financial crisis. But neither Obama's math (over two years, the Indonesian GDP fell by only 15%, not the "about a third" Obama claims) nor his timeline really fits the data. Basically, I feel that Obama's trying to tie militancy with poverty. The problem is, that theory is outdated. John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed's book, Who Speaks for Islam? point out that politics, not poverty or piety, is what drives Muslim extremists. This point isn't new; Esposito and Mogahed released a report that brought this point up back in November 2006. So I think Obama needs to be a little more careful in trying to understand the root causes of the problem. Economic solutions may not be the best solution when the problem is political in nature.

Obama gets it right when he said, "there was not the sense that Islam was inherently opposed to the West, or inherently opposed to modern life, or inherently opposed to universal traditions like rule of law."

I also agree with Obama when he said, "there has been a shift in Islam that I believe is connected to the failures of governments and the failures of the West to work with many of these countries, in order to make sure that opportunities are there, that there's bottom-up economic growth." Bottom-up economic growth is always important, whether it's a Muslim country like Indonesia or the United States. But economic growth needs to be pursued not for the sake of preventing Muslim extremists, who tend to be better off economically than moderate Muslims (according to Esposito and Mogahed), but for the sake of improving standards of living globally.

Likewise, when Obama said, "And that involves engaging the Islamic world rather than vilifying it, and making sure that we understand that not only are those in Islam who would resort to violence a tiny fraction of the Islamic world, but that also, the Islamic world itself is diverse." Unfortunately, I doubt this will happen until Americans become more mature in learning how to interact with the Muslim world.

Finally, I was very pleased when Obama said, "And that lumping together Shia extremists with Sunni extremists, assuming that Persian culture is the same as Arab culture, that those kinds of errors in lumping Islam together..." Unfortunately, many prominent Republicans, such as George Bush and John McCain, have shown over the years that they are essentially clueless to vital nuances, such as the difference between a Sunni Muslim and a Shia Muslim or between an Arab and a Persian. It's refreshing to see a politician who has a clue about foreign policy for a change.