Enough about radicalism

Tariq over at POMED summarizes Robert Satloff’s complaint about Kristin Lord’s public diplomacy report.

He says, “In the post-9/11 era, the purpose of public diplomacy is not some amorphous desire to have America better understood or even the more pointed objective of winning the support of international public opinion for U.S. foreign policy…Today, that mission is how to identify, nurture and support mainstream Muslims in the ideological and political contest against radical Islamism….there is none of this in the Brookings report…”

POMED’s summary notes of the event in question can be found here. [Emphasis mine]

Biden made a reference to radical Islam as well at the press conference where the new national security team was revealed.  I think the radical-moderate distinction is not a sound nor a useful one.  Generally speaking it becomes very easy to dismiss anyone whose agenda is problematic for the status quo as a radical.  However, while we’re rarely going to agree with genuine radical Islamists, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re our enemy.  The problem are violent radicals both Islamist and otherwise.

It’s also important not to conflate all violent non-state actors, but in this case we’re talking public diplomacy and not military or even economic strikes.  Encouraging non-violence as a tool is a good general rule.  Of course, we should also be promoting values like democracy which are typically at odds with radical Islamism but often are at odds with ‘moderate’ Muslim leaders as well; e.g. our dear allies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.