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Cruel To Be KindWhy Washington should not reach out to Muslim moderates.

By Ronald R. Krebs
Posted Thursday, Jan. 3, 2008, at 3:47 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Muslim moderates acquire and maintain legitimacy by adopting an ambivalent political posture that distances them both from more extreme Islamists and from true-believing Westernizers. Their rhetoric is cobbled together from these opposed sources. Controversial Islamist philosopher Tariq Ramadan is popular among European Muslims because he has so effectively sustained such an ambivalent stance. This is partly the source of Nawaz Sharif's popularity, as well.

Current U.S. policy, however, seeks to render moderates less ambivalent, and that goes far in explaining its failings. The more the United States reaches out to Muslim moderates to bring them into the liberal fold, the more closely they appear to be aligned with the United States, and the less legitimacy they enjoy with the community that really matters: their co-religionists. When the United States reaches out, that welcoming gesture is, consequently, rarely reciprocated. Instead, Muslim moderates feel required to respond by affirming their anti-Western credentials, blurring the lines between themselves and the extremists. A recent study found that initial Islamist enthusiasm for U.S.-sponsored democracy-promotion programs in several Arab nations gave way everywhere to "boycotts and disrupted engagement" as Islamist political parties felt compelled to distance themselves from the United States.

Paradoxically, though, this suggests that the West's criticism, more than its love, may be what Muslim moderates desperately need if they are to become a political force to be reckoned with. By taking a public stance that distances the moderates from the Western camp, Western leaders could help boost moderates' local appeal. Tough Western rhetoric that seeks to isolate moderates, by, for instance, charging them with being extremists in mufti, may do more to help the moderates' cause than a more inclusive rhetoric ever could. Ironically, American suspicion of Tariq Ramadan—to the point of failing to issue this ivory-tower academic a visa, thereby preventing him from taking up a post at Notre Dame—has only boosted his standing among fellow Muslims. Similarly, those who question whether Nawaz Sharif is really a worthy partner for the United States are his unwitting allies, bolstering his legitimacy, while those well-intentioned sorts who insist that the United States can work with Sharif to build a stable Pakistan harm his political prospects.

If this strategy were followed, public diplomacy would emphasize the abiding differences between Western and Islamist political and religious cultures, rather than the commonalities. The conventional wisdom in favor of reaching out to Muslim moderates makes sense only at a later stage, once their reputation and credibility are well-established.

The danger is that such a policy may be too clever by half. Moderate Muslims, shocked by the harsh rhetorical turn, might throw in their lot with the extremists. But they will have to accept that, in the short-to-medium run and for their own good, their best friends in the West may not sound all that different from their worst enemies—in public, at least. Western, and especially American, publics, who have often shown little patience for Muslim grievances, might turn to a boundless war on Islam. But they will have to learn that authentic Islamist moderates will be unsparing in their criticism of both extremism and the West.

Americans cannot afford to embrace the "clash of civilizations," nor is the struggle to sustain a politics of moderation in the Muslim world condemned to failure. The United States may be losing the battle of ideas, but its travails suggest a way forward. When it comes to Muslim moderates, the United States should consider being cruel to be kind.

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Ronald R. Krebs is assistant professor and McKnight Land-Grant Professor in the department of political science at the University of Minnesota. He will explore these issues at greater length in the spring 2008 issue of Orbis.
Photograph of Nawaz Sharif by Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images. Photograph of Nawaz Sharif on the Slate home page by Rizwan Tabassum/AFP/Getty Images.
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