THE CALIPH-STROPHIC DEBATE

"Published by George Mason University's History News Network HNN.

It seems that the US is having a hard time winning the hearts and minds of Arabs and Muslims, but an equally serious problem can be observed in the intellectual circles of America where some have had a difficulty coming to terms with the terminology of the War of Ideas. If the educated elite of the United States is incapable of identifying the ideology and the strategy of the Jihadists five years after 9/11, we not only have a problem with handling the War in Iraq, but also with the future of American national security as a whole."
CT Blog

I have a sort of different view about the whole war of ideas thing. I think we should listen more to what the Islamist talk about and try to understand why it works so well with the public in the ME. The caliphate though not exactly could be seen as a desire for Arab unity. If we could leverage that desire and make a connection to unity through the democratic process, something like the EU and translate all this to Arabic we might have a better chance of taking the talking points away from the OBL types and bringing the Arab street into our camp. Nowhere did I say it would be easy, no that I knew just how to do it. Only that we should task the intelligencia to find a way.