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i 

55–050 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–7] 

STRATEGIES FOR COUNTERING VIOLENT 

EXTREMIST IDEOLOGIES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND 

CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

FEBRUARY 12, 2009 
(II) 

TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

SUBCOMMITTEE 

ADAM SMITH, Washington, Chairman 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

BOBBY BRIGHT, Alabama 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

KEVIN GATES, Professional Staff Member 

ALEX KUGAJEVSKY, Professional Staff Member 

ANDREW TABLER, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2009 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, February 12, 2009, Strategies for Countering Violent Extremist 

Ideologies .............................................................................................................. 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, February 12, 2009 ................................................................................. 37 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2009 

STRATEGIES FOR COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMIST IDEOLOGIES 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Miller, Hon. Jeff, a Representative from Florida, Ranking Member, Terrorism, 

Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee ................................. 3 

Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Chairman, Terrorism, 

Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee ................................. 1 

WITNESSES 

Ibrahim, Raymond, Associate Director, Middle East Forum and Author of 

The Al Qaeda Reader ........................................................................................... 3 

Doran, Dr. Michael, Visiting Professor, Wagner School of Public Service, 

New York University, and Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 

(Support for Public Diplomacy) ........................................................................... 7 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Doran, Dr. Michael ........................................................................................... 58 

Ibrahim, Raymond ............................................................................................ 44 

Miller, Hon. Jeff ................................................................................................ 42 

Smith, Hon. Adam ............................................................................................ 41 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Smith .......................................................................................................... 65 

(1) 

STRATEGIES FOR COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMIST 

IDEOLOGIES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES

SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Thursday, February 12, 2009. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:46 p.m., in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Smith (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON, CHAIRMAN, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. SMITH. I am going to go ahead and call the meeting quickly 

to order and adjourn it, unfortunately. We have three votes that 

were just called. We could probably get a couple of minutes in before we have to leave, but I don’t think that would be very helpful. 

So what we are going to have to do is we are going to have to adjourn. We will be back as quickly as we can, which, honestly, will 

be about 45 minutes. 

So I wish I could offer you something other than to say wait if 

you can, we would appreciate it, and certainly for our witnesses we 

appreciate your indulgence on that. It is just the way the schedule 

worked out. We should have a pretty clear block of time once we 

get these votes done, is my understanding. 

So we stand adjourned, and we will be back. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. We will now reconvene and we were actually right about the 45-minute break. That doesn’t happen often, so 

I am glad that worked out. 

I want to thank the panel today for joining us and the members. 

I will make a very, very brief opening statement, and then we want 

to turn it over to the ranking member, Mr. Miller, and then take 

the testimony from our witnesses. 

We are joined this morning by Mr. Raymond Ibrahim, who is the 

Associate Director for the Middle East Forum and also author of 

The Al Qaeda Reader, and Mr. Michael Doran, who is the Visiting 

Professor from the Wagner School of Public Service at New York 

University and the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 

(Support for Public Diplomacy). We appreciate both of you being 

here today. 

The purpose of the hearing is to get a little bit of a broader understanding of the terrorism threat, specifically from al Qa’ida and 

accompanying ideologies. What this committee’s prime focus is on 
2 

is on counterterrorism. We do a lot of work at the Special Operations Command, which is the lead command in fighting the war 

on terror, and we try to take as comprehensive an approach as possible. 

There are obviously lots of very small bits and pieces to what we 

do, giving Special Operations Command the proper support, and we 

also have some jurisdiction on cybersecurity and information technology (IT) issues, and we are very concerned about that, the broad 

defense threat reduction efforts of Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and other agencies and also counterproliferation, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), and we drill down into each one 

of those specific topics in this subcommittee to figure out how we 

can be most helpful in those areas. 

But overall what we have most tried to do under my leadership 

and under Mr. Thornberry’s leadership when he was ranking member on the committee is try to take the comprehensive approach to 

try to truly understand what we are fighting and how to defeat it 

so we don’t get stovepiped in little different pieces of it and not understanding the big picture. 

The main purpose of this hearing is to help with that broader understanding of fighting, the threat from violent extremists. To understand, as the military knows better than anyone, we cannot win 

this simply by identifying all the terrorists in the world and then 

killing or incapacitating them. That will not work. 

That is necessary in order to disrupt the existing networks and 

prevent attacks against us and other Western targets, but it will 

not ultimately defeat our foe. This is an ideological struggle, and 

we need to understand that ideology, and we need to confront it in 

a comprehensive way that includes far more soft power than hard 

power, and that is what we are hoping to learn from our two witnesses today, is to get a little bit more background on what the ideology is that we are fighting and what the best way to confront it 

is, what we have done right, what we have done wrong, and what 

we need to do better. 

So I very much look forward to the testimony and the questions. 

A final thing I will say is we will adhere to the five-minute rule, 

particularly on the questioning, something I learned. I paid you a 

compliment a moment ago, Mr. Thornberry, so you walked in a second too late, but you can ask people about it later. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the Appendix on page 41.] 

Mr. SMITH. We have a small group of people here, but I find, 

nonetheless, the Q&A flows better if members are mindful of a 

time limit. So, most members, you will have more than one opportunity. As far as witnesses are concerned, we do have a clock. In 

general, I like to keep the statements in the less than ten-minute 

area. I find the dialogue works better. 

I believe Mr. Ibrahim has asked for the time on our clock, and 

it only has five minutes on it. So we will wait five minutes and 

then start the five-minute clock and give you some idea when the 

ten minutes are up and then we will go into Q&A. 

With that, I will welcome the committee’s ranking member, Mr. 

Miller, I very much look forward to working with him. I enjoyed 

working with him on the Armed Services Committee. 
3 

Again, I just wanted to say what an outstanding job Mr. Thornberry did as ranking member during the last two years. You do 

have very big shoes to fill. 

Mr. MILLER. Okay, okay, okay. We know the former ranking 

member was a good guy. 

Mr. SMITH. We are confident you will fill them. With that, I will 

turn it over to Mr. Miller. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MILLER, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM FLORIDA, RANKING MEMBER, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to be back on this 

subcommittee. I do look forward to continuing the good works of 

the past years. I have a full statement I would like entered into 

the record, but because of the time that we have lost with votes, 

I would like to go ahead and hear the statements. So thank you 

very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller can be found in the Appendix on page 42.] 

Mr. SMITH. Great. Thank you. Mr. Ibrahim, the floor is yours. 

STATEMENT OF RAYMOND IBRAHIM, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, 

MIDDLE EAST FORUM AND AUTHOR OF THE AL QAEDA 

READER 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Mr. Chairman, what I would like to address today 

specifically, well, is many-fold, and the first thing is ultimately the 

consideration about how one can go about implementing a strategy 

to counter radical Islam and its ideologies. The fact is it is necessary, I think, to go back and recognize the abysmal failure that 

has permeated, more or less, all approaches, both, I think, governmental and otherwise. 

And that, I think, roots back to the academic world and academia where, of course, many of the future analysts and thinkers 

come from, which is to be expected, in that the academic world has 

tended to all but ignore Islamic theology, Islamic doctrine, Islamic 

history, or to minimize it and overlook it and, instead, presents 

what is more intelligible to the Western world view, which is, I 

think, somewhat normal for all humans. They end up projecting 

what they believe are norms to other peoples. 

And so in academia, for example, where I come from, you cannot 

discuss this—you know, if when we talk about terrorism and radical ideologies, to actually go back and try to demonstrate that 

there is some sort of body of doctrine that supports it, is usually 

completely—it can be anathema in certain circles and you can lose 

your position—and there are actually entire books written about 

this. 

Now, why that is, and is it, you know, because of political correctness and people are in search of tenure is not the point. So 

what I am saying is ultimately there needs to be kind of a revolutionizing to the academic approach to understanding terrorism and 

appreciating the Islamic doctrines that make the backbone. 

And in connection, what has been happening is—and this is what 

I mean by people in the West or Americans tend to project to their 

world view is the following concept: 
4 

Wherever you go, ultimately you will be told that Islamic radicals, al Qa’ida, all that they are doing is ultimately rooted in political grievances, and they themselves will say that, specifically 

when they are addressing Western audiences and Americans. 

They will say, we are attacking you because—and the list can go 

on and on, from of course the usual Israel and Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan—but you will even see other accusations such as Osama 

bin Laden telling Americans who are attacking you because you 

failed to sign the Kyoto Protocol or because you exploit women and 

things of that nature. 

Now, the logic behind radical Muslims and radical Islamism in 

general in doing that is that they are smart enough and they are 

aware to know that by using the language of political grievance 

they will strike a chord with Westerners and Americans who will 

immediately assume, yes, this is what it is all about. These people 

are angry, and they are articulating their frustration through an 

Islamist paradigm because that is all they know, but fundamentally, if all these political grievances are ameliorated this will all 

go away. 

Now the problem with that, and this struck me immediately 

when I was working on my book and translating The Al Qaeda 

Reader, is even though I was aware of all their political statements 

to the West via Al Jazeera and other mediums demonstrating this, 

which is them saying you started the fight, you are doing this and 

now we are fighting you back, when you look at the writings that 

they send to fellow Muslims, which discusses this animosity, all of 

these political grievances disappear and all you are left with is essentially what Islamic law demands. And it doesn’t matter anymore if the U.S. does this or the U.S. does that. 

And when you start studying Islamic law, and by Islamic law I 

am not talking about what Osama bin Laden has interpreted, I am 

talking there is an entire body and canon of Islamic law, also 

known as Sharia, which is very well codified and which has existed 

centuries before Osama bin Laden came on the scene. 

So to give you an example, according to Islamic law or the Islamic world view, the entire world is separated into two divisions. 

On the one hand, you have what in Arabic is called Dar al Islam, 

which means the abode of Islam or the abode of peace, and that 

is the good guys. This is where Sharia dominates and this is where 

Muslims thrive. 

On the other hand, what you have is the abode of war, and that 

is where we live, essentially, anywhere in this world where there 

is a majority of non-Muslims, aka/infidels, who live and Sharia law 

is not governing them. 

Now, when I say this a lot of people say, well, this sounds ridiculous, but the fact is this is as well codified in Islamic law as any 

of the Five Pillars of Islam. So a lot of people will tell you Islam, 

praying and fasting, going on the Hajj and giving charity, these are 

not open to debate. 

The fact is, jihad, in order to spread Islamic authority and Islamic rule, is in the same category. It is not open to debate. It is 

considered an obligation on the entire Muslim body. 

Now, what I am talking about now is law, is doctrine. I am not 

here to say that every Muslim wants to do this, every Muslim is 
5 

actively trying to subvert the West and trying to implement Sharia, 

and so I always make a distinction between what the law says and 

what people do. What people do is irrelevant and what they believe 

in or if they want to overlook that or they want to reform it, that 

is one thing. But that also brings a point that if this is the law, 

if this is the codified world view, no matter how many Muslims are, 

quote, unquote, moderate or how many overlook it, I believe there 

will always be a significant few who do uphold this world view. 

And then when you really look at numbers, even if we were to 

say, I mean, given the benefit of the doubt, that 20 percent of the 

Islamic world are radical, are the sorts who would implement this 

hostile world view, that is not very reassuring because the nature 

of the war, terrorism, which now no longer requires numbers and 

force, because, as we have seen, 19 men were able to create horrific 

damages on 9/11. 

So that is the problem. It is not necessarily which Islam is right. 

The fact is the traditional form of Islam is such that there are very 

many intolerant positions vis-a-vis non-Muslims, and this is a problem when people use the language of al Qa’ida and radical Muslims 

have hijacked Islam. That is simply not true because what they are 

doing is they are implementing it. 

Now, it is true they may try to distort things. They may engage 

in sophistry which goes a long way, and I will give you an example. 

So I just got done saying according to the Islamic world view there 

is this concept where Muslims must always go on the jihad, on the 

offensive. So radical Muslims will then come in and say look, this 

is how it is. Now how much more is to be expected of us if we are 

now defending ourselves in Palestine or in Iraq or in Afghanistan? 

And that kind of argument ends up mobilizing lots of Muslims because they see the logic, on the one hand, far from actually going 

on the offensive which, I might add is seen as an altruistic thing. 

Muslims don’t believe when they go on jihad in order to subjugate 

infidel lands, they don’t see that as, you know, unjust. They see 

that as pure altruism because we are bringing the light of truth 

and Islam to the infidels. 

I say all of this, not by conjecture, but by reading extensively Arabic books that demonstrate this, and the logic is sound from their 

perspective. 

So ultimately what I am saying is it is necessary to begin taking 

the doctrine seriously, not just being content with saying, well, 

Muslims are doing this because they are angry because of Israel or 

because of this. And one consideration to keep in mind that I think 

dispels that point of view is that a lot of people in this world are 

disgruntled and oppressed, but you don’t see this sort of behavior 

from other places. 

You won’t see a Cuban living in a Communist regime driving in 

a truck and saying, you know, Jesus is great and killing people, or 

you don’t see Chinese in oppressive Communist China also retaliating in this way. So I think there is reason to take seriously these 

doctrines. And once they take these doctrines seriously and methodically begin to understand them and incorporate them, I believe a more appropriate strategy will come into being. Because to 

sit and say we are combating terrorism in and of itself, 

anthropomorphizing a word like ‘‘terrorism’’ as if it is a person or 
6 

a concept or even an ideology, when in fact it is just a method, 

doesn’t help us. 

And so we know, for example, Sun Tzu, to go back to a classical 

war doctrine, said ‘‘Know your enemy,’’ and that is very important. 

But, unfortunately, here it seems that the U.S. is having problems 

even acknowledging who the enemy is. 

And to give you a few examples, maybe you are familiar with the 

words ‘‘matter debate,’’ where there was a memo circulated around 

the government trying to advise writers and thinkers and analysts 

not to use Islamic-laden words such as ‘‘Sharia’’ or ‘‘mujahid’’ or 

even ‘‘jihad’’ and instead just use the generic ‘‘terrorist.’’ 

I think that completely handicaps any kind of approach to trying 

to formulate a strategy, because you are in effect, by limiting and 

censoring your language, you have limited knowledge in and of 

itself because there is—language and knowledge are obviously 

linked. 

And also I read recently, and it is one thing, as I know in the 

academic, the civilian academic world to have encountered what I 

am discussing, which is this total lack of appreciation for Islamic 

doctrine, but it seems to have begun to infiltrate even the military. 

For example, I was reading at the U.S. War College that one of 

their members or faculty members wrote essentially an apology for 

Hamas saying that they are villainized and misunderstood when in 

fact if you study Hamas and see what they say, they are a complete 

jihadi organization which upholds all of those things that I have 

delineated, including the offensive aspect towards the world. And 

they often say, forget about Israel, but ultimately there should— 

Sharia law needs to eventually, according to our beliefs, be spread 

around the world. So in a nutshell that is what it comes down to. 

I believe that we need to start taking more seriously what they 

say, their epistemology, their background, their world view, which 

is so obvious. And this is the irony, it is everywhere you look, there 

it is. It is not like they hide it so much. 

When I worked for the Library of Congress, for example, I 

worked in the Middle Eastern Division and so I had access to thousands of Arabic books. It seems to me any one of those books that 

I would read would give you a better insight into their mind than 

the average American book that comes out, because the American 

book comes out, once again, colored by a Western philosophy which 

all but ignores doctrine and theology. 

And I think I am up. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. We will certainly explore a lot of those themes 

in our questions. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ibrahim can be found in the Appendix on page 44.] 

Mr. SMITH. We appreciate your testimony. 

Mr. Doran. 
7 

STATEMENT OF DR. MICHAEL DORAN, VISITING PROFESSOR, 

WAGNER SCHOOL OF PUBLIC SERVICE, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, AND FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (SUPPORT FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY) 

Dr. DORAN. Mr. Smith, Ranking Member Miller, former Ranking 

Member Thornberry, thanks very much for having me again. 

Your letter of invitation asked me to look at—come up with a 

number of recommendations for a whole of government approach, 

and I was very excited to see that. 

I am working now at NYU. I started my job there on the 20th 

of January. Before that I served at the National Security Council 

(NSC) as the Senior Director for the Near East and North Africa 

and the Department of Defense as the Deputy Assistant Secretary 

of Defense for Support to Public Diplomacy and as a Senior Adviser 

to the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, 

Jim Glassman, at the State Department. And this multi-agency experience I had has made me focus like a laser on this issue on the 

whole of government approach. 

I think your question is absolutely the key question that we face. 

We can’t really put together—we can’t really put together—or we 

can have all the greatest strategies in the world on paper, but until 

we are organized to deliver it strategically we are going to find ourselves falling all over ourselves. 

So I have written a lengthy statement, which I will submit for 

the record, and I will keep my introductory comments here very, 

very short. 

I basically discuss in this statement where we could put this 

what I call a strategic operational center for strategic communications. I think that countering violent extremism is part of a larger 

government enterprise, which I am calling strategic communications. 

When you listen to the debates out there, there are basically 

three options that you hear. Option number one is to put it at the 

NSC. Option number two is to create a new kind of United States 

Information Agency (USIA) or something like it, and option number three is to keep it in—the lead for this in the Office of the 

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs 

or State ‘‘R’’. 

In my statement, I come down in the end on the side of keeping 

it in the State Department because I think that the organization 

needs to be a strategic operational organization, and that kind of 

militates against putting it in the NSC. You need, absolutely, for 

strategic communications to work effectively, it has to have a lot 

of support from the President and from the White House. There 

needs to be somebody at the White House who is very much focused on it, but there also needs to be an operational center. And 

no matter how you think about this, you keep finding yourself coming up against the State Department. Nothing that we do abroad, 

outside of areas where we are in a hot war, nothing that we do 

abroad can be done without the support and concurrence of the 

State Department. 

So I argue that we should put it there. But there is a problem 

there in that the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy 

and Public Affairs is a weak under secretary. When they broke up 
8 

USIA, they took the remnants and they put it in the State Department, but they took away a lot of the autonomy that the organizations had. In the old USIA they could conceive and carry out public 

diplomacy strategies. Currently if the under secretary has the lead 

for countering violent extremism, if he is the commander of the 

overall effort, he has no troops in the field because all the public 

diplomacy officers in the field report to the ambassador, they are 

rated by the ambassador and by the regional bureau back at State, 

not by the undersecretary’s office. 

So we have given—in the Bush administration we gave the lead 

to the under secretary, but we didn’t give him the resources and 

the authorities necessary to actually carry—conceive of a strategy 

and carry it out. 

And the other factor that I discuss in there as well is the general 

mission of ‘‘R’’. Back—‘‘R’’ was—USIA came to maturity during the 

Cold War. In that conflict with the Soviet Union, where we had a 

strategic rival that had a whole different social, political, economic 

way of life, the key issue for us was to brand America, was to show 

our way of life to the rest of the world in order to demonstrate its 

superiority. 

That is basically what most of the programs, historically, in what 

is now ‘‘R’’ have done. So there is a general bias in the organization 

towards those kinds of activities that tell America’s story. 

The kind of conflict we are in now, where we don’t have a peer 

competitor, strategic rival, where a lot of the debates that have 

strategic importance for us are not debates about America but debates about the identities of people, debates that look rather parochial from a distance but end up generating violence, it is no longer 

as important to tell America’s story. Telling America’s story is still 

extremely important, but there is a whole ’nother dimension there 

that we need to be investigating, and we need that organization, 

the strategic organization at the State Department, to be focused 

on that to a much greater extent than it has been. 

Now, Jim Glassman, if you go back and you look at his statements, you will see that he got this completely. He started a number of different programs to try to move the organization in that 

direction, and he distinguished himself from all of his predecessors, 

the under secretaries that preceded him, in that he vigorously engaged with the Department of Defense and with other agencies 

that have a role in this strategic communications endeavor. 

Just having them, just having the designated lead say I want to 

coordinate with the rest of you, I want us all to be on the same 

page and have the whole of government effort, had a hugely empowering impact on the different communities within the other 

agencies that are engaged in this. 

I mean, if you look at the strategic communications communities 

in the different agencies you will see that they are all kind of comfortable in each one of their organizations, because in every organization it is always going to be the regional guys who are the 

heavyweights, and the people who are working on the communications piece are always kind of afterthoughts. So if you have a powerful proponent who has all of the government lead for this, who 

is saying I want to work with you, it has a way of elevating all of 

them. 
9 

I will stop there and we can take questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Doran can be found in the Appendix on page 58.] 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. I have a lot of questions for 

both of you, but I am going to adhere to the five-minute rule as 

well. We will come back around. 

I will start with Mr. Ibrahim, and I think you make an outstanding point, an understanding of the basis of this ideology, and 

al Qa’ida’s ideology, is core to how we intend to defeat it, and we 

tend to brush over that. 

There are two points I would like to explore, however. First of 

all, the reason I think that people brush over it, the reason in particular for that State Department memo that you mentioned, was 

because, you know, one thing we have long understood is the moment those who actively adhere to the ideology that al Qa’ida and 

others advance is a relatively small percentage of the Muslim population. You can disagree with that if you want, because you know 

better than I, but I think that is the case. 

And what we are leery of, you know, is creating an approach to 

counter al Qa’ida that unites 1.3 billion Muslims against us. And 

I have learned from firsthand experience in talking about this issue 

that any time you link what bin Laden is doing to Islam, you offend—I have not met the Muslim who that does not offend. Maybe 

I will at some point, but I have not yet. 

So the strategy is to try to separate al Qa’ida from the broader 

Islamic religion and not give them that imprimatur, if you will, to 

give them that stamp of legitimacy that elevates them in the Muslim world. So I am curious what you think about how we can sort 

of split that difficulty. 

The second part of this, which seems to be connected, you seem 

to be saying that al Qa’ida is, in fact, representative of the entire 

Muslim world. That is what the Koran says, that is what it says 

that all Muslims should do, which is a big problem if that is the 

case. And I have read a little bit about this, certainly not as much 

as you have. 

But within all religions there is always that tension between, you 

know, our job is to make everybody else in the world like us, a sort 

of growing reality in the modern world that that is simply, you 

know, a recipe for mass destruction and death, and so we can’t adhere to it. 

So new philosophies are developed. Certainly Christianity went 

through that to some extent when you look at the Inquisition and 

other things that happened where they began to accept that they 

could adhere to their faith and allow others to have a different one, 

and we have to be able to do that. We have to be able to find some 

way so that there is a bulk of Muslims who they could be very 

strict adherence to their faith and accept others. 

And your testimony seems to imply that there is very little hope 

for that. In fact, that is just the way it is. There is no other way 

to interpret the Koran, and this is the only thing that is necessary 

for good Muslims. 

The question would be, how can we explore their options, because 

there are moderate Muslims who don’t adhere to that theory that 

everyone has to adopt their religion. Is there any wiggle room in 
10 

there in terms of how do we interpret that. And how do we do that 

and deal with the challenge of not uniting the Muslim world 

against us by condemning their entire religion and dumping them 

all into one category. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. All right. Thank you, very good questions. I might 

start with the second one, actually. 

I don’t—I think one of the biggest intellectual difficulties many 

people have is they think there is al Qa’ida, which is a radical Islamic group, and then maybe Hamas or Hezbollah and mainstream 

functions. And that distinction is I think valid, but what needs to 

be understood is, I believe, for example, if al Qa’ida were to disappear tomorrow that is not going to make their ideology also disappear. Because their ideology, as I was saying, is ultimately 

traced back to all of these doctrinal world views that were codified 

centuries before. And that is why it is almost like, if you will permit, the Hydra monster that the mythical Hercules went and 

fought. Every time he chopped a head off, two more grew up. 

Mr. SMITH. Granted, but a whole lot of Muslims haven’t followed 

that stream of thought. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. No. No, I understand. 

Mr. SMITH. So there is hope there. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Yes. And this is the strategy that I would put forth, 

is that classical jurisprudence and doctrine is very clear-cut. In 

fact, in Sunni Islam, mainstream Islam, which 90 percent of Muslims adhere to, the way every—and this is why I always stress on 

this concept of epistemology, in that we can’t even begin to understand how they formulate the world view. But according to Sharia, 

every action that any human being can do is classified as being 

obligatory or recommended or permissible or discouraged or forbidden. 

Okay. Now, the concept of jihad, in Arabic the sabil Allah, in 

order to understand, this is one of the obligatory ones. 

Mr. SMITH. If we make it very specific, the obligatory part that 

is the problematic part of that, is the obligation to force everybody 

else in the world to live under that law. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. That is correct. 

Mr. SMITH. It is your interpretation that is just black and white. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. That is black and white. Now, having said that, I 

am not—I do not believe every Muslim believes that. But here is 

the problem, and this is why I think radicals have a better leg to 

stand on, because they are better textually grounded, better 

grounded in doctrine. The logic is the Koran is the verbatim word 

of God, for instance. The Koran says to Muslims, and so the Koran 

says go fight infidels until you subjugate them. 

Mr. SMITH. You would give me the same look if you said that 

about the Bible, by the way, so that wasn’t specific to the Koran. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Right. 

Mr. SMITH. Go ahead. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. And then there is the hadith, and this is even more 

important in certain respects than the Koran when it comes to articulating Islamic law, and that is even more clear-cut insofar as 

how Muslims are to do this. 

Now, again, does your average Muslim want to do this? No, not 

necessarily, but this is the strength that the radicals have and that 
11 

is why they have a stronger voice because they can always go back 

and say well, this is what it says. Why aren’t you doing it? When 

you start saying, well, I am trying to make it a better fit into the 

21st century, I am trying to reform it, that is considered apostasy 

because God’s word transcends time and space. And so if God said 

in the seventh century do X, Y and Z why now are you going back 

to say no, we want to change it. 

Now, I know this sounds very dismal. 

Mr. SMITH. I guess I have to cut myself off and let Mr. Miller—— 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Okay. 

Mr. SMITH. I understand that. I think, you know, one of the 

things that all religions as they move into modernity have to accept 

is that it is a lot more flexible than that, that God contemplated 

a changing world, that he didn’t lock in all of the stocks a long time 

ago. That is one of the keys, I think, to getting people—— 

Mr. IBRAHIM. That is fair, but tell that to a Muslim. 

Mr. SMITH. We have to, we have to tell that to Christians too 

with great frequency, but I have to get to Mr. Miller. We can resume this later. 

Mr. Miller. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Carrying on, you know, Mr. Ibrahim, the power of rumors is very 

strong. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Power of rumors? 

Mr. MILLER. Rumors. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Okay. 

Mr. MILLER. In the Arab world in particular, and what I want 

to know, and in Iraq, I guess, in particular, what can we do to combat those rumors? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. The rumors such as that the U.S. is here to obliterate Islam and things like that? 

Mr. MILLER. Sure. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. The thing is about the Arab world specifically—and 

I know this firsthand—is this is a lot of paranoia and conspiracy 

theories permeated. And so the concept to your average Arab that 

these people are here just to help us just because they are being 

altruistic is—might be problematic, especially because you have all 

these other groups like al Qa’ida who will go out of their way and 

exploit and say, no, that is not what they are doing. You know, 

they are doing this and this ultimately is better represented with 

Israel and the Zionists. Everything, maybe you are aware but 

things like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf are 

best sellers in the Arab world, that kind of thing. 

So in a way if you give olive branches and make concessions, that 

might be seen in a good way or that might be seen as, well they 

have an ulterior motive, or by the more radical types that it will 

be seen as an admission of defeat. And, see, that is a different 

thing going back to the different world view. When you give in to 

certain peoples, they think you are weak and this is more evidence 

that we are right. And so it actually brings on a greater offensive 

from them. 

Now, granted, again, I am talking about a select group of people, 

not everyone. 
12 

And the bottom line is a person can identify himself as a Muslim, 

and that doesn’t mean that he believes in any of the things that 

I have just said, because that is like a person whom I think he is 

a Christian or a Jew or whatever, and he just has a very liberal 

interpretation. 

But I am talking about the core people who fall into just following the straight black and white world view that Islam teaches, 

and I think this is the ultimate intellectual barrier for Westerners 

to understand. 

Coming from the West, being that it is coming from a Christian 

heritage, whether Westerners today practice it or not, I think I 

have taken for granted the notion of separation of church and 

state, which actually has precedence in the New Testament when 

Jesus said, ‘‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, render unto God 

what is God’s.’’ A split. And I think that helped actually let the 

West develop this thing. 

That is totally antithetical to the Islamic world. Islam is all 

about submitting. That is what the word means. What are you submitting to? You are submitting to the will of Allah, as has been articulated in the Koran, in the hadith, which are the words of Mohammed and his actions and deeds. And so to come and say we 

want to separate, you know, what Islam teaches, and that is the 

whole thing. Islam is very much caught up in very mundane 

things, you know. You are supposed to eat with a certain hand. 

You are supposed to, you know, not wear gold rings, and people 

take this seriously. And that is why we have to not condescend and 

think, you know, they are just reacting that way because they are 

angry and they are trying to fall back on something. Maybe some 

are but others take this literally because it has been going on for 

1,400 years, and it is understood that this is how you implement 

true Islam. So, again, that goes back to the problem. 

So trying to formulate a response, it is—I believe the best way 

is far from trying to tell people, going back I think to Chairman 

Smith’s original question about the memo and trying to separate 

al Qa’ida from mainstream Islam, while that is a noble endeavor 

there is another aspect to it, which is basically the Muslim world 

is not waiting around to see what kind of legitimacy the U.S. is 

going to confer on al Qa’ida, because the U.S. is seen as a non-Muslim infidel entity, which is already on the wrong path. So whether 

it calls al Qa’ida jihadists or not, or calls them—I have read the 

memo where other words are posited like ‘‘muhara,’’ which means 

like a pirate—I don’t think that is going to go very far in the Arab 

Muslim world because the U.S. is not in a position to actually 

make an opinion that has to do with Islam in the first place. 

Mr. MILLER. Is there such a thing as a good Muslim and a bad 

Muslim? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. There are good people and bad people, and there 

are good Christians and bad Christians and good Hindus and bad 

Hindus. But see, and that is the thing—— 

Mr. MILLER. Are there good Muslims and bad Muslims? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. But—and that is the thing. If you think of 

them—— 
13 

Mr. MILLER. My question was, you just said there were good and 

bad Christians. You just said there good and bad Hindus. But are 

there good and bad Muslims? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. There are good and bad Muslims, but we have to 

understand what we mean by the word ‘‘Muslim.’’ I think a lot of 

people think by the word ‘‘Muslim’’ they conflate it with a certain 

race or certain culture or certain ethnicity. But to me a Muslim is 

literally a man who, or woman who is, as the word means, submitting to the will of Allah. That is a true Muslim. 

Mr. MILLER. I am just trying to find out—Pensacola, where I 

come from, we have what I would call pretty radical Christian beliefs in regards to bombing of abortion clinics. I don’t think that is 

right, and I am willing to speak out against that. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Right. 

Mr. MILLER. My question is, you know, are there Muslims that 

are out there speaking out against those that I think have hijacked 

them. And my time has run out. Would you think about that and 

then—— 

Mr. SMITH. Give a quick answer to that. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Okay. Well, basically the abortion thing, which I 

hear a lot about, it ultimately to me comes down to—— 

Mr. MILLER. By the way, I am pro-life when I say that. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Okay, I understand. What it comes down to, to me 

anyway, is can this person who claims to be a Christian find precedence in the Bible that tells him to go and, you know, bomb an 

abortion clinic. I would argue no, at least not in the New Testament. 

Now, compare that with the last time I did a survey, several 

thousand statements, direct by Mohammed, saying go and wage 

war and subjugate infidels. So this is what I mean. 

Yes, people can say I am a Christian or whatever religion and 

do bad things, and people can say I am a Muslim and do great 

things. So I really—I try not to get into the realm of human will 

but more what doctrine teaches. 

And as long as the doctrine is there, and this is the problem, 

there will be those who will take it seriously. Even if they are the 

minority—and I am not saying the majority of Muslims believe 

this, because I think the majority of Muslims don’t even know 

about these doctrines—but—and that is what makes the radicals 

more powerful because they are able to go and delve into these arcane doctrines, bring them out, bring out the classical jurisprudence, and then show these things. 

And then how is a moderate, who wants to be a moderate, going 

to actually have a leg to stand on to counter all that without being 

accused of apostasy, which, by the way, according to Islamic law 

earns a death punishment. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the gentleman and to the witnesses. 

Mr. Ibrahim, if I were in the Iraqi Parliament, and I wanted to 

make the argument that people should use any means necessary 

to expel the American occupiers from our homeland, and I used as 

the textual basis of that of the Judeo-Christian text in which the 

Christians and Jews are instructed there is only one God. Thou 
14 

shalt have no other God but me. I am the only God. And I cited 

that as authority for the proposition that Christians and Jews have 

a responsibility to expel others from the realms of power, and that 

is why the Americans are occupying my country. Would I be on legitimate ground theologically? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. I would argue no and I think I can give you a better example from the Bible. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Why won’t you take mine. Why would I not be on 

valid theological ground? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Because, where exactly in the Bible does it say 

that? 

Mr. ANDREWS. Well, the Ten Commandments instruct Christians 

and Jews that they should believe in one God, and that is the God 

of the Judeo-Christian heritage. So if you believe in some other 

God then you are apostate, right? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. But there is no imperative in the Bible—as opposed 

to the Koran and the hadith—saying or inciting Christians to go 

and subjugate the rest of the world. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Well, it depends on what we mean by imperative. 

You could make the argument that most of the Old Testament is 

a chronicle of wars waged by the Israelites in order to gain territory, because they are God’s chosen people. So even though there 

may not have been an explicit command to go to war, there is book 

upon book that says you should wage war to claim what God has 

promised you. 

And wouldn’t that be consistent with what the Iraqi dissenter 

would say about us? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Not really, and there is a very subtle reason. In 

fact, the Old Testament wars are the examples that I was going to 

go to because those are usually the ones that are cited as showing 

how the Old Testament can just be interpreted as being a religion 

of conquest as much as Islam. And I will give you—the simple 

anecdote is the Book of Joshua, where Joshua is commanded to 

go—and essentially it is almost like genocide and he kills everyone, 

including animals, you know, every human, beast. He just totally 

purges. 

The difference between that imperative, and, you know, anyone 

can make a moral decision about that, whether it was right or 

wrong or what happened—— 

Mr. ANDREWS. No, I didn’t tell you to make any moral judgments. I am talking about doctrinal—— 

Mr. SMITH. Please let him finish. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Go on. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. But the difference between that and what you have 

in Islamic text is that if you look at it, and I have looked at it closely, they were very temporal in-the-now commandments from Yahweh or God. Basically if you read it, it commands the Hebrews to 

go and kill the Jebusites and the Jebusites and the Philistines 

until you get this piece of land. 

It was not, as opposed to the Islamic doctrines, an open-ended 

command. And if you look at the language in the Koran—— 

Mr. ANDREWS. But couldn’t one argue that God’s word in the Old 

Testament isn’t temporal, just as God’s word in the Koran is not. 

And if—in the time of Joshua the command was to dominate a par-
15 

ticular piece of land on the west side of the Jordan River, then the 

command in global times is to command the whole globe, including 

what we now call Iraq. 

Mr. SMITH. If I could dive in here, God’s word is temporal if he 

says it is temporal. But if he says it is not, it is not. That is the 

distinction. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. That is what I am saying. In the Koran it says 

fight them. The key word you always see is fight them until they 

are subjugated. Fight them. And so this is why it became codified 

into the Islamic world view as a perpetual warfare between the 

abode of Islam and the abode of war until the latter has been subsumed—— 

Mr. ANDREWS. I actually think this discussion, which I appreciate very much, goes to the point that I was trying to implicitly 

make. History is replete with circumstances where people interpret 

the meaning of religious commands as they see fit. So, for example, 

one could argue that the Koran’s mandate to go evangelize, to mix 

cultural references, but to go do so, has—is really more of a cultural and educational command and not necessarily a violent one. 

Now I think you would disagree with that, but the hypothesis I 

am asking you to respond to is that couldn’t a good Muslim be 

someone who uses the tools of the arts and culture and persuasion 

to try to convince others to submit rather than a means of violence. 

Is violence necessitated by the Koran? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. No—actually, you are not supposed to go on an offensive jihad until you first invite people to Islam. If you can do 

it peacefully, that is fine. But jihad is the last means if they refuse, 

and this is how it has been historically. You have to remember, for 

example, to Muslims the golden era of Islam is Mohammed and the 

first what are called righteous caliphs which thrived for about four 

or five decades. In that period alone Islam burst out of the Arabian 

peninsula—— 

Mr. ANDREWS. My time is running out, but I would ask you this. 

Was the Crusade a Judeo-Christian jihad, offensive jihad? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. The Crusade was a belated response to 400 years 

of Islamic depredations and annexing Christian lands. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Was it offensive or defensive? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. It depends on how you look at it. It was for Jerusalem and Jerusalem was annexed by force by Muslims from the 

Christian Byzantine Empire. By force. And so the crusaders were 

going to get it back. And so is that offensive or defensive? 

Mr. ANDREWS. Your testimony was terrific. Thank you very 

much. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Shuster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I thank you both for being here today. I am going 

to start with Mr. Doran first, and I have a question for you, Mr. 

Ibrahim. 

Our strategic communications counter ideology of al Qa’ida extremists out there in the U.S. Would you talk a little bit about 

that? What can we do better? You mentioned the U.S. Information 

Agency in establishing that. Can you sort of go into more detail as 

to what you think we should do, what you think we have done well, 

and what we haven’t done well? 
16 

Dr. DORAN. Well, let me start with what we have done well. 

I think that in Iraq we have learned a lot of lessons. The successes with the tribes of al Anbar, this is a tremendous reversal, 

very quickly. And if you look at counterinsurgency doctrine that 

was used to—that informed our policies, our successful policies, you 

see that information operations and communications is a huge part 

of it. 

So what I am saying is when we see a success like that, obviously that is in an area where the Department of Defense has total 

control, what mechanism do we have in our government to look at 

successful programs and say, ah, how do we replicate this program 

in another part of the world, or how do we take it and maybe if 

we want to take it out of an area where we have a hot war to an 

area where the Department of Defense is not in the lead, how do 

we take it and massage it and change it so that we can apply it 

to these other areas? 

In order to do that, there has got to be a thinking, learning strategic center in the government that is looking at all of these different programs that are going on out in the field and adopting 

best practices and applying them, applying them elsewhere, and 

that currently doesn’t exist. That is the problem. 

We got to the point under Glassman in the last administration 

where we could start to see what right looked like about how you 

would pull these things together. There were still—don’t get me 

wrong—there were still lots of obstacles to creating a kind of the 

unified, all of government team that was working together. But we 

had a community of people from all the different key agencies who 

were working together, and we had a central locus where they 

could at least be brought together to discuss these issues, and that 

is what I think is sorely lacking. 

There are lots of things we are doing out there that are very effective. There is no doubt about that. The greatest sort of all of government cooperation that you see, the greatest example of it, is 

really at the country team level. If you have got an ambassador at 

the country team level who is interested in this, he has got all the 

representatives of the agencies right there, and they are coming up 

with innovative programs, that works very well. 

We have got a big broad interagency coordination at the NSC 

level, but that—all the kind of planning and operational cooperation at anything above the country team level is extremely difficult, 

and that needs—someone needs to, I think, not someone, the President has to focus on that, put somebody in charge of it, demand 

that they achieve results and then follow up on it. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And you place it at the State Department instead 

of NSC? 

Dr. DORAN. I would. We have—there is a deep—throughout the 

government, there is a deep fear of an operational NSC, and there 

is something about the strategic communications influence that 

goes operational very quickly. So it is hard to run things like that 

out of the NSC. I think the NSC should be engaged in oversight 

and should be pulling the team together at various intervals, but 

there has got to be a strategic operational center. 

Also, it has to be resourced. I mean, things happen, you know, 

priorities change. You have to have an organization that has 
17 

money, resources, that it can move to effect the perceptions of everybody else as well, and the NSC can’t do that either. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, and then my final question which is 

going to be a big question, Mr. Ibrahim. Where is the hope? Your 

testimony sounds awfully bleak. Give me a piece that I can smile 

about. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. No, I understand. I present all of this, and I understand that it doesn’t offer much hope. But the reason I do it is to 

essentially show that there needs to be a radical shift in the intellectual approach to the problem. 

And I believe that if that is done, everything else will fall into 

play. And by saying that, I am not talking about, you know, an Armageddon-type war. I believe that once people start taking this seriously, then they will be able to implement something. 

For example, I am a firm believer that a lot of people always discuss interfaith dialogues and bringing Christians and Jews and 

Muslims together to talk about their commonalities. I think it is 

time to bring them together to talk about their differences and for 

them to be open, and for, you now, non-Muslims—to essentially put 

Muslims in the hot seat and say, look, you have got this entire 

body of doctrine which is not ambiguous in the least. You have got 

all this history which essentially manifests that doctrine, and we 

know it. What is the deal, essentially. I mean, in other words, put 

the ball in their court. 

But as long as we go around saying, no, that is not the problem, 

and, you know, this and that, but to be objective, and not in a condescending or insulting way, and just simply say, look, you have 

got about a few thousand texts that you all say are authoritative 

from the Koran to the hadith to the words of Mohammed, to the 

words of the Islamic scholars, theologians and jurists, and they all 

say, X, Y and Z. Okay. Now, what is the deal. How do you—how 

can you tell us this is not the fact? 

I think by doing that one of the important things is they for the 

first time will see, you know what? These people actually have, you 

know, a reason to be the way they are or to be skeptical or to be 

cautious, and that goes back to saying a lot of Muslims don’t even 

know their own texts. So by bringing it to them and throwing the 

ball in their court and showing them, your own religion teaches 

lots of violence and intolerance vis-a-vis the other and show us how 

that is not the case. I think that would go a long way into creating 

some sort of interreligious, on the international level debate, and 

that might help, for instance. But as long as we ignore it—— 

Mr. SMITH. The time is up. We have to go on. Move on to Mr. 

Cooper. 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the distinguished witnesses. 

It is my understanding that one of our admirals has said the 

most single successful war on terror was tsunami relief in Indonesia, humanitarian aid, temporary involvement, relief, that 

worked. 

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world we have been engaged 

over the last 20 years in rebuilding, what, 6 Muslim nations and 

almost no gratitude, in fact a lot of hostility provoked. No understanding in the Arab street that we are helping these folks, even 
18 

though in Iraq and Afghanistan alone, just in existing outlays, we 

have paid, we would have hired every man, woman and child in 

both countries for about 40 years. 

So in terms of an effective strategy to reach out to folks, don’t 

we kind of need to bypass ideology, deal with humanitarian and 

time limited and nongeographic, and that seems to work if recent 

history is any guide, sidestep these doctrinal issues. 

Yes, sir. Mr. Doran. 

Dr. DORAN. If I could just say a couple of words about the doctrinal issues, I disagree with Mr. Ibrahim on a couple of key points. 

He mentioned the words, that ‘‘words’’ memo. I actually was very 

supportive of that memo and pushed it around that government as 

much as possible. 

What we found in extensive polling was that when Americans 

talk about Islam, use Islamic terminology, there is what we say 

and then there is what Muslim audiences hear. It is one of those 

cases where the minute we use Muslim terminology audiences turn 

off and they hear, ah, you have got a problem with Islam. It is very 

much what you were saying, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. And I tried that from a dozen different understanding angles with a bunch of different audiences, and I discovered exactly what you just said. 

Dr. DORAN. Yes. Any time you talk to Muslim audiences you 

have that experience. 

Mr. SMITH. Well, you are a non-Muslim presuming to understand 

their religion, and they are offended by that at first blush. 

But go ahead, sorry. 

Dr. DORAN. Yes. It has the unintended consequence of validating 

al Qa’ida’s ideology which says that the United States is at war 

with Islam. So we just find it more effective that we talk about, we 

talk about interests, we talk about—we talk to people in terms of 

categories of identity, like tribes of al Anbar, Iraqis, and so on, that 

doesn’t put the religious question forward. 

It is one of those old things like the old question about, you 

know, when President Nixon said, I am not a crook, you know. 

When you deny the frame, you reinforce the frame. 

So what people don’t hear I am not a crook, they hear ‘‘crook.’’ 

So we sort of want to change the dialogue and get it off of religion. That is not an argument about—that is not an argument 

about theology and. It is saying, let’s, to the extent—to the extent 

that we have any control over the tenor and the subject matter, 

let’s move it off of the theological. 

And I would still stand by that. I think it is quite a good idea. 

On the tsunami relief, the question is what is our strategic goal 

in all of this, and that goes to what I was saying about the State 

‘‘R’’ and the telling America’s story. We have an interest out there 

in seeing to it that certain ideologies are weakened. What people 

think about the United States is not always the primary—and I 

would say that is usually not the primary factor that is going to 

weaken or strengthen those ideologies. 

So, yes, we do want people to have a good view of the United 

States, and we want to carry out actions that they find completely 

compatible with their own interests. But we have—there are 

groups out there that we want to strengthen, there are groups that 
19 

we want to weaken, and we need an information system, we need 

an influence system that can target those enemies and create information flows that weaken them, and that doesn’t necessarily have 

to do—those information flows don’t necessarily have anything to 

do with the United States and its actions. 

Mr. COOPER. Well, the most effective information flow might be 

medicine or a new American President whose middle name is Hussein or avenues like that that kind of diffuse the controversy. Is 

there a more failed position in all the Federal Government than 

the ‘‘R’’ Bureau, if we look at all the mismanagement and ineptitude? 

Dr. DORAN. No, I don’t think the ‘‘R’’ Bureau is a failed bureau. 

I think the problem isn’t—the problem is one of leadership. 

Mr. COOPER. There been about 12 leaders in recent years. Even 

I can remember Charlotte Beers. 

Dr. DORAN. No. The ‘‘R’’ Bureau has had, I think it is four in the 

last eight. But if you look at it—I don’t have the numbers in front 

of me, but if you look at it about half the time there has been no 

leadership there. 

So the position has been, the under secretary’s position has been 

empty quite a lot. When I say leadership, it really has to come from 

the top. 

There has to—you have to—the White House has to decide that 

it wants to create the all of government team, and then it has to 

put somebody in charge of creating the team and demand results. 

We haven’t had that. We haven’t had that yet. 

There are huge—all of the communities that are—even the communities within the Department of Defense that are tasked with 

influence and information were carrying out a radically different 

kind of role before 9/11. So we have suddenly taken what are basically tactical communities or communities that were directed toward mission X and we suddenly said, aha, you have this strategic 

communications mission. But we haven’t stepped back and said 

how do we need to revamp all of this in order to pull it together 

for all of that mission. 

Mr. SMITH. I am going to pause on that, and we will revisit that 

issue. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. May I also briefly respond to the ‘‘words matter’’? 

Mr. SMITH. Very quickly, go ahead. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. About this whole ‘‘words matter’’ memo, the points 

that I would like to stress, first of all, is, like I said, I don’t think 

the kinds of words we use are going to either estrange Muslims or 

win them over, but I do think they need to be used carefully. And 

this goes back to what I am saying about learning and getting a 

better doctrinal education of what these words mean, and then 

using them properly. 

So, for example, I remember in that memo words like ‘‘Sharia’’ 

were not supposed to be mentioned, words like ‘‘caliphate’’ were not 

supposed to be mentioned, even words like ‘‘ummah.’’ Now, as long 

as they are being mentioned in a context that is applicable and legitimate, I don’t see why a Muslim would be so estranged by that. 

On the other hand, like I am saying, whatever words we use I 

don’t think are going to make a dramatic difference there, but I do 

think they make a dramatic difference here in the U.S., because if 
20 

we do away with all these words which carry so much meaning and 

then instead just supplant generic words, then the people who talk 

who need to know what is going on won’t have the necessary 

knowledge because it is a generic concept. 

Mr. SMITH. I think we are talking about two slightly different 

things, which I will explore in a minute. But I want to get to Mr. 

Thornberry. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Doran, I have always believed the first step is to really understand not only the enemy, but the culture, the religion, that we 

are dealing with. You have been in at least three different positions. How would you rate today our government’s understanding 

of what we are facing of the religious background that has been 

discussed here, as well as the culture, the tribes, and so forth, 

when you deal with various countries? 

Dr. DORAN. I think that the understanding has increased exponentially. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I know it is better, but on a scale of one to ten, 

where are we? 

Dr. DORAN. You see, you’re asking me to have perfect knowledge. 

I would say 7.5. If you look at the quality of analyses about the 

Fatah, I watched as it got better and better and better, so that we 

understood down to the tribal level the motivations of individuals, 

motivations of the tribes. 

The intersection, one of the important things—and this is another area where I disagree a little bit with Mr. Ibrahim. The problem we have got is, we have people who are motivated by the ideology, who believe the theology as understood by al Qa’ida; and 

then we have other groups that ally with them for reasons of their 

own self-interest, who calculate for whatever reason that they benefit from the violence of these guys. You saw this in Iraq. 

So our job is to separate out, to drive a wedge between the global 

jihadis and the others who are aligning with them for whatever 

reason. But more and more I see that we understand that better. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. But you have to have that deeper understanding in order to have effective strategic communications, in 

order to drive that wedge and separate them off. 

In your comments at the beginning you made a comment about 

having the ‘‘R’’ Bureau kind of the leader where the government 

comes together. One of the concerns I have had is that too often 

strategic communications is an overlay to what we are doing rather 

than a part of the strategy from the beginning, an integrated part 

of the strategy, so that rather than spin some sort of kinetic operation to make it look as good as it could, maybe you shouldn’t do 

it at all because of the implications of it. 

Can an ‘‘R’’ Bureau or anything else integrate strategic communication into the planning of what we do, not just try to spin it 

after it is already done? 

Dr. DORAN. That is a huge problem. It is a huge problem in 

terms of military operations, it is a huge problem in terms of policy. 

The key isn’t ‘‘R’’ Bureau; the key is a strategic proponent for all 

of this. The under secretary of ‘‘R’’ that I am talking about would 

be a much different ‘‘R’’. You would shift the balance between the 
21 

regional bureaus and the ‘‘R’’ Bureau, and you would have an empowered under secretary with access to the President. So you 

would have an individual there at all of the key meetings who 

would be reminding everybody that they need to think about the 

effect of our actions on perceptions out there first. That is the only 

way I can think about doing it. 

I always come back to the organizational piece and to the creation of a powerful proponent in the government who can make all 

of these arguments. Absent that, I don’t know how we do it. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. When Secretary Gates was before the full committee a week or two ago, I asked him about an incident, just as 

an example, where there was a firefight in Iraq. Before our guys 

got back to the base they had rearranged the bodies to make it look 

like our soldiers had shot Muslims as they were praying. This was 

on the Internet, and we didn’t respond for a week. 

So part of what you are talking about, isn’t it speed of making 

decisions? It can’t come under Washington and be thrashed out at 

any level; you have got to be fast, and you have got to have tactical 

control over that or else a tactical operation becomes a strategic 

issue. Is that not part of what we are dealing with? 

Dr. DORAN. Yes, absolutely. And let me give you some grist for 

your mill. 

We have an enormous amount of combat camera footage that can 

show what we are doing, but it is very hard to get all of that declassified. Once things go into intel channels, they get locked away. 

And because we don’t have a powerful proponent saying from the 

beginning—look, the enemy’s narrative, it is pretty easy to see, it 

is you are killing babies, you are killing innocents, that is their 

narrative, it is as simple as that. 

So we know from the outset, no matter what we do, that is what 

is going to be claimed against the U.S. So we have to say, what 

is the counter story that we are telling? 

Right now, the counter story we are telling is, Oh, we did that 

by accident, or, We don’t know; we’ll get back to you in two weeks. 

That doesn’t work. But—knowing the counter story is one thing, 

but then setting up the processes to make sure that we have the 

information going out immediately that supports our narrative is 

what is lacking. 

Mr. SMITH. I want to follow up on that, because I am totally with 

you and Mr. Thornberry on the need for the strategic approach and 

how we organize it and coordinate it and the fact that that is, I 

think, really what we have been lacking in the last six or seven 

years in a comprehensive approach to defeating these violent 

ideologies. 

And it is not a war on terrorism—I think it is important we understand that—it is a war of the ideology that Mr. Ibrahim has described, and how are we comprehensively trying to counteract that 

down to the tactical level, like the example that Mac mentioned, up 

to the strategic level of what our message should be and we don’t 

have any sort of comprehensive strategy. And I am with you on 

that. 

Where I part ways and what I want to explore is with the notion 

that the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy should be the person to lead this effort. Lots of arguments here. The first one is that 
22 

is what we have been trying for the last six years or so, and it is 

been a complete failure in terms of any sort of broad strategic planning. 

Second, under secretaries do not, almost by definition, have access to the President. They just don’t, because their most direct 

boss wouldn’t want that to happen. So if we imagine that we are 

going to create an under secretary position that is going to have 

access to the President, then I think that is just a very faulty 

premise from the start. 

All of which is a long way around to my thinking that the NSC 

is where this has to be, because the National Security Adviser does 

have access to the President. Most specifically, also within the current NSC there is a gentleman on the NSC staff who has access 

to the President, had access to him for two years, who has been 

charged in this general area amongst others; and that the only way 

to get sort of the comprehensive approach is to put that responsibility there. Because even if we fix the problem that you mentioned 

within Public Diplomacy, which is the fact that they went regional—even if you do that, all that does is that unifies State. 

The comprehensive strategy that we are talking about requires 

many different agencies to do that. I mean, we could tick through 

all of them. And State is just not going to have that type of influence over it. 

With that, I apologize, I got riled up by Mr. Thornberry’s question there, and I wanted to explore that. 

I will let you respond, and then I have got to go to Mr. Langevin. 

Dr. DORAN. Couple of points: First of all, NSC has to be deeply 

engaged, there is no doubt about that. My point is, there has to be 

a strategic operational center, somebody who is following day to 

day what is going on on the ground, moving resources from here 

to there and so on. 

Mr. SMITH. Across agency lines. 

Dr. DORAN. Yes. It doesn’t necessarily—now, because of the 

Economy Act, you can’t move resources across, but you can—— 

Mr. SMITH. You can talk to them. 

Dr. DORAN. You can talk to them and you can say, Hey, you are 

doing X, I am doing Y, and our friends over here are doing Z. According to your authorities, couldn’t you actually do Y? 

And they can say, Yes, we can do that. 

And then that frees me up to take the money from Y and put 

it somewhere else. 

Now, we got to that stage under Jim Glassman. That is the first 

time that ever happened, where we all sat in a room and said, 

Here is the goal we want to achieve in region X, here is what we 

are doing; and we started horse trading like that. That is the first 

time it ever happened. That kind of thing has to go on. 

Ultimately, as I said in the beginning, to me, all roads lead to 

the State Department because they have the lead for foreign policy, 

they are out there putting together our strategy in every other 

realm. And so they have got to be deeply involved from the—— 

Mr. SMITH. They have to be deeply involved. And I will exercise 

my prerogative to take the last word, though I will revisit this in 

a second to say that all roads do not lead to the State Department 
23 

in this issue because there is a huge military component to it, there 

is a huge intelligence component to it. 

So the roads do lead in slightly different directions. And I will 

let you stew on that for a second and you can come back at me in 

five minutes. 

Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has certainly 

been a fascinating discussion. 

I really do thank you for your testimony, to both our gentlemen 

here today. 

Let me ask you this: In terms of how we do communicate, and 

not wanting to enflame the situation making it any worse—I mean, 

we all speak to various groups, and when we speak about this 

issue, how do we speak about it in such a way that we refer to the 

terrorists, who and what they are, but not, you know, communicate 

in such a way that we offend those people in the Muslim world 

with whom we need to align, people that do want peace and that 

we need to work with against those people who want to cause 

death and violence? 

Let me stop there, and then I will go to my other questions. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. So how do we speak? You mean to the more moderate elements without alienating, how do we utilize words? 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Right. How do we let them know that we have 

no conflict or issue with Islam, but we do have a problem with violent terrorists? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Well, I think you just more or less—the way you 

put it. You can say, we, per se, have no conflict or issues with 

Islam, but we have these terrorists who go around quoting from 

your core texts and who reveal, usually, a greater appreciation— 

a lot of these terrorists are usually top graduates from theological 

schools. And so the question would be, we are not out to have a 

crusade or anything against you, but your guys are saying that this 

is what your religion teaches. 

And that is why I am saying to have a real debate without—I 

will give you an example of where debates normally end. Someone 

will say, well, the Koran has verse X, Y and Z which says, Go and 

fight infidels. And then the person, whoever it is who would respond, will say, yes, but also the Koran says, Live in peace, and 

this and that, and so it is open to interpretation. 

But what most people don’t know is that, again going back to the 

juridical roots of Sharia law, a system was created, which is called 

abrogation, which means basically any time in the Koran there is 

a statement that contradicts the other—and there are many—for 

example, live in peace with your neighbors, go and subjugate 

them—the rule of thumb is always, you go with what was revealed 

to Mohammed later. 

And so—when you look at the Koran, the vast majority of the 

most violent verses were the ones revealed to him later, and so, according to Islamic theologians, they have abrogated the more 

peaceful ones. 

So my point is, not to sit there and say, Well, you have violent 

verses, and they say, Well, we have peaceful ones. And then we 

say, Oh, okay, it is open to interpretation. Take it to a further 
24 

scholarly level and introduce this concept and kind of tell them this 

is where you are going. 

So all I am saying is to actually bring it out into the open without being offensive, and just, from an inquisitive point of view, saying, We have been studying your own scriptures, your own top authorities, and this is what they are telling us. And then when you 

say, a moderate response, this is also how they come back—and 

also from a doctrinal point of view—so how are we supposed to understand? 

Now I think that would go a long way, if for no other reason than 

showing Muslims that, Hey, our own religion does have these 

issues, and maybe we need to start addressing them, as opposed 

to ignoring them and going out of our way to tell them, oh, it is 

a matter of misinterpretation; and then no one wants to address 

it. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I want to go to Mr. Doran in just a minute. But 

getting back to Mr. Shuster’s question, where is the hope and 

where do you see this going? What is the ultimate ending? Because 

it is pretty depressing. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. It is depressing. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. It would be great if in small groups we could sit 

down with 1.5 billion people, the billions of people in the world on 

both sides and try to work this out, but it ain’t gonna happen. 

So what is the end game? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. It is depressing. It is almost—and I am not at all 

trying to liken Islam to, you know, Nazism or anything like that, 

but if I were to come and say Nazism, Hitler believe X, Y and Z, 

so what is the hope? How do you deal with that? Sometimes there 

really isn’t. 

But I do believe there is hope, which is not going to be mass war 

or anything like that, and the hope lies in exposing the truth and 

making the truth available for all parties to address and to talk 

about without political correctness or any other kind of intellectual 

restraints, but just objectively address these issues and bring them 

out in the forefront. And that has not happened; that is the whole 

thing. 

So you have a group, the radicals, who believe this, who are gaining recruits because they make very strong arguments based again 

on doctrine. Then you have, on the other side, the West, or the 

Americans, who are going out of their way to ignore that and say, 

That is not part of it. So I am saying to actually say, Okay, this 

is part of it. 

This is your argument. Now we want to ask moderate Muslims 

to actually explain to us all of this and have them go to a moderate 

Muslim and say, Your religion unequivocally demonstrates, according to all these sources and all these scholars, that when you can, 

you should go on the offensive. What are we going to do about 

that? How do you propose—and when they say, Oh, no, it is a matter of interpretation. 

It can’t end there because, like I said, there are a lot of different 

means and methods of jurisprudence which have already addressed 

these things, and so it is not open to interpretation; and then that 

has to be brought up. 
25 

And then, when the ball is in their court, I think a lot of Muslims 

will, a, see, you know, these people have a point; we need to actually start addressing this. And I think that would actually result 

in a good thing, not necessarily some kind of Armageddon war. But 

as long as no one is addressing the fact and we are ignoring it, I 

think it just gets worse and it gets bigger. 

And I understand that is not exactly the most hopeful response. 

Mr. SMITH. And I want to touch a little bit more on that in a second, but I want to give Mr. Doran a chance to talk a little bit more 

about who should be in charge of the strategy and how we do the 

interagency piece and all the different elements, put together all of 

our resources so that they are coordinated. 

Dr. DORAN. With regard to the things that you left me to stew 

about, the NSC is often a recipe for gridlock, and I think that is 

important to see. When you elevate things up to that level, they become intertwined with the high political debates. 

I saw very well, when I was at the NSC, anything to do with 

Iran, the most mundane things to do with Iran, would become 

proxies for policy arguments. And I think that we have seen it in 

the Pentagon, as well, when we grapple with the whole question 

of strategic communication within the Pentagon. 

There has been a very clear pattern in the Pentagon since 2003 

to push the communications authorities down out into the field because there was a recognition that these debates about what we 

should be messaging, they interact with policy debates in a way 

that is very unhealthy; and they also interact with turf issues in 

Washington that is very unhealthy. You get down to the country 

team level, and you—I was just out in Afghanistan recently. And 

the interaction between Department of Defense (DOD) Public Affairs, DOD Information Operations, and the State Department 

Public Diplomacy people on the ground in Afghanistan is absolutely 

exemplary. And you look at that and you think, what kind of organization do we need back in Washington that can support those 

kinds of efforts that are going on out the field, learn from them, 

have two-way communications (coms) with them, and expand them 

when they are successful? 

Up at the NSC, it is all about high policy, so it is kind of counterintuitive. The minute you put something in the White House, you 

think you are going to get a quick turn on it. Well, often it sits 

there for six, eight months and goes absolutely nowhere. 

So we have got to find a way to push the authorities out into the 

field, but have two-way coms with Washington. That is why I go 

back to strategic operational. 

Mr. SMITH. Well, I would agree with that. And I think ultimately 

the model—and from all the people that I have talked to, you 

know, one of the centerpieces of all of this is going to be the country team, and it is going to be the State Department and it is going 

to be the ambassador in the various different places where we are 

engaged in this. And I think that is absolutely true. 

We need to do a better job of empowering them though. You are 

right, we have taken steps in that direction. But on the sort of big 

picture meta-approach to what we are doing, all of the players on 

the national level are going to feed into that—what the Secretary 
26 

of Defense says, what the Secretary of State says, what the NSC 

says, the President, the Vice President. 

There has got to be sort of a strategic top line, Okay, here is 

what this country team is doing in Nigeria and here is what they 

are doing in Pakistan and the Philippines; and we want them to 

do this. Someone has got to sort of develop that and send it out on 

that level and resource it. 

Dr. DORAN. Right. Those top-line messages, that is absolutely the 

NSC’s business, and they absolutely need to be focused on that and 

engaged with the operational elements. But putting the lead for the 

operational bid in the NSC, I think, is where it starts to go wrong. 

You then get guys at the very top level who—— 

Mr. SMITH. I get what you are saying. I don’t want to interrupt 

you, but I think you are going to repeat what you said earlier. And 

I understand that, if they get caught up in those sorts of debates. 

What I am most concerned about is the interagency approach, to 

basically make sure that all of the people in this very complicated 

flow chart are understood by somebody. 

I mean, the way we are doing this is like we are playing a football game and the coach has half the players out in the field that 

aren’t getting any message from him; and they are doing stuff, they 

may be talented, they may be important, but they are not part of 

the overall plan. 

Now, obviously this is more complicated, even than football, because you have more than 11 people on the field at the time—it 

is in the dozens, if not the hundreds, when you think about all the 

different agencies and all the different resources. But somebody in 

this whole operation, somebody really smart and with good experience, has to understand that entire playing field, has to have in 

their mind, Okay, we have got this problem, and you know what? 

Gosh, we need the national geospatial folks involved on this piece— 

I am going obscure there, but that is what I mean—because right 

now we are missing pieces of that. 

Or also, some of those pieces are off running their own play, running their own program, and there is nobody really to control them. 

And if it can be the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, I 

guess that is okay. It is hard. And I have seen it work before where 

somebody within one branch was able to do the interagency piece 

with, you know, Presidential authority, and pull folks together. 

It has worked, so I guess it is conceivable. I could be persuaded 

of that. But whoever it is, that division we have to have; it can’t 

just be country team by country team or State Department piece 

or this piece. It is got to be someone who says, Here is everything 

that we have at our disposal to win this battle, and we all, to some 

degree, have got to keep them on the same page. That is what we 

are trying to accomplish. 

Dr. DORAN. It is incredibly difficult. 

You know, we also need to develop mechanisms for cross-agency 

cooperation—beyond just the leadership, mechanisms that are new. 

So we need leadership from the top to say, Hey, we are entering 

into a whole new government era. 

Mr. SMITH. Goldwater-Nichols. 
27 

Dr. DORAN. Yes. We need the equivalent of that. It doesn’t necessarily have to be new legislation, but there has to be a really 

strong demand for getting this from the top. 

Mr. SMITH. Sure. I think it shouldn’t be new legislation. I think 

it should be exactly what you just said. 

I have a couple more things for Mr. Ibrahim, but I want to turn 

it over to Mr. Thornberry. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Following on that, have you looked, Mr. Doran, 

at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) as a possible example? You know, one of the commissions recommended that the 

NCTC have operational planning authority. It didn’t end up with 

that, but is that maybe another model to at least consider? 

Dr. DORAN. Yes. Well, we developed, under Glassman, a hybrid 

where one of the things that he did—as I said, he distinguished— 

his predecessors saw the job as a public relations (PR) job, he saw 

it as a national security position. And one of the things that he did 

is, he worked closely with the NCTC. 

The problem with the NCTC is that it is working on counterterrorism. And the problem—which is fine as long as we are on a hard 

terrorist messaging issue, but a lot of the issues that we need to 

confront are where the policies of peer competitors, strategic rivals—Iran. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. The NCTC for strategic communication—— 

Dr. DORAN. Yes. I think we are all in agreement of what is missing. 

There are lots of problems with the ‘‘R’’ model that I laid out. 

The reason I went for the ‘‘R’’ model is for two basic reasons: Number one, State Department has got to be a major player; we have 

got to bring them on board. And number two, I just don’t see creating a new agency at this point. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Let me ask you one other thing—and we may 

have talked about this before. 

Do you see a role for private sector input into whatever is created? And I harken back to a Defense Science Board study several 

years ago that said there is lots of expertise out there in the country that can be brought to bear and taken advantage of, but there 

is no way for them to plug in at this point. 

Dr. DORAN. That is another area where I am in 100 percent 

agreement with you. The private sector has an enormous amount 

to offer on many different levels. But at the risk of really sounding 

like a broken record, without the strategic center to plug in, we 

can’t tap into it appropriately. So I don’t think it is an alternative. 

It is another arm that we need to be using. 

In my written statement I made reference to a book by Kenneth 

Osgood about—Total Cold War about the Eisenhower era. And it 

turns out that Eisenhower understood all of this, set up the government to deliver it, including outreach to the private sector. 

I don’t think we need to go back exactly to the Eisenhower model 

for a lot of reasons, but it is great to hold up and say, Hey, we did 

this once; we can do it again. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Finally, Mr. Ibrahim, how much of this is a 

struggle within Islam that we have no influence over, no influence 

to sway one way or another? And then how much room is there for 

us to have some positive influence if we do everything perfectly? 
28 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Right. I think there is a legitimate struggle within 

Islam over these interpretations. I have, of course, indicated the 

difficulties that reformers will encounter. 

Insofar as how we can help? Very little, or at least not visibly, 

because the moment you have a non-Muslim, specifically an American, trying to reinterpret Islam for Muslims or even visibly supporting moderate Muslims, they are immediately just completely 

discounted as just being puppets. 

So there is, I think, a debate. If you want to do it in the literal 

sense, the literalists kind of have an advantage because it is a traditional thing, and they have the law on their side. But if we can 

help, perhaps if it can be done clandestinely or behind the scenes 

by supporting this sort of thing, but once the U.S. or the West is 

visible, they lose credibility. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Jim. 

I have a couple more questions, but I want to give Mr. Langevin 

another shot. I know you had some follow-up that I think we ran 

out of time on. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I did. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Joe Nye, the former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government and former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International 

Security, has written extensively about the need to supplement our 

military might with soft-power assets, if you will, efforts to win the 

world’s hearts and minds with our values and culture, successfully 

exercising the type of power that requires that we pursue many 

fronts, including international diplomacy, democracy building, culture exchanges, economic development, education initiatives, communication about our values and our ideals. And while we won’t 

be able to influence that hard-core center, like the bin Ladens of 

the world, we may be able to reach out to those gray circles that 

are outside of that. 

So, Mr. Ibrahim, do you believe that it is possible to reach out 

to those gray areas and, with soft-power assets, have an influence 

in at least dissuading people from going toward that hard-core center? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. I do believe that. I think one of the conceptual differences that we have when we talk is that I am often looking at 

the long term, and I think in the long term it is always going to 

be a problem. 

In the short term, what you say makes sense, and that can be 

done by reaching out and strengthening and all that. But, see, I always try to think as a Muslim. I have come from the Middle East 

and I know the mindset. And when you think as a Muslim, that 

means a different paradigm completely from what we are accustomed to doing or thinking about the world view. 

And so, when you are left with—and again, I stress, by ‘‘Muslim,’’ 

I don’t mean one billion people; I mean the people who literally, by 

the word ‘‘Muslim,’’ have submitted themselves to this codified 

world view. 

And so, to me, I just don’t understand how, if you believe God 

told you X, Y and Z—this is not open to interpretation, this is how 

it has been done for 1,400 years—how a person can get beyond 

that. Now, usually most people get beyond that by actually deflect-
29 

ing out of Muslim and becoming moderates, which is really secular 

Muslims, which—that obviously helps, too. 

So in the long term, I don’t know how strategic these are. In the 

short term, they can help and they can make differences, but as 

long as that codified world view exists, it is always going to come 

back. And I think one of the problems is, people overlook history, 

and they often just start looking at the Islamic world and its interaction with the West, Europe and America, from the last 200 years. 

And they just see it always as the West on the offensive with colonialism and with all these sorts of things, but they don’t appreciate 

the earlier history. 

And the fact is that when Islam was strong, from the beginning 

it did implement these doctrines, so it was always there until, if 

you look at it from the seventh century until the Ottoman Empire, 

which annexed a big chunk of Eastern Europe by the jihads—and 

that is how it was explained; again, in Ottoman documents, that 

is the way it was, that is the norm until they got beaten. 

So I think an intellectual or conceptual failure is people—and 

they often tell me, if what you are saying is true, how come in the 

last 200–300 years we haven’t seen Muslims en masse invading 

and waging jihad. And the fact is, in the last 200–300 years, there 

has been a great disparity between what the Muslim world can do 

vis-a`-vis the West. And so just because they have not been implementing these doctrines does not mean that they have annulled 

them and overlooked them; it can’t be done anyway. 

But that is the problem. People think, Well, if anyone has been 

the aggressor in the last 300 years, it is the West. And so they are 

not taking the historical context and the capability factor into play. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Mr. Doran, in your testimony you conclude that interagency coordination is really a necessary step in combating extremist 

ideologies. One of the things that I have called for—and Mr. Thornberry and I have cosponsored legislation calling for a quadrennial 

national security, very similar to the Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), but it would require that crossagency cooperation in developing the strategy as we go forward to 

better inform the national security strategy. 

Do you think something like that would work, should work; and 

how do we best implement it? 

Dr. DORAN. Demand signal coming from Congress to the agencies 

to pull together and think about these problems in a common fashion is always a good thing. 

But in terms of the thing that is most important, I think here 

in the discussion we are all in agreement that institutionally there 

is something missing. It is all of the connective tissue that can pull 

all of these different teams together; and that is where I would put 

the emphasis, is demanding from the various agencies that they set 

up the different nodes that will pull it all together, and that the 

leadership will demand of the people who are in charge of this that 

they do so. 

Mr. SMITH. If I could pick up on the conversation, Mr. Ibrahim, 

about how we deal with the doctrinal issues—and I think you very 

correctly identified the problem, and I think the problem does exist 

to some degree in other religions. In the Jewish religion, while it 
30 

is more specific, that is certainly one of the problems they are having in Israel; you know, the strict interpretation is, here is the land 

that we are supposed to have. And there is some percentage of the 

Jewish population that adheres to that. Most of them do not. But 

that, too, creates a problem; it is in the Bible, it is what we have 

to do. 

Of course, where the Bible is concerned, there are a whole lot of 

things to adhere to in there, the whole shellfish—on down the line, 

a whole bunch of rules that don’t seem to have much modern applicability. 

And then, of course, within the Catholic religion, well, they have 

no end of rules. And adjustments have been made and we have 

gone through those battles in the U.S., Well, you are not a good 

Catholic if you don’t follow all the rules. And there are a lot of 

Catholics who have said, Yeah, but a lot of those rules were kind 

of made by man. So there was a doctrinal defense there. 

And that is sort of, as you describe, and I think accurately, 

where the Muslim world is at. 

There has to be an interpretation of their religion that gets 

around some of their doctrinal challenges. And I think you are 

right in confronting that and having, you know, within the Muslim 

world, a conversation that comes up with that. 

I want to explore one piece of that, and then I have two other 

areas. So let’s walk down that road for a moment. 

If you are a Muslim, it seems to me that there isn’t any other 

way to do that other than to sort of—I am a Christian, and my own 

interpretation of the religion is that God wants us to think in advance, that there was no one time at any point in human history 

when it was all written down, and all we have to do is memorize 

it like a calculus test and then we are good to go. That is completely antithetical to human experience to me, that what God 

wants us to do is think and reason and move forward and understand the broader world and its context, not go back to some math 

problem. And as you can tell from my tone, I feel very strongly 

about that. 

Whatever your religion, it is hard for me to imagine going in the 

other direction. It just doesn’t make sense based on human experience. 

But be that as it may, there is another way to go, and that is, 

Look, it is black and white; you know, we have got big problems 

in the world, and the only reason we have problems in the world 

is because we didn’t adhere to that black and white. And that 

comes into problems certainly within the Jewish religion. In the 

Christian religion, as well, you will find many people who say that. 

And of course they have a fairly wide-ranging difference of exactly 

what it is that we are supposed to be doing exactly, what laws we 

are supposed to be following. 

But as you describe, within the Muslim religion the Koran is relatively straightforward and relatively interpretive. So if you go 

down that road, if you put yourself in the Muslim shoes for a moment, just for the purpose of this room—accepting your argument 

that we should never do that publicly—what do you do? 

How do you make an argument that, you know, well, this is the 

moderate approach, and with the key cornerstone of that being 
31 

other people can have different faiths and we can live with them 

and it is all good, we don’t have to be focused on everybody converting to our way of thought? How would they sort of confront 

that doctrinal problem in the straightforward, honest, up-front way 

that you have described? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Well, I have seen moderate Muslims posit that approach that you just mentioned; and the radical response is always 

the same, which is—— 

Mr. SMITH. I know what the radical response would be, you have 

been clear on that. 

What I am searching for is, how you then counter that radical 

response and when? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Well, that is the difficult part—— 

Mr. SMITH. That is why I am asking. 

Mr. IBRAHIM [continuing]. Because ultimately we are talking 

about a religion, we are talking about truths. This is how it is understood; and we have to always remember, whatever we may 

think Islam is, to Muslims this is the internal truth. 

And so I am a Muslim, and I have, like you were saying, X, Y 

and Z, black and white, codified, been practiced that way always. 

And then I get someone who says, Well, we need to reform this because it is the 21st century; we want to get along with people. And 

then they go and just give you a big list of how the Prophet Mohammed would not do that, how Prophet Mohammed subjugated 

people out. 

And so that is the problem, this is the fundamental problem. I 

know you want to see how to get over that, and that is why people 

haven’t been able to get over that at this point. 

And then again you have Sufis—— 

Mr. SMITH. Well, that is the other thing. I mean, the other thing 

about this that I think—if I may help answer my own question— 

one of the ways to get around that is, it is not really as doctrinally 

black as white as you described it. 

For instance, at one point when you mentioned that, well, from 

the 7th century to the 16th they adhered to these rules, and it was 

all good. No, they didn’t; they adhered to some of them. They were 

drinking; they weren’t doing for the poor what they were supposed 

to be doing. 

If you go back and read that history, there is simply no way that 

from the 7th century to the 16th century they came within a country mile of adhering to everything that was in the Koran. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. But that was the rule. That is sort of like us saying 

we have a Constitution, but we break it. 

Mr. SMITH. Understood. 

But understand that there is a critical point that I am making 

there, because a critical part of the argument that carries the day 

for the radicals in the Muslim world is, when we were doing it 

right, we were ruling the world. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Exactly. 

Mr. SMITH. But we abandoned it. But that is crap. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. From your perspective. 

Mr. SMITH. No, no, no, no, no. We are off perspective now. 

It is—I will use a different word as I describe this, but it is factually, incontrovertibly untrue. In the same way that your doctrinal 
32 

argument about what the Koran says is absolutely, factually true, 

it is untrue to say that from the 7th to the 16th century they adhered to the Koran. They did not. And you don’t have to be very 

smart to prove that. It is just a matter of historical fact. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. I was specifically discussing the obligation of jihad, 

and that is why Islam was able to spread from the Arabian Peninsula to Spain and India in about a century. 

Mr. SMITH. Understood. 

But you can’t cherry-pick. That is the whole point. That is what 

you are saying is the strongest argument that bin Laden and those 

guys had is, you can’t cherry-pick, and you just did. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Cherry-pick in what sense? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, you said we followed jihad, but we didn’t follow 

all the other stuff in the Koran. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Right. 

Mr. SMITH. It is a package deal, as bin Laden describes it. So I 

think we can make that argument and say that, no, it was not followed and it did not lead to the successes as they describe. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Fair enough. 

But to them there is this Golden Age myth, which is basically the 

era of Mohammed and how we lived, which—we have a lot of documents; that is what we need to follow. 

Mr. SMITH. And all I am saying is we can factually contradict 

that myth. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. And that would be a good strategy. If people actually actively and in a scholarly way went to prove that that was 

wrong, I believe that would be a good strategic point to try to do 

that. But, then again, coming from Westerners—— 

Mr. SMITH. Oh, I am not saying that should come from us. Absolutely, it shouldn’t come from us. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Okay. Because if it does, it is just conspiracy 

and—— 

Mr. SMITH. Within the Muslim world, we have to be aware of 

this. Per your own argument, we have to be aware of what the best 

doctrinal argument is to go. Because the other thing that is possible is that if the doctrine just sort of ties us up in knots, then 

you might conceivably be better off not confronting these hard 

truths, and relying on the argument that there are things in the 

Koran that talk about peace and, therefore, that is the direction we 

need to go in. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. But like I said, to them—see, this is the problem. 

To non-Muslims, they sort of approach the Koran and Islamic 

scriptures in general almost the way they do to the Bible by saying, 

Well, hey, there are a lot of interpretations. 

In Islam, it is not a metaphysical religion, it is very much 

grounded in the here and now and how you live with each other. 

And that was already explained and defined. 

Mr. SMITH. Ignorance can occasionally cut in your favor from a 

broad policy standpoint, and I am suggesting that it is possible 

that we can use—the analogy that occurs to me is the situation 

with Taiwan. Is Taiwan part of mainland China or isn’t it? Okay, 

we just sort of keep it very fuzzy. It is all good. As long as we don’t 

sit down and have that very hard-core, confrontational discussion— 

which seems to be where we are going now—then it is all fine. As 
33 

long as we can maintain the myth, yeah, we are one China. At 

some point in the future we will get there. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. We are maintaining the myth among ourselves, but 

they are not. They already know better. 

Mr. SMITH. Sure. In my example, they are maintaining the myth 

within Taiwan and China, and it is working for them. 

And I am just asking—I could be totally wrong about this, but 

if you are saying that most Muslims don’t know these sort of doctrinal specifics, then there is certainly a pretty big myth out there 

as well. 

They don’t know, for instance, that the later interpretations are 

more important than the earlier. Rather than going up to them and 

saying, Hey, did you realize this? You may be creating a bigger 

problem for yourself. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. But that is what the radicals are doing, and that 

is what I am saying. They are doing that, and they are showing 

it and they are getting recruits. And that is part of the Wahhabi 

movement with the Saudis, who are just spreading all their literature everywhere, which states all these things. 

And so, to me, it might not be very productive to have them mobilizing themselves with this, whereas we, kind of head in the 

sand, say, No, that is not what it is. And we have been doing that. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. But you understand the basic rock and a hard 

place here. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Right, I understand that. 

Mr. SMITH. That you can’t rely on the ignorance argument that 

I just described; or, you know, it is hard to rely on the factual argument. 

The one question I do have from all of this is—admitting that we 

shouldn’t talk about this; it is not something we can resolve—we 

still have to have a big-picture message; we still have to say what 

it is that we are fighting and how we are confronting it. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Right. I totally agree. 

Mr. SMITH. And in that regard, I think that the memo you mentioned—that has been talked about much—is spot on because if we 

get into it, I don’t see a path in the maze that doesn’t simply create 

more trouble. 

And I will draw one distinction. You are saying that the memo 

said, Don’t even talk about Sharia. I actually don’t think that is 

what it said. You can talk about Sharia, you can talk about the 

stuff; don’t link it to what we are fighting. Don’t use it to describe 

what we are fighting. Don’t say that they are Islamic terrorists or 

jihadists. Don’t describe our enemy in those Islamic terms; not 

don’t ever say Sharia, just don’t use it as a way to describe what 

we are fighting. 

And within that narrow ban, based on sort of the box you have 

constructed for us, it seems to me that that is the best of a series 

of difficult choices. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Except in that it misleads Americans by not understanding what it is. Until you find the body of knowledge or the 

body of doctrine that is fueling your enemies, and you just kind of 

dismiss it and say they are just bad guys, I don’t think you will 

be able to properly address it. 
34 

And that is what I was saying earlier about education. Until we 

actually understand this body of knowledge and then use that as 

a base to try to implement strategies or to come up with it, I think 

that—and the strategy will not necessarily be one of violence, I 

don’t think. I just think you are handicapped when you don’t bring 

in what they say, what they believe, what they circulate amongst 

each other. 

Mr. SMITH. One final argument on that—I may turn out to be 

wrong about that, there may be another argument. But my argument would be that you—first of all, I am not saying that our policymakers shouldn’t be aware of this. They absolutely should. The 

question is whether or not they should use it as part of their argument, as part of their approach. And as you have described it, as 

a number of my colleagues have said in their questions, if, in fact, 

we take this approach; if, in fact, we send this mainly out to the 

broad, you know, American public—accepting for the moment that 

this an open public hearing—but if we send that message out, you 

wind up up against a brick wall basically. 

I think you, in a certain sense, have contradicted your core argument in the rather brilliant way that you have described it. If, in 

fact, we lay this out and if this is the argument, then you come up 

with a religion that basically we have no choice but to fight, because they will fight us because we lose the doctrinal argument. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. No, no. What I am recommending is being blunt 

and up front about it, but not saying this is what you teach in a 

question; saying, look, We have a concern because theologians and 

doctrinal people, both Christians and Jews and Muslims, are seeing 

this thing in your text. Now, we are not saying that is what it is, 

but we want a clear and straightforward answer. In other 

words—— 

Mr. SMITH. Forgive me, but you are saying that is what it is. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. No. We are saying this is what your guys have 

said, al Qa’ida. 

Mr. SMITH. Do you think they are wrong? Al Qa’ida. This is what 

they are saying, this is how they—— 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Do I think their interpretation is wrong? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. In certain respects—I will give you an example. 

One of the things that everyone will tell you, killing women and 

children is anti-Islamic. I have heard that from growing up until 

now, and everyone will tell you that. Now, again, this overlooks 

how Islamic jurisprudence articulates who and who not to kill. 

Mr. SMITH. So you think they are right? 

That is my point. I mean, if you think they are right, then that 

is not something we should be broadcasting. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. No, no. I am not saying I think they are right. I 

think they have a doctrinal base, that is all. And that is what I am 

saying; it would be better to get other Muslims or whoever to try 

to counter it. But, see, as long as it is buried, no one is going to 

be able to address it. 

I believe there may be a good way to address it, and—in a doctrinal way, and actually combat it and maybe even supplant it. But 

if we don’t even acknowledge it, who is going to be able to start 

taking it seriously to try to formulate a counter-response? If it is 
35 

just ignored, and amongst the Muslim world it is getting recruits 

and we totally ignore it, how can anyone start actually coming up 

with a counter-interpretation which really may be valid and may 

end up—— 

Mr. SMITH. Just to be clear, you don’t have one at the moment? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. I am not Muslim, and I don’t consider myself a theologian; I am a student of Islamic law. But I have talked to some 

who have come up with very clever interpretations. But you are always going to have a problem with the core, who are known as the 

Salafis. And these are the people who just: All we want to do is 

the way Mohammed lived his life in the first three generations of 

Muslims, that is all there is to it. 

Now, there is no way that you are going to get beyond those people. And as I was saying, the problem is, even if 99 percent of the 

Muslim world doesn’t agree with these doctrines, the nature of the 

war now is that a handful of people can do what 9/11 was, and so 

that is what is going to happen. So even if the majority of the Muslim world doesn’t agree, as long as you have a few people who are 

radical and no one is able to really study their body of doctrine to 

come up with a better interpretation, a couple of people are enough 

to create havoc. 

Mr. SMITH. And just so I am clear, I am not suggesting in the 

least bit that we not study it. And I actually, based on my work 

with people at the NCTC, at NSC and State Department, I think 

they are very much aware of what you just described. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Good. That is reassuring. 

Mr. SMITH. They are figuring out what the best way to counter 

it is. 

Mr. IBRAHIM. And I am not saying that this should be broadcast 

to the American public. I may have misspoken. And I am not saying we should tell the American public these people want to kill us. 

I am saying in an internal kind of environment, this needs to be 

made open and made available and not expressed or censored or 

just ignored. 

Mr. SMITH. And in my experience, this is a discussion at this 

committee that we have had. Difference in interpretation: What do 

you do about it? And you have described how difficult that is. 

Thank you for indulging me on that. 

Thank you both very much certainly on both of these subjects. 

I think this is very critical to what our subcommittee is doing and 

what our national security strategy is. One, we have got to figure 

out the best way to confront this ideology; however we describe it, 

it is clearly an ideology that threatens us. And then also in terms 

of how we structure it, I think we need to continue to do better 

about how we strategically implement a counter strategy. 

So I thank you very much. It is been very helpful. And we are 

adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

FEBRUARY 12, 2009 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

FEBRUARY 12, 2009 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

FEBRUARY 12, 2009 

(65) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SMITH 

Mr. SMITH. How should we deal with the issue of religious terminology when we 

craft our messages for foreign Muslim audiences? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. Religious terminology should be treated as objectively as possible 

when addressing Muslim audiences. Islamic law (Sharia) assigns a clear definition 

to select Islamic terminology (e.g., jihad) and it is these definitions that Muslims 

acknowledge. To rely on equivocal or compromised Western definitions for the sake 

of being politically correct at best leads Muslims to think that the U.S. is naı ̈ve. In 

short, whenever applicable—that is, whenever there is need to evoke Muslim terminology—mainstream definitions that mainstream Muslims subscribe to should be relied upon. That said, Muslim terminology should not be spoken or disseminated 

lightly by non-Muslims but rather only when appropriate. When appropriate, objective definitions—those present in Islam’s juridical texts—should be used. 

Mr. SMITH. You have pointed out significant issues with how the academic community approaches Islamic doctrine as an ideology. Through initiatives like the Minerva project, the DOD is proposing to reach out to just that academic community 

to try to seek insight to inform Department of Defense decision making. What recommendations would you suggest for the DOD to push the academic community to 

engage in a more open and intellectually honest discussion of these issues, particularly through mechanisms like Minerva? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. The academic community should be encouraged to treat their topic 

objectively, rather than projecting their own 21st century, post-modern epistemology 

onto the Muslim world, as happens often. Jihad as a doctrinal obligation should be 

presented without apology or reticence. Euphemisms need to be dropped. Sharia 

law—what it is and its prominence in Muslim life—should be elaborated. History 

needs to be portrayed accurately, based on primary sources. 

Mr. SMITH. What capabilities do you believe are necessary to improve U.S. government capabilities to conduct counter-ideology and counter-propaganda efforts? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. 1) Freedom from fear of being censored, ostracized, or retaliated 

against. In short, knowing that one can speak their mind freely, without fear of reprisal. 2) Before being able to formulate proper counter-ideology efforts, the 

ideologies themselves must first be properly understood. Without being able to acknowledge the threat, finding strategies is doomed to failure. As for propaganda, it 

is just that—propaganda, and can only be fought with American ‘‘propaganda’’ (i.e., 

the battle to win ‘‘hearts and minds’’). In other words, the ideologies must be seen 

as objective and treated with commensurate strategies, while the propaganda must 

be seen as a way to incite Muslims and demoralize Americans. Unfortunately, it 

seems that the opposite—ignoring Islamist ideologies while seriously considering 

Islamist propaganda—is more in effect. 

Mr. SMITH. What recommendations do you have for handling the Internet as a 

means for medium for extremist propaganda and ideology? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. For Islamists as for others, the Internet has become the primary 

means of disseminating both their ideology as well as their propaganda. Accordingly, it should be closely monitored. 

Mr. SMITH. Given the cultural and religious context, who should U.S. Government 

efforts target with any messages? What types of messages should the U.S. be sending? By region (or country), who are the actual centers of gravity to influence the 

vulnerable population, i.e. to keep the extremist message from gaining converts. Can 

U.S. efforts even add to the discussion or are any efforts doomed from the start? 

What is the vulnerable population? Who should we be targeting and what are the 

venue/media to communicate? 

Mr. IBRAHIM. In this context, the two primary targets that ultimately matter are: 

1) the religious authorities (the ulema—scholars, sheikhs, imams, etc); and 2) the 

Muslim youth. As for the latter, Osama bin Laden himself delimited the age group 

jihadi organizations should target: 15- to 25-year-old males; these, then, make up 

the vulnerable population. Two things influence the 15- to 25-year age group of men: 

1) The perceived belief that the U.S. is ‘‘oppressing’’ the Muslim world, and 2) the 

conviction that they are religiously-obligated to battle the U.S., as both an oppressive and infidel force. 
66 

Originally, the ideas and ideologies emanated from Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, the 

original center of gravity whence ideas were actively disseminated. Increasingly, 

however, these ideologies have taken hold and now have indigenous representatives 

throughout the Muslim world (i.e., ‘‘Salafis’’). More practically, the primary center 

of gravity is the local mosque. 

The U.S. can try to ameliorate its image as oppressor, etc. However, the U.S. has 

little or no role in regards to ameliorating its de facto infidel/enemy status, a status 

due to Islamic law. The U.S. can and should support true moderate Muslims attempting to reform Islam; but it should not be visible, as its visibility will only cause 

other Muslim segments to accuse the American-supported moderates of being U.S. 

‘‘stooges,’’ ‘‘agents,’’ and ultimately apostates. 

Mr. SMITH. What cultural, personnel or other changes need to occur, in both State 

and Defense, to create the ‘‘thicker connective tissue’’ you describe in your written 

testimony? 

Dr. DORAN. [The information referred to was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. SMITH. The difficulties faced by the State Department go beyond more resources or more people. For State to claim a leadership role in strategic communication, there must be a broader cultural change in what types of things State does 

and how it carries out its mission. How can we positively effect that change? What 

role does (or should) DoD play in the process? 

Dr. DORAN. [The information referred to was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. SMITH. You’ve spoken of the position of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs as a weak under secretary. How would you change 

the responsibilities and authorities of that position to make it effective as the strategic-operational center for the U.S. Government’s strategic communication effort? 

Dr. DORAN. [The information referred to was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. SMITH. Based on your time in government service, and as an academic observer, could you give us your assessment of U.S. efforts at counter-ideology and 

strategic communication? What can be improved and how? 

Dr. DORAN. [The information referred to was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. SMITH. Many people have advocated the recreation of the U.S. Information 

Agency, or a new Center for Global Engagement—an independent agency no longer 

under the Department of State chain of command. Do you believe such a move is 

necessary? If so, what do you believe are the important structures or authorities 

that such an organization should possess? Are there other recommendations for how 

the U.S. Government should organize to provide a cohesive and comprehensive strategic communication and public diplomacy approach? 

Dr. DORAN. [The information referred to was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. SMITH. In your comments, you mentioned that Under Secretary of State 

Glassman began some programs to move the State Department beyond just telling 

America’s story and getting at real strategic communication. Could you describe 

some of these programs? Have they continued since Under Secretary of State 

Glassman’s departure? 

Dr. DORAN. [The information referred to was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. SMITH. What recommendations do you have for improving the Defense Department’s organization and structure for dealing with strategic communication? 

Dr. DORAN. [The information referred to was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. SMITH. What capabilities do you believe are necessary to improve U.S. Government capabilities to conduct counter-ideology and counter-propaganda efforts? 

Dr. DORAN. [The information referred to was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. SMITH. What recommendations do you have for handling the Internet as a 

means for medium for extremist propaganda and ideology? 

Dr. DORAN. [The information referred to was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. SMITH. Given the cultural and religious context, who should U.S. Government 

efforts target with any messages? What types of messages should the U.S. be sending? By region (or country), who are the actual centers of gravity to influence the 

vulnerable population, i.e. to keep the extremist message from gaining converts. Can 

U.S. efforts even add to the discussion or are any efforts doomed from the start? 

What is the vulnerable population? Who should we be targeting and what are the 

venue/media to communicate? 

Dr. DORAN. [The information referred to was not available at the time of printing.] 

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