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44–123 PDF 2009

S. Hrg. 110–942 

THE ROOTS OF VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM 

AND EFFORTS TO COUNTER IT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 10, 2008 

Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN WARNER, Virginia 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

TODD M. STEIN, Counsel 

MARC B. CAPPELLINI, FBI Detailee 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

JOHN K. GRANT, Minority Counsel 

LISA M. NIEMAN, Minority Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

PATRICIA R. HOGAN, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Hearing Clerk 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 1 

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 3 

Senator Voinovich ............................................................................................. 27 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2008 

Maajid Nawaz, Director, The Quilliam Foundation, London ............................... 5 

Peter P. Mandaville, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Government and Politics, 

George Mason University .................................................................................... 10 

Zeyno Baran, Senior Fellow and Director of Center for Eurasian Policy, 

Hudson Institute .................................................................................................. 14 

Fathali M. Moghaddam, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychology, and 

Director, Conflict Resolution Program, Department of Government, Georgetown University .................................................................................................... 18 

Michael E. Leiter, Director, National Counterterrorism Center ......................... 36 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Baran, Zeyno: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 14 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 68 

Leiter, Michael E.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 36 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 95 

Mandaville, Peter P., Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 57 

Moghaddam, Fathali, M., Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 18 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 83 

Nawaz, Maajid: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 49 

APPENDIX 

‘‘Report on the Roots of Violent Islamist Extremism and Efforts to Counter 

It: The Muslim Brotherhood,’’ by Steven Emerson, Executive Director, Investigative Project on Terrorism, submitted for the Record by Senator 

Coburn ................................................................................................................... 102 

‘‘The Muslim Brotherhood’s US Network,’’ February 27, 2008, article submitted by Zeyno Baran ........................................................................................ 119 

Questions and responses for the Record from: 

Mr. Mandaville ................................................................................................. 137 

Mr. Baran .......................................................................................................... 140 

Mr. Leiter .......................................................................................................... 144 

(1) 

THE ROOTS OF VIOLENT ISLAMIST 

EXTREMISM AND EFFORTS TO COUNTER IT 

THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2008 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Lieberman, Collins, Voinovich, and Coburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good morning and we will convene the 

hearing. Welcome to the seventh in a series of hearings this Committee has held and is holding to examine the unique threat posed 

by what we have called ‘‘homegrown’’ violent Islamist extremism 

and to determine what steps we can and should take to identify, 

isolate, and ultimately eliminate this threat and the ideology that 

supports it. 

On May 8, the Committee released a bipartisan staff report titled, ‘‘Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat.’’ That report concluded that the use of the 

Internet by Islamist terrorist organizations has increased the 

threat of homegrown terrorism in the United States because individuals can essentially self-radicalize over the Internet. 

Since then, about a month ago, a college student in Florida plead 

guilty to a charge of material support for terrorism. According to 

the plea agreement, the student admitted to producing a video that 

he uploaded to YouTube which demonstrated and explained in Arabic how a remote-controlled toy car could be dissembled and the 

components converted into a detonator for an explosive device. The 

student admitted in the court papers that in producing the video, 

he intended to help those who wanted to attack American servicemen and servicewomen. 

So we are here today to learn more about the ideology behind 

terrorism, the ideology that inspires people, including young people 

like the student in Florida, to take such hateful, violent, and antiAmerican actions. 

The 9/11 Commission Report, I think, outlined quite eloquently 

and succinctly the dual challenges that we face. It is said, and I 

quote, ‘‘Our enemy is two-fold.’’ They mentioned specifically ‘‘alQaeda, a stateless network of terrorists that struck us on September 11, 2001,’’ and second, ‘‘a radical ideological movement in 

2 

the Islamic world inspired in part by al-Qaeda,’’ but I would add 

not only inspired by al-Qaeda, but that al-Qaeda is in effect a result of that radical ideological movement. 

Our first witness on the first panel is Maajid Nawaz. He will 

offer the Committee insights into that ideology and the role it 

played in driving him to become a member at age 16 and eventually a leader of the Islamist extremist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, 

or the Liberation Party, in the United Kingdom. Although Hizb utTahrir, which is called for short HT, claims that it is non-violent, 

the exposure of its members to a very extreme form of Islamist ideology seems often to have laid the foundation for the planning and 

execution of terrorist attacks. Mr. Nawaz recruited others, including his own family, to join HT and was sent to Pakistan and Denmark to set up additional cells. He was later arrested in Egypt in 

2002 for being a member of the organization, and in fact was in 

prison for 4 years. 

Upon release, Mr. Nawaz returned to England, where he eventually denounced the organization and the ideology that was at its 

foundation. Today, Mr. Nawaz is one of two directors of the 

Quilliam Foundation in the United Kingdom, a counterextremism 

think tank committed to discrediting the Islamist ideology that inspires Islamist terrorism around the world. 

Mr. Nawaz, it is my understanding that this is your first visit 

to the United States and I wanted to extend a personal welcome 

to you, but also a thank you to you for making the effort to travel 

this distance to testify before our Committee. I believe your testimony is very important to our purpose. 

The other three witnesses are equally distinguished and I know 

will be equally helpful to the Committee. They have extensive experience studying Islamist movements around the world—Dr. Peter 

Mandaville, Zeyno Baran, and Dr. Fathali Moghaddam. We look 

forward to your testimony and your collective insight into this ideology and the organizations that espouse it. As the three of you 

know, we are particularly interested in how the ideology facilitates 

the radicalization process, the end point of which is, of course, the 

planning and execution of terrorist attacks, which it is our aim to 

stop. 

Our second panel today will have one witness. That is the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter. This 

is the Committee that initiated the legislation that created the National Counterterrorism Center, so we are always proud in a somewhat paternalistic and maternalistic way to welcome Mr. Leiter, its 

Director, to testify. 

I close with another quote from the 9/11 Commission Report as 

follows: ‘‘Our strategy,’’ the Commission said, ‘‘must match our 

means to two ends, dismantling the al-Qaeda network and prevailing in the longer term over the ideology that gives rise to 

Islamist terrorism.’’ I agree. The testimony of our witnesses today, 

I am confident, can help us measurably in our efforts to better understand the roots of Islamist ideology, to distinguish it, of course, 

from Islam, with the overall purpose of better directing our international, national, and local efforts to counter the spread of this 

ideology and to stop the terrorism it aims to inspire. 

Senator Collins. 

3 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I, 

too, saw Michael Leiter outside in the anteroom and he said that 

he was looking forward to testifying before the father and the 

mother of the National Counterterrorism Center, so obviously he is 

thinking along those same lines that you are. On a more serious 

note, he did say that he thought the Center was operating very 

well and was bringing a great deal to our counterterrorism operations. 

I am very pleased to be participating in this important hearing 

this morning. Islam is a major world religion with more than one 

billion adherents worldwide. Like most other religions, Islam has 

myriad variations that are adopted or rejected by people from all 

walks of life who view these different alternatives through the lens 

of their own experiences. 

Obviously, but I believe it bears repeating today, the vast majority of Muslims lead peaceful lives following the tenets of faith, 

prayer, fasting, charity, and pilgrimage that characterize mainstream Islam. There are also some Muslims who subscribe to an 

extreme variation of Islamic ideology that is antithetical to our 

Western culture and our constitutional democracy. Yet they, too, 

may pose no threat to our way of life nor to the free exercise of 

other faiths. 

But there also exists a subset of violent Islamist extremists who 

seek to impose their world view, including the creation of a global 

totalitarian state, through all means, including violence. These terrorists turn to violence to achieve their ideological goals, seducing 

recruits and supporters with religiously laced rhetoric that legitimizes and in some cases exalts violence. 

To better understand the roots of violent Islamist extremism, 

this Committee is exploring the radical religious ideology that can 

be used to incite or justify acts of terror. Specifically, we seek the 

answers to the following questions: 

Is a certain ideology a necessary, albeit not sufficient, factor in 

leading an individual to embrace violence? How do some extremists 

use the ideology to legitimize terrorist acts and incite others to 

commit them? What other factors contribute to turning an individual from the non-violent advocacy of an ideology to violent extremism? How can we deter the use of violence in the support of any 

ideology? 

Learning more about Islamist extremist ideology is important, 

but it is only part of our inquiry. To understand why an individual 

becomes violent, we must also consider other triggers, including the 

social, political, and psychological factors that may combine with 

ideological fervor to lead recruits down the path to terrorism. 

This is a complex area of inquiry. It is not susceptible to easy 

analysis nor quick fixes. I do not believe that we can say that ideology is the root cause of terrorism any more than we can say that 

racism or perceptions of injustice or oppression are sufficient in 

and of themselves to explain violent extremism. Indeed, experts 

have debunked myths that all terrorists are psychotic, poor, 

uneducated, or otherwise fall within an easily identifiable profile. 

To actually gain a better understanding of all the factors that 

might contribute to terrorism, we must also work with the leaders 

4 

1 ‘‘Report on the Roots of Violent Islamist Extremism and Efforts to Counter It: The Muslim 

Brotherhood,’’ by Steven Emerson, Executive Director, Investigative Project on Terrorism, submitted for the Record by Senator Coburn appears in the Appendix on page 102. 

in the American Muslim community to address these root causes 

and to delegitimize violence as the means of promoting a system 

of beliefs. 

As the Committee explores these issues, we must be clear that 

our efforts are designed to prevent terrorism, not to suppress the 

peaceful expression of ideas, even those beliefs which are repugnant to us. For example, I am alarmed when extremist ideology is 

used to justify the oppression of women or those of other religious 

faiths. As a public official, however, my personal abhorrence cannot 

color my judgment as to the fair treatment of those who may 

espouse that ideology as long as it is not accompanied by violence. 

Let me emphasize the point. I condemn any group or individual 

of any ideology that supports, condones, finances, or otherwise uses 

terrorism to advance their goals. But let me say in equally uncertain terms, I also condemn any action by any government that 

would punish individuals merely for the exercise of their 

unalienable rights to worship and speak as they choose. 

More than 230 years ago, as this country declared its independence from tyranny, it also declared through the protections of the 

First Amendment of our Bill of Rights that on these shores, the 

clash of ideas would be waged with words, not with guns and 

bombs. To that end, our duty as policy makers is to protect the political institutions that give individuals the right to express their 

views and exercise their rights without resorting to violence. For in 

a world where terrorists kill innocent men, women, and children to 

forcefully impose their beliefs on others, the true battle is between 

those who are violent and those who are not. 

The Constitution protects an individual’s right to hold any belief 

he or she may choose. This constitutional principle also underlies 

some of the unique features of the American way of life that thus 

far have helped to prevent violent extremism from taking root in 

this country. Those values, such as the openness of our society, tolerance for different viewpoints, and the assimilation of peoples of 

different faiths and ethnicities, are incompatible with extremist 

ideas like the suppression of other religions. 

This is the ongoing struggle, and today, we are continuing our 

efforts to better understand the triggers of violent extremism and 

the threat that they pose to our way of life. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Collins. Thank you very 

much, and thank you, Senator Coburn, for being here. 

Senator COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I am not going to be able to 

stay, but I would like unanimous consent to enter something into 

the record, if I may.1

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Without objection, it is so ordered, and we 

will welcome you as long as your schedule allows you to stay. 

Mr. Nawaz, we are going to go to you first. Thank you again for 

taking the time and making the effort to come from the United 

Kingdom. 

Mr. NAWAZ. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. We welcome your testimony now. 

5 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Nawaz appears in the Appendix on page 49. 

TESTIMONY OF MAAJID NAWAZ,1 DIRECTOR, THE QUILLIAM 

FOUNDATION, LONDON 

Mr. NAWAZ. Thank you, Chairman Lieberman and Ranking 

Member Collins. I really don’t think I can add anything more to 

what you have just said, so really, perhaps I should just go on now 

because what you just said is a very eloquent expression of what 

I believe. So thank you for that and thank you for having me here. 

I wish to congratulate the American people on the recent July 

Fourth celebrations. It is a shame I couldn’t be here for those. 

But moving to the discussion of the day, I did join Hizb ut-Tahrir 

when I was 16 years old. I moved to London to recruit for Hizb utTahrir. I joined Newham College, where I was elected as President 

of the Students’ Union, and regrettably and sadly, due to the 

radicalization that occurred on that campus, myself and Ed Husain 

were both on the campus of Newham College at the same time— 

he is the author of the widely acclaimed book, ‘‘The Islamist.’’ 

Sadly, that radicalization eventually led to a situation where another student was murdered on campus by somebody who was a 

supporter of our activities, and really, that should have acted as a 

warning for me in those early days because what played out in 

Newham College ended up being the microcosm of what would play 

itself out much later on with the attacks on September 11, 2001, 

in the United States of America, and that is that people who were 

inspired by our ideology, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s ideology, but merely differed with us in tactics, decided to use that very same ideology to 

bring about violence and chaos in this world. 

Ed Husain, when he saw the murder at Newham College, decided to leave Hizb ut-Tahrir. I very foolishly decided to stay, 

thinking that perhaps we could carry on with our intellectual mission rather than focusing on encouraging anyone who is violent to 

support us. But I didn’t realize that the problem was not in necessarily the associations we made with people who were naturally 

inclined to violence, but the problem was in the very ideas themselves. 

I went on to, as you have mentioned, export Hizb ut-Tahrir to 

Pakistan from London and also to Denmark from London. I also 

know by personal experience that Hizb ut-Tahrir was exported 

from London to many other countries, including Indonesia and Malaysia. Europe generally acts as a diplomatic hub, a funding source, 

and a media platform for Islamist radicals, whether they be of the 

terrorist type or whether they be of the revolutionary or radical 

type. 

I ended up, as you mentioned, in Egypt where I was convicted 

to 5 years in prison for being a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, after 

taking a route via their torture dungeons in the headquarters of 

the state security, where people were electrocuted before my eyes 

for being associated with us. I was thankfully adopted by Amnesty 

International as a Prisoner of Conscience, and that was the first 

step for my heart to open up for the first time in 10 years after 

having joined Hizb ut-Tahrir. I began to think in a way different 

to how I had been speaking and thinking about non-Muslims because Amnesty International extended the hand to me, despite the 

6 

fact that I had been propagating that Amnesty International and 

other such human rights organizations were, in fact, the enemy to 

Islam and Muslims. 

And as you have mentioned, I left prison in 2006, returned to the 

U.K., and after having joined the Leadership Committee of Hizb utTahrir, finally decided that I could no longer carry on with the hypocrisy that I felt inside me because I no longer believed in the 

Islamist ideology, and so I resigned. 

Now, what I would like to very quickly address is what I believe 

in the way to differentiate between Islamists and normal ordinary 

Muslims, and through my experience, the work we are doing in the 

Quilliam Foundation and also my academic studies, I went on to 

study for a Master’s degree in political theory with modules in terrorism, conflict, and violence, in multiculturalism, and in religion 

and politics at the London School of Economics. I believe that we 

are able to identify four core elements that Islamists will share regardless of the tactics that they employ to bring about that ideology. 

I wish to discuss briefly about those four core elements, and then 

the different strands of Islamists who adhere to those four core 

principles and how they differ in their tactics, and then if there is 

time—I am very conscious I have to adhere to the 10 minutes—just 

to mention something about the role that grievances play in 

radicalization vis-a-vis ideology itself. 

So first of all, the four core elements that I think are common 

to all Islamists regardless of the methodology they employ—and 

the first one I identify is that Islamists believe that Islam is a political ideology rather than a religion. Now, traditionally, Muslims 

would believe that their faith is a religion, but Islamists insist, beginning from the 1920s with Hassan al-Banna, that Islam is, in 

fact, a political ideology. Now, the roots of that perhaps can come 

out later, but just very quickly, that is traced through the influence 

of communism in the Arab world, especially through the Arab socialism known as Baathism. A lot of the founding members of 

Islamists were inspired by Baathists, Arab socialists, including the 

founder of Hizb ut-Tahrir who used to be a Baathist. 

So the first point there, the implication of Islam being a political 

ideology rather than a religion, is that means there must be a perennial conflict between Islam and capitalism just like there was 

perceived to be a conflict, as well, between communism and capitalism, and that is one of the implications. 

Another implication is that because it is an ideology, it encompasses everything; there must be an Islamic solution to everything. 

There must be an Islamic economic system. There must be an Islamic car, as has recently been invented in Malaysia. Everything 

must be Islamized because it is an ideology that encompasses everything. 

The second core element that Islamists will all share is the notion that the Shariah religious code, which is a personal code of 

conduct, must become state law, and this is again a modern innovation alien to traditional Islam. Throughout the history of Muslims, the Shariah was never once adopted as a permanent state 

codified law. In fact, the whole notion of codified law is modern. 

But the Islamists will insist that the Shariah religious code must 

7 

be state law, and if it is not, then the implication is that state is 

un-Islamic. 

The third principle is that Islamists will identify with a global 

community known as the Ummah, and they will consider the 

Ummah, or the Muslim global community, as a political identity 

rather than a religious identity. Again, drawing parallels from communism, this is easily understood when remembering the whole notion of the international proletariat, this global community where 

workers owe no other allegiance except to fellow workers, regardless of borders and ethnicity and nationality. 

Islamists have developed, again inspired by communism, the 

same notion of a global political community that owes no allegiance 

except to itself, and that is the political notion of Ummah rather 

than the prophetic understanding of ummah, which is as a religious community, and the Prophet himself in Medina, when he 

signed the Document of Medina, the famous document, used the 

word ummah, or nation, to refer to the Jews, the Christians, and 

the Muslims all living together in one city. Yet today, Islamists will 

use it just for Muslims as a global community. 

Fourth, and the final shared element for Islamists, is that this 

ideology with this law and that global political community needs to 

be represented by a bloc, like the Soviet bloc. It needs to be represented by an expansionist state, and that is the Caliphate, and 

this state will be expansionist because it represents that global 

community, and where that state’s authority has not extended to 

look after the affairs of that global community, then it must reach 

them to liberate them from being enslaved either by the capitalists 

or the communists. Just like the USSR developed this bloc and the 

whole Eastern Bloc was expansionist and it had the whole notion 

of exporting the revolution, the Islamists, again inspired by the 

same ideals, have developed the same paradigm for Islamism. 

So this global expansionist Caliphate is the final shared element 

that all Islamists believe in, and they have made these four principles fundamental to the creed of Islam. So if a Muslim was to say 

that I do not believe the Shariah code should become state law, 

they would consider him a heretic or an apostate. Or if somebody 

was to say, I do not believe that Islam is a political ideology, they 

will consider there is something deviant in his creed. They have 

changed the religion to make the ideology itself the religion. 

Now, these shared elements, though common between all 

Islamists, this doesn’t imply that Islamists are all of one shade. 

Islamists do differ in their tactics and methodologies. I have identified three types of Islamists. They are first either political 

Islamists, who are those who use entry-level politics and tactics by 

working within the system through the ballot box to try and bring 

about this ideology. These are, by and large, people who are nonviolent, yet they have an ideological agenda. They are in some way 

a fifth column. Their agenda is to infiltrate the system and 

Islamize the system that they are working in. 

The second type of Islamist, again, from these four shared elements, are the revolutionary Islamists, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, the 

group that I was with, and their methodology is to infiltrate the 

militaries, to overthrow the regimes of the Middle East through 

8 

military coups, and those in this category do not believe in using 

the ballot box or working through the system. 

And the final category of Islamists are the militant Islamists, or 

the jihadists, who believe in an armed struggle against the status 

quo. 

Now, the order of these three is deliberate because they developed in this way. In the 1920s, the political Islamists came about, 

and through the reaction to them, especially in the Middle East, 

they eventually became more harsh, more severe, and formed into 

the revolutionary Islamists, or Hizb ut-Tahrir, and from there, 

again, through reaction, Hizb ut-Tahrir inspired the jihadist elements, and I know this personally because the assassins of Sadat 

who I served time with in prison, those who weren’t executed in 

the 1981 case, told me that their teacher was a man by the name 

of Salim al-Rahhal, a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir. 

I have to end there, so forgive me for—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Do you want to take a minute more and 

just finish what you wanted to say? 

Mr. NAWAZ. Sure. Thank you for that. So Salim al-Rahhal was 

a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir who taught—he was the instructor for 

the group that ended up assassinating Egyptian President Anwar 

Sadat. He was deported from Egypt and the group known as Talim 

al-Jihad was then formed by those very same people, but minus 

their instructor, they decided to then use a different tactic and that 

was of assassinations. 

I know this, as I said, because they spoke to me personally about 

these experiences, and Islamists developed through the torture in 

the Arab world from becoming political to revolutionary to 

jihadists. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who served time in the same prison 

that I was in, Mazra Tora prison, and Sayyid Qutb, who served 

time, again, in the same prison I was held, both had exposure to 

Hizb ut-Tahrir’s ideas. Hizb ut-Tahrir is graffitied on the walls of 

those prisons. 

Ayman al-Zawahiri used to adhere to the same military method 

of recruiting from the army officers to instigate a military coup, 

which is why he never joined al-Gama’a al-Islamiyyah in Egypt, 

who would go about through the direct action methodology of violence. These ideas came from Hizb ut-Tahrir. Ayman al-Zawahiri 

speaks about the notion of how we must: One, destroy Israel; two, 

overthrow every single Middle Eastern regime; and three, establish 

the Caliphate. In 1953, these exact same three principles were put 

out there by Sheikh Taqiuddin al-Nabhani, who was the founder of 

Hizb ut-Tahrir. And when you hear Ayman al-Zawahiri’s theory, it 

is exactly Hizb ut-Tahrir’s theory as articulated in 1953. 

Finishing off, I just wanted to mention very briefly about how 

this ideology of Islamism, as has been identified, mixes with grievances to lead to radicalization. There is a common misperception on 

the left in the U.K. whereby they only speak about grievances as 

a cause for radicalization. Now, I had my own grievances growing 

up in Essex. Many of my friends were attacked, violently assaulted 

by racists. My friends have been stabbed before my eyes, my white 

English friends, simply for associating with me. I have been falsely 

arrested on a number of occasions and released with an apology, 

and I have never been convicted of a criminal offense in any counVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:54 Dec 07, 2009 Jkt 044123 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\44123.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
9 

try in the world. I had my own grievances. What makes somebody, 

who has localized grievances, turn into somebody who identifies 

with a global struggle in a country that has nothing to do with 

him? 

And again, I want to give the analogy of communism. If you take 

a Marxist, when a Marxist analyzes the Northern Ireland conflict, 

what we refer to in the U.K. as The Troubles, or when a Marxist 

analyzes the Israel-Palestine conflict, he will analyze that conflict 

through a meta narrative, through a theory that he has adopted. 

So a Marxist cannot but see these conflicts in the theory of class 

conflicts, as class struggle. So a Marxist will speak about the 

Israel-Palestine conflict as a struggle between classes, the bourgeois versus the proletariat, and the same with the Northern Ireland struggle because the way in which the grievances are interpreted is through the framework or the prism that the ideology 

provides, and Islamists have the same thing. 

So in my case, with the racism I experienced in the U.K., or the 

nationalist conflict that was playing out in Bosnia, how from seeing 

these as localized conflicts that required local solutions into perceiving them as a global struggle, and that is because the ideology 

came and reinterpreted those grievances for me and provided a 

new framework. And that framework for Islamists, unlike in the 

case of Marxists where it is workers versus bourgeoisie, for the 

Islamists, it is what is known as the perennial struggle of the truth 

versus the falsehood, Muslims versus non-Muslims. 

My country’s intervention in Iraq is seen by Islamists as being 

solely inspired by non-Muslims who are attacking the Iraqis because they are Muslims. It is reinterpreting those grievances 

through that framework, and you can see how that framework will, 

in fact, end up in the radicalized person, the radicalized Muslim, 

in discovering grievances even if they weren’t there because the 

framework itself defines those grievances for him. 

And what is key for us to understand is the way in which the 

grievances interact with the ideology to lead to a whole new set of 

grievances, which for an Islamist can be summarized in one sentence, and that is that God’s law does not exist on this earth. 

I thank you. I have gone much over my time, so please, thank 

you very much for taking the time. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Nawaz. It was worth the 

extra time. Your testimony is very helpful, very clear, and I think 

very powerful. 

We now go to Dr. Peter Mandaville, a professor at George Mason 

University. Dr. Mandaville is the author of ‘‘Global Political Islam’’ 

and has done empirical research on how Islamist groups recruit in 

the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Thank you for being here and 

we welcome your testimony now. 

10 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Mandaville appears in the Appendix on page 57. 

TESTIMONY OF PETER P. MANDAVILLE, PH.D.,1 ASSOCIATE 

PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS, GEORGE 

MASON UNIVERSITY 

Mr. MANDAVILLE. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Collins, and 

distinguished Members of the Committee, in violent Islamist extremism, the United States faces a complex, little understood, and 

rapidly evolving threat. I am grateful for the opportunity to address this important issue this morning and to provide some background information that I hope will help us to locate violent 

Islamism within the much broader and diverse universe of contemporary Islamist political thought and activism. 

I would also like to address the phenomenon of Islamism in the 

West, more specifically in the United Kingdom, and the question of 

what the United States might be able to learn from the U.K.’s experience of dealing with Islamism in recent years. 

So as to leave maximum time for the panel to take your questions, I will limit my remarks this morning to a brief summary of 

several points contained within the longer written statement I have 

submitted, although Senator Collins effectively delivered my testimony in her opening remarks, so I may be able to shorten that a 

bit. 

Just as Islam cannot be said to be a monolith, the same goes for 

Islamism as an ideological project. While it is possible to identify 

certain key figures and groups as being central to the genealogy of 

modern Islamism, those who have subsequently drawn on their 

ideas or organized themselves in their mold have often done so in 

widely varying ways, interpreting and adapting their views to disparate and sometimes even mutually exclusive agendas. Thus, 

today we can say that the broad ideological current of Islamism 

manifests itself in activist agendas that span the complete spectrum from democratic politics to violent efforts aimed at imposing 

Shariah law worldwide. 

There is a tendency today among many analysts of Islamism to 

define this ideology by very narrow reference to the most militant 

phase of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s history. While activists and agitators holding to those extremist views can still be 

found today in the Muslim majority world, and also in Europe and 

in the United States, it would be inaccurate to characterize 

Islamism exclusively through them. 

Furthermore, it is important, I believe, to distinguish between 

the Muslim Brotherhood as a distinct organization and the Muslim 

Brotherhood as a broad current of thought. The two are not coterminous and the latter is far more diverse and varied in its ideational and activist manifestations. 

In seeking to identify root causes of extremist violence in the 

name of Islam, I think we also need to question today the extent 

to which the answer is to be found primarily in ideology. Millions 

of Muslims have read ‘‘Milestones,’’ the famous work of militant 

Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Sayyid Qutb, or have at some point 

come under the influence of Islamist ideology. Only an infinitesimally small number of them, however, have gone on to commit acts 

of violence. 

11 

While ideas are undoubtedly important, as Mr. Nawaz has mentioned, they will only drive certain individuals to action if articulated in terms that resonate with and seem to provide solutions 

that address perceived life circumstances and needs. In this regard, 

I believe the sociological and particularly the psychological contextualization of Islamist ideology holds the key to understanding 

the conditions under which it potentially poses a violent threat, a 

topic I believe Dr. Moghaddam will address in some detail. 

Based on my own study and direct observation of socialization 

processes in radical, although not directly violent, Islamist groups 

in the United Kingdom such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and al-Muhajiroun, 

I have identified the following factors as playing a particularly significant role in leading an individual to reconfigure his world view 

and aspirations in terms of the goals of the movement. Needless to 

say, the presence and relative importance of these factors can vary 

considerably from individual to individual. I hope also that raising 

these points will go some of the way towards answering the question that Mr. Nawaz ended on, that is, how it is that local grievances come to be articulated in terms of wider global projects. 

First, let me point briefly to some important generational differences around religion within Britain’s Muslim communities. 

Younger Muslims often see their parents’ sense of religiosity as out 

of touch and overly tainted by the cultures of the countries from 

which they emigrated. In contrast to this ‘‘village Islam,’’ as they 

call it, the younger generation looks for a universal approach to religion, untainted by sectarian bias and cultural baggage, and moreover, one that can address the specific problems they face living in 

the West. 

This search for a universal Islam, however, can cut two ways. On 

the one hand, it can lead them to emphasize those aspects of Islam 

that resonate with universal values, such as tolerance, openness, 

pluralism, etc., or they can be led to equate the search for universal 

Islam with a focus on global Muslim causes, civilizational struggles, and fantasies of a renewed Shariah-based Caliphate. 

Most worrying about the violent strains of Islamist ideology in 

my eyes is the fact that it travels so well. It is portable precisely 

because it is so decontextualized and unencumbered by local 

practicalities. It is very easy under the right circumstances for almost any Muslim anywhere to see himself reflected in its story. 

Second, radical groups depend and prey upon those whose knowledge of religion is relatively weak. To this end, they will frequently 

target new converts to Islam or those who were born Muslim but 

whose sense of religiosity was only awakened later in life. Thus, 

someone steeped in traditional Islamic learning is actually better 

equipped with the resources needed to recognize the fraudulent and 

often decontextualized ideas that radical groups try to circulate as 

supposedly authentic Islamic knowledge. To this end, we might 

consider to what extent a scaling up of the right kind of religious 

education, rather than a wholesale deemphasizing of Islamic education in favor of secular subjects, might be an effective tool in 

countering violent Islamism. 

Third, Islamist radicalism often succeeds in providing a sense of 

identity, purpose, and a framework through which to participate in 

confrontational politics. It is often particularly appealing to those 

12 

of hybrid or mixed identity who are well educated and newly attuned to global political issues, that is, easily influenced young people trying to find a way for themselves in the world. As we already 

know, recruitment into radical movements, particularly in the 

West, does not correlate with socio-economic disenfranchisement or 

low levels of educational attainment. Quite the opposite. 

Those drawn to these ideologies often have a sense of Muslims 

as an oppressed group, drawing on, in the case of the U.K., a very 

tangible and real sense of social discrimination, even where they do 

not have first-hand experience of this discrimination themselves. In 

other words, there is a displaced political consciousness that convinces itself that it must fight on behalf of those who cannot fight 

for themselves. 

Finally, moving now beyond the more structured environment of 

known Islamist groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and into the lesscharted waters of what Marc Sageman recently called ‘‘leaderless 

jihad,’’ it is in my mind increasingly debatable whether we are 

dealing with a full and systematic political ideology as our chief 

nemesis in the realm of ideas or whether an increasing number of 

young Muslims drawn to violent extremism are doing something 

more akin to role playing themselves within a grand narrative of 

inter-civilizational struggle, or aspiring to some kind of superhero 

status, taking their pointers from larger-than-life figures in video 

games, movies, and popular culture as much as from religious 

scholars and systematic political ideologies. Such a trend, I believe, 

would represent a particularly dangerous development because it 

would point to the possibility of an individual moving very quickly 

to a point where he is willing to use violence without having to be 

systematically staged through various levels of ideological 

radicalization. 

Let me conclude this morning by making three broad points. 

First, we were asked to address the question of how a more indepth understanding of the ideology of violent Islamism can improve America’s national security. We need to recognize that violent Islamism is part of a wider ecology of Muslim and Islamist 

thought and practice. By developing a better understanding of that 

ecology, we will have a greater capacity to discern who else within 

that ecosystem has the capacity to work against the growth of the 

extremist current. I believe that our efforts thus far to address this 

question have failed to think effectively and creatively about the 

question of potential Muslim partners and allies. 

Moreover, and although it may seem counterintuitive to say so, 

I would suggest that some of the most valuable contributions to 

combatting terrorism in the name of Islam have and can come from 

those who have passed through or who operate on the fringes of 

Islamist groups and movements. This is, however, very complex 

territory, riddled with many, and sometimes dangerous, shades of 

gray. 

Second, I would like to highlight what I have consistently emphasized to be the growing importance and concern that I have 

around groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir in the post-September 11, 

2001, and July 7, 2005 environments. HT in the U.K. has responded very effectively to the polarizing political environment 

around Islam and Muslims. In recent years, the group has also unVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:54 Dec 07, 2009 Jkt 044123 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\44123.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
13 

dergone something of a cosmetic makeover so as to render it palatable to a constituency beyond the angry university cohorts that 

were its mainstay in the 1990s. 

While it publicly recants violence and while the number of active 

HT members may not be swelling, I think it is fair to say that the 

ranks of the group’s passive supporters have increased considerably 

in recent years. And while HT may not be the direct conveyor belt 

into terrorism that some have implied, there is no doubt that the 

world view it espouses is particularly divisive and can render its 

followers ripe for cultivation by the enablers of militant agendas. 

Given the particular expertise and experience of two of our other 

panelists this morning, I am sure we will be hearing more about 

this group. 

Finally, we should consider the question of what the United 

States might be able to learn from the U.K. experience with radical 

Islam. In this regard, I think it would be particularly useful to look 

at some of the pros and cons of various policy responses of the U.S. 

Government and law enforcement agencies and also the efforts of 

various Muslim organizations in the U.K., also to mixed result. In 

the interest of time, I will not be able to provide a full inventorying 

of what has and hasn’t worked in the U.K. in terms of policy and 

around Muslim organizations, but would be more than happy to 

answer questions on this issue. 

In my written statement, I addressed the crucial differences between Muslim communities in the U.K. and the United States in 

terms of levels of socio-economic attainment and social integration. 

On the surface, it would seem that many of the factors that allow 

violent Islamist ideologies to find a receptive audience in Europe 

are simply not present in the United States, and yet the number 

of abortive plots and arrests made in this country over the past few 

years suggest that the potential for homegrown terrorism exists 

here, as well. 

While thus far these seem to be largely isolated incidents with 

little evidence of a more systematic trend at work, it is likely that 

we will continue to see efforts by limited numbers of American 

Muslims inhabiting the dense mediascapes of YouTube, online social networking, and jihadi websites to try to bring their violent 

fantasies to fruition. While the theory of leaderless jihad means 

that this kind of activity will be increasingly difficult for any government or law enforcement agency to detect, it is not all about 

self-starter, do-it-yourself terrorism. Enablers of militancy and divisive Islamist activists still play a role in priming the environment, 

and where the individuals, entities, and spaces to which they operate can be discerned, action can be taken. 

Thank you for your attention and again for the opportunity to 

address the Committee this morning. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much, Dr. Mandaville. 

Excellent statement, and I promise you we will in the question and 

answer period ask you to talk some about what your studies of the 

activities of the government in the U.K. have shown and what they 

tell us about what might work here and what might not. Thank 

you. 

Our next witness is Ms. Zeyno Baran, the Director of the Center 

on Eurasian Policy and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, 

14 

1The article appears in the Appendix on page 119. 

2The prepared statement of Ms. Baran appears in the Appendix on page 68. 

where she researches strategies aimed at stemming the spread of 

radical Islamist ideologies, particularly in Europe. Ms. Baran has 

done a great deal of research also on the Muslim Brotherhood 

movement around the world, including here in the United States, 

and in February published an article entitled, ‘‘The Muslim Brotherhood’s US Network,’’ which I would enter into the record of this 

hearing in full.1

Thank you for being here and we welcome your testimony now. 

TESTIMONY OF ZEYNO BARAN,2 SENIOR FELLOW AND DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR EURASIAN POLICY, HUDSON INSTITUTE 

Ms. BARAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Collins, 

and Senator Voinovich. Thank you for the opportunity to appear 

before you today. I would like to submit my written statement, 

please, and summarize. 

I will very briefly discuss what is at the root of violent Islamist 

extremism, which I believe is Islamist ideology. Mr. Nawaz has explained it in great detail, so I am grateful to him and I will skip 

certain parts of my presentation. Second, I will talk about the institutionalization of Islamism in America, which is, I think, a very serious problem, a growing problem. And finally, I will highlight 

some areas in which I think the U.S. Government has adopted selfdefeating policies and then suggest some alternatives. 

I understand for most Americans, dealing with Islamism is extremely difficult because it is associated with Islam. Very few people dare to question beliefs or actions of Muslims because nobody 

wants to be called a bigot or an Islamophobe. That is why we need 

to be very clear. What needs to be countered is Islamism, the political ideology, not Islam, the religion. 

The religion itself is compatible with secular liberal democracy 

and basic civil liberties. The political ideology, however, is diametrically opposed to liberal democracy because it dictates that Islamic 

law, Shariah, to be the only basis for the legal and political system 

that governs the world’s economic, social, and judicial mechanisms 

and that Islam must shape all aspects of life. Although various 

Islamist groups differ over tactics, they all agree on the end game: 

A world dictated by political Islam. While many do not openly call 

for violence, they provide an ideological springboard for future violence. 

The first modern Islamist movement, as we know, is the Muslim 

Brotherhood, and numerous splinter groups came out of it, often 

more radical, and they have in turn given rise to yet more splinter 

groups. So consequently, there is now an exponential growth of 

fairly radical Islamist organizations active all over the world, including in cyberspace. Of course, not all Islamists will one day become terrorists, but all Islamist terrorists start with non-violent 

Islamism. 

For example, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11, 2001, was first drawn to violent jihad after attending 

Brotherhood youth camps. In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood’s motto 

says it all: Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The 

15 

Koran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is 

our highest hope. 

Islamism is ultimately a long-term social engineering project. 

The eventual Islamization of the world is to be enacted via a bottom-up process. Initially, the individual is Islamized into becoming 

a true Muslim. The process requires the person to reject Western 

norms of pluralism, individual rights, and the secular rule of law. 

The process continues as the individual’s family is transformed, followed by the society, and then the state. Finally, the entire world 

is expected to live and be governed by Islamist principles. So it is 

this ideology machinery that works to promote separation, sedition, 

and hatred, and that is at the core of Islamist violent extremism. 

I think it is important to underline that violent Islamists believe 

they are engaged in what is called a defensive jihad, which has 

broad acceptance among many Muslims. The logic is that under 

‘‘just war theory,’’ armed jihad can be waged when Muslims and 

Islam is under attack. And since the West is waging war against 

Islam, if not militarily then culturally, Muslims have an obligation 

to participate in a defensive jihad. 

Now, let me very briefly discuss two Brotherhood splinter groups 

to show how these groups progressively become more radical. Hizb 

ut-Tahrir (HT), was founded by a Brotherhood member who over 

time wanted to use a more radical methodology and started his 

own organization. HT’s key focus has been the creation of a worldwide Islamic community, Ummah, and the reestablishment of the 

Caliphate. For many decades, these ideas were considered extreme. 

More recently, they have been adapted as mainstream by most 

Islamists. 

HT members claim to want freedom and justice; but the freedom 

they want is, I believe, freedom from democracy, and the justice 

they want can only be found under Islamist rule. Under such rule, 

Muslims who do not abide by Shariah law will be, in their terms, 

considered as apostates and liable to punishment according to Islamic law. Or to put it more directly, they will be executed. 

The freedom and justice HT seeks by overthrowing democracy 

can often only be attained through violence. However, HT is not 

likely to take up terrorism itself. Terrorist acts are simply not part 

of its mission. HT exists to serve as an ideological and political 

training ground for Islamists. That is why I have called them a 

conveyor belt to terrorism. In order to best accomplish this goal, 

HT will remain non-violent, acting within the legal system of the 

countries in which it operates. Actually the same can be said about 

many of the Islamist organizations, including the Brotherhood. 

These groups do not need to become terrorists because winning the 

hearts and minds is much more effective in achieving the ultimate 

goal. But, of course, they do not rule out the use of force if they 

cannot establish their Caliphate via non-violent means. 

HT has led to the formation of even more radical and militant 

groups than itself, such as al-Muhajiroun. The founder, again, was 

at first with the Muslim Brotherhood, then became an Hizb utTahrir member, and when he had a falling out with the leadership 

of HT over tactics, he formed an even more radical organization. 

Note that the difference in all these splits was not about ideas or 

ultimate goal. It was about how best to achieve them. 

16 

Al-Muhajiroun has direct links to Osama bin Laden, to Hamas 

and Hezbollah, and blatantly advocates for terrorist acts. Over the 

years, it has sent hundreds of British men to Afghanistan and 

Pakistan for jihadi training. Some of those came back and attacked 

their homeland on July 7, 2005. 

Now, as we know, people don’t just wake up one day and randomly decide to commit a violent act. There is almost always a 

process of radicalization and a network of like-minded people who 

become enablers. In the West, Muslims undergoing an identity crisis are the most vulnerable. There are also those who are perfectly 

well adjusted and integrated and simply want to learn more about 

their religion. If these well-meaning citizens end up getting their 

information from Islamists, they, too, can become radicalized over 

time, and that is precisely why we need to be concerned that the 

most prominent Muslim organizations in America were either created by or are associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and are, 

therefore, very heavily influenced by Islamist ideology. In fact, over 

the course of four decades, Islamists have taken over the leadership in almost all Islam-related areas in America, and today, as a 

recent New York Police Department (NYPD) report also stated, 

there is a serious homegrown threat in the United States. 

How did this happen? Muslim Brotherhood members from the 

Middle East and South Asia began coming to the United States in 

the 1960s as students, and then they received money and other 

support from the Gulf, mostly from the Saudis, to undertake a 

whole range of activities to change the perception of Islamism and 

Wahhabism in America from extremist to mainstream. And I think 

they have been fairly successful. 

Following the bottom-up approach that I mentioned, focusing on 

education, the first organizations were created in America were the 

Muslim Student Associations in universities. After they graduated, 

the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) was created in order to 

expand these radical ideas, and extend the influence of Islamism 

beyond college campuses. In the 1980s, several other prominent 

Islamist organizations were created, including the Islamic Society 

of North America (ISNA), the Islamic Association for Palestine 

(IAP), and after Hamas was created in 1987 in Gaza, the IAP became its leading representative in North America. 

There are a whole set of other organizations that can be added 

to this list. I will just mention the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which I believe was created by the Brotherhood to 

influence the U.S. Government, Congress, Non-government organizations (NGOs), along with academic and media groups. Despite 

being founded by leading Islamists, CAIR has successfully portrayed itself as a mainstream Muslim organization over the past 15 

years and has been treated as such by many government officials, 

including Presidents Clinton and Bush. 

What is critically important in all these organizations is their 

support for one another. The same leaders appear in multiple organizations, tend to have familiar relations, and move within the 

same closed, trusted circles. Outwardly, they all appear to be different entities, but they are actually part of a carefully planned 

Islamization effort. 

17 

It is also very important to note that despite their outwardly 

moderate positions, NAIT, ISNA, and CAIR were all named as 

unindicted co-conspirators in a Federal case against the Holy Land 

Foundation for Relief and Development, which was charged with 

providing millions of dollars to Hamas. This trial provided us with 

a shocking set of documents. One document outlining the general 

strategic goal for the group in America explains that Muslims in 

America should consider their mission as a ‘‘civilization jihadist’’ 

responsibility, which they describe as a kind of grand jihad in 

‘‘eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within 

and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands 

of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made 

victorious over all other religions.’’ Clearly, in this case, jihad is not 

intended to be an inner personal struggle as it is often claimed by 

Islamists when they must explain when they are caught in calling 

for jihad. 

Therefore it is not surprising that large sections of the institutionalized Islamic leadership in America do not support U.S. 

counterterrorism policy. Far from it. They denounce virtually every 

terrorism indictment or investigation as a religiously motivated attack on Islam instead of considering whether the individual in 

question actually broke any laws. They instinctively blame legal accusations on McCarthyism or anti-Muslim conspiracies. 

So coming back to the title of this hearing, how can the U.S. 

counter this extremism and who can be the partners in this effort? 

First and foremost, U.S. Government entities and all those individuals tasked with so-called Muslim outreach need to know who they 

are dealing with before bestowing legitimacy on them as moderate 

Muslims. There have already been rather embarrassing cases of 

top government officials, including Presidents, posing with their 

moderate Muslim friends, only to find later that the person was 

providing funding to enemies of the United States. 

Many of the American Islamic organizations are established to 

further a political agenda. They are not civil rights groups. They 

are not faith groups. They are political entities with a very clear 

political agenda. Without this understanding, I believe all kinds of 

mistakes will continue to be made. For example, for months now, 

FBI agents have been trained by CAIR to be sensitive to Muslims. 

This is completely self-defeating. 

Second, it is an Islamist myth that U.S. support and engagement 

for truly moderate Muslims would discredit these Muslims in the 

eyes of the community. This, I believe, is a trick to keep the United 

States away from non-Islamists while the Islamists continue to 

enjoy all kinds of access and influence. Islamists thrive on U.S. 

support and engagement, which effectively legitimizes their self-appointed status as representatives of the Muslim community. This 

engagement also legitimizes their self-appointed ability to judge 

the Muslimness of others. 

Third, the mantra that only non-violent Islamists can pull 

radicalized Muslims away from terrorism is completely illogical. 

The reason that these people were radicalized is Islamist ideology. 

If the Brotherhood and related groups could keep these people 

under control, they would have done so already. These people either left Brotherhood organizations or do not want to be affiliated 

18 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Moghaddam appears in the Appendix on page 83. 

with them precisely because they have moved on to more radical 

platforms. So, as long as Islamism is actively spread, its ideas will 

continue to wreak havoc. 

The only true allies in countering an ideology that is fundamentally opposed to America and its ideas are those Muslims who 

share American ideas, or at the very least do not work to undermine them. This group includes the pious and the practicing, the 

liberal, the secular, and the cultural ones; the quiet but still the 

overwhelming majority of American Muslims. The Muslims that 

need active support are non-Islamist Muslims who understand the 

inherent incompatibility between Islamism’s desired imposition of 

Shariah law upon society at large and Western society’s pluralism 

and equality. Non-Islamist Muslims are on the American side on 

the war of ideas. They can be practicing or not. That is irrelevant. 

After all, the issues the terrorists raise to gain support are often 

unrelated to Islam as a religion. 

I can go on and on, but I am already over my time, so in closing, 

I would like to underline that to effectively counter the further 

spread of violent manifestations of Islamism, the United States 

needs to seriously engage in countering the Islamist ideology and 

I believe a good start would be to reveal the deception of the 

Islamists, especially in America, and start working with true allies. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much, Ms. Baran. That 

was, as somebody else would say, straight talk. I appreciate your 

testimony. I appreciate your courage, frankly, and we look forward 

to asking you questions, particularly about the line of your testimony regarding how the government finds organizations of what 

you have described as non-Islamist Muslim Americans. 

The final witness on this quite remarkable panel is Dr. Ali 

Moghaddam, a professor at Georgetown University and Director of 

the Conflict Resolution Program, also a Senior Fellow at the Center 

for Policy Education and Research on Terrorism. Dr. Moghaddam, 

thank you for being here and please proceed with your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF FATHALI M. MOGHADDAM, PH.D.,1 PROFESSOR, 

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY, AND DIRECTOR, CONFLICT 

RESOLUTION PROGRAM, DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT, 

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 

Mr. MOGHADDAM. Chairman Lieberman, Ranking Member Collins, and Senator Voinovich, thank you for the invitation. Because 

ideology is a major focus here, let me begin by clarifying my own 

biases. Like hundreds of millions of other Muslims, I am hopeful 

that Islamic societies around the world, including in the Middle 

East, will move toward more openness in political, economic, and 

cultural terms. The open democratic Islamic society will be more 

peaceful, more productive, more affluent, more just for both women 

and men, and better for the global economy. To a significant degree, the higher oil prices are a result of the dictatorships, monopolies, corruption, and lack of open competition and inefficiency. 

But to achieve a more open Islamic society, we need to overcome 

violent Islamist extremism. That is one of the obstacles. In order 

19 

to evaluate this particular obstacle, I find it instructive to review 

the letter of invitation I received for this panel, which states the 

purpose of the Senate hearing to be to explore the ideologies as the 

root source for the radicalization of potential followers of al-Qaeda 

and other Islamist terrorist organizations around the world. 

I believe it is useful to critically assess the assumption that an 

ideology is the root source for the radicalization of potential followers of al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist organizations 

around the world. An ideology does not exist in a vacuum, nor does 

it arise in a vacuum, nor is it static, as religion is not static. Christianity 1,000 years ago was very different from Christianity today 

and we hope Islam will change in the direction that is more constructive, away from Islamist ideology, obviously. 

In the Georgetown University libraries, there are hundreds of 

books that write about very fanatical ideologies, including fundamentalist Christian ideologies that could be used to launch terrorist attacks. Why is it that Georgetown students do not become 

terrorists? Well, clearly, because the availability of violent Islamist 

ideology serves as a necessary but not a sufficient cause for terrorist action. 

We must ask, then, what are the factors that combine with a 

particular ideology to lead to violent Islamist extremism? How does 

an ideology supportive of violent Islamist extremism come to influence individuals to support and commit terrorist acts? I have addressed this question by adopting a big picture approach, exploring 

radicalization and terrorism in the context of both cultural evolution and globalization. 

In order to clarify my viewpoint, I find it useful to use a staircase 

metaphor. Think of a building with a staircase at its center. There 

are many floors and people are on these different floors. There are 

approximately 1.2 billion Muslims on the ground floor. On each of 

the floors that lead up to a terrorist act, there are different psychological processes. I have gone into the details in my written statement. For here, what I will do is just summarize. 

The millions of Muslims on the ground floor, they are, of course, 

potentially influenced by violent Islamist ideology, but there are 

many other factors. Some of the factors that I have explored are 

perceived injustice, relative deprivation, identity and inadequate 

identity in the Islamic world. I have argued that Islamic communities around the world are experiencing an identity crisis. Before 

us as Muslims, there seem to be two viable options at the moment. 

One option is to copy the West. The other option is to become a 

Salafist or to return to pure Islam. 

Now, why is there not a third alternative option? That is a very 

important question, particularly in Middle East. Why is there not 

a secular constructive alternative option? Well, the simple answer 

is that the regimes of that region in particular do not allow for a 

separate option. If you are in Egypt and you happen to be a secular 

politician, particularly during election time, you had better hide because you will either end up dead or in prison or you must escape 

abroad. So the potential for a third constructive identity, particularly in the near and Middle East, which is at the heart of the matter, is not there at the moment. I am going to come back to this 

later. 

20 

So in the staircase of terrorism, the few people who do go and 

commit terrorist acts, they are influenced by many factors other 

than or in addition to the violent Islamist ideology. 

Let me now turn to specifically the idea of homegrown terrorism. 

I discuss this particularly in relation to what I call the distance 

traveled hypothesis. The distance traveled hypothesis simply states 

that the distance that an immigrant has to travel to reach an 

adopted land is very much related to the material resources needed. If you are coming from North Africa or the Middle East to the 

United States, you need a great deal more resources than to reach 

Turkey or France or England. 

If you look at the Muslim population in the United States, generally, this population is well educated relative to the indigenous 

population. It is relatively well off. The perception of openness in 

the United States is very important. Muslims in the United States 

in major centers such as Detroit and Los Angeles are doing relatively well. They perceive the system to be open in general and 

that is a very important factor. 

Another important factor related to the relative well-being of 

Muslims in the United States is that Muslims here are at a greater 

distance from the centers of radical Islamist ideology, such as Pakistan. This is a very different situation from Muslims in Germany, 

France, or England. And the historic advantage of the United 

States in assimilating immigrants—this is another factor to keep 

in mind. I am an immigrant to the United States and I have been 

an immigrant—I lived in England for a long time. I lived in Canada for 6 years. Relative to those countries, the United States is 

far better at incorporating and integrating immigrants. And part of 

the magic here is the American dream, the ideology that anyone 

can make it. 

Let me turn now to the final part of my testimony, and that concerns a huge challenge confronting the United States, particularly 

in the global context. This challenge has arisen because of 

globalization. 

Back in 1944, the great Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal published a work that we all know, ‘‘An American Dilemma.’’ Myrdal 

pointed out that there was a contradiction between American ideology in terms of self-help, individual responsibility, equality of opportunity, freedom, etc., on the one hand, and racial discrimination 

on the other. Myrdal pointed out that this was a huge dilemma 

that would have to be resolved, and it was resolved. Eventually 

through legislation, through cultural reform, we have achieved 

equality in terms of opportunities in the United States. 

There is now a new global American dilemma. This dilemma is 

confronting us because, on the one hand, we have had in the last 

three decades at least a rhetoric of support for democracy, support 

for freedom, support for equality, etc., a rhetoric that says that democracy is not unique to the West or a monopoly of the West but 

should spread everywhere. On the one hand, we have this rhetoric. 

On the other hand, successive U.S. administrations have continued 

to support dictatorships in many countries in the Middle East. This 

dilemma has to be resolved because globalization would not allow 

it to continue, and I believe that it doesn’t matter whether it is a 

21 

Democrat or a Republican or an Independent in the White 

House—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. [Laughter.] 

Mr. MOGHADDAM. What we need is a resolution of this conflict, 

of this dilemma, because the dilemma is reverberating around the 

world. 

If you go to the streets of Muslim countries in the Middle East, 

in North Africa, if you go to the Muslim communities in France, 

the South Asians in England, the Turks in Germany, you will find 

that in the communities there, they discuss this dilemma, and it 

needs to be resolved. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Doctor. Very thoughtful testimony. You have been an excellent panel and I thank you all. 

We will start with a 7-minute round of questions by the Members. There may be a vote going off around 11, so hopefully we will 

each get in a round before we have to go over. 

Mr. Nawaz, again, thank you for being here. I have many questions so I am going to ask you and the others if you can keep your 

answers as brief as possible and still respond. I wanted to ask you, 

just in terms of your own experience, take a brief moment and tell 

us about how you were radicalized at college. In other words, what 

was the process? You mentioned in your testimony you had adequate grounds for grievance in your personal experience, but how 

did the radicalization process by HT occur? 

Mr. NAWAZ. I can summarize that in two points, and that is a 

crisis of identity and a crisis of faith. Being born and raised in the 

U.K., growing up in Essex in the early 1990s, there were a lot of 

racist troubles in my home county and there were an organized 

group of racist thugs who would target us with violence. And so the 

questions arose in my mind as to exactly who I was. Was I British? 

Was I English? Was I Pakistani, which is the country of my grandfather? Was I Muslim? 

So these combined with the problems in the mosques—the 

imams of the mosques in those days were, and still are to a large 

extent today, imported from the Indian subcontinent. The standards of their education were poor relative to standards in the Indian subcontinent, let alone to the standards in the U.K. The tradition over there is that somebody who fails in his education is sent 

to become a mosque imam, and that is if he fails in his education 

in Pakistan. And yet this man comes to the U.K. who can’t speak 

English and he is expected to lead a congregation in a mosque with 

the vast majority of the people that pray in the mosque being 

second- or third-generation British citizens who only speak English. 

So these two elements combined in me to create a crisis of both 

identity and faith, and Bosnia, as I mentioned earlier, was playing 

out in Europe, and up until that point, I had identified these problems purely as racial and Bosnia for the first time brought to the 

fore that there were white European Muslims, blond-haired, blueeyed, who were being slaughtered despite the fact that they were 

Europeans. 

And it was at the vulnerable stage, being a teenager, being 15, 

16 years old, that I happened across a medical student who didn’t 

have any of the obstacles in communication that the mosque imams 

had. He was a medical student, again, educated in the U.K., who 

22 

could relate to my problems and had joined Hizb ut-Tahrir in London when he went to study. And he came across very articulately 

and provided the answers to the crises I had in my identity and 

faith and demonstrated that, in fact, my identity wasn’t British 

and it wasn’t Pakistani but these are, in fact, identities given to 

me by colonialists. My identity was something pre-colonial, and 

that was belonging to the global Caliphate. So he provided an ideology that gave me black-and-white answers to the very real grievances that I faced. 

Hizb ut-Tahrir’s (HT) process of indoctrination is quite intense. 

A member is expected to sit for two solid hours minimum every 

week in what they refer to as a study cell, and discuss and engage 

in debate in this ideology, and that is a mandatory requirement for 

members of HT. And then when he becomes a member of the party, 

he is also expected to teach for a further two hours for his own cell, 

and that is the minimum and it will obviously be more than that 

if he is committed. 

So this indoctrination phase involves recalibrating those grievances, which are initially localized grievances, and turning them 

into something which is identified with a global struggle, and I 

think that we can’t miss either of these. We have to consider the 

role that real grievances play in providing recruits who are not yet 

ideologues in joining the ranks of Islamist organizations and then 

the role that the ideology plays in reframing those grievances and 

turning them into some notion of a global or perennial conflict. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I appreciate that answer very much. 

Ms. Baran made a statement. Obviously, we are talking here 

about distinguishing between the religion of Islam and the political 

ideology of Islamism. She said something I thought quite direct and 

provocative and important, which is, and I paraphrase, that all 

Islamist terrorists start with non-violent Islamism. Would you 

agree with that? 

Mr. NAWAZ. One hundred percent. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me now go to your definition of 

Islamism, the four characteristics you cited. Consistent with what 

we just said, these are not necessarily all of them violent, but they 

may be the precursor to violence. I was particularly struck, and I 

have been through this but I want you to talk about it, that you 

said that those who adopt the Islamist ideology are committed to 

making Shariah state law. So do we understand from that that the 

members of Islamist groups in the U.K., or in the United States, 

who themselves are not violent nonetheless are committed to making Shariah law the law of the U.K. or the United States as opposed to the existing law? 

Mr. NAWAZ. Again, this is an ideational discussion, so in terms 

of practicalities and tactics, the groups will differ. Hizb ut-Tahrir 

does not target the Western world to establish the Shariah as state 

law. Rather, they don’t even target the whole Muslim world. What 

they have decided to do practicality-wise is identify key countries, 

Turkey being one of them, Egypt being another, Syria being another. Iraq used to be one of them until the intervention there. 

Pakistan definitely is one of them, which is why I was sent there 

when they acquired a nuclear bomb. 

23 

They target key countries. If you notice with all these countries, 

they have military strength, and they target those countries with 

the purpose of gaining power first in those countries, which they 

call the starting point. The intention after that is to expand and 

then encompass the surrounding lands and eventually the whole 

world. 

Now, that is HT. The Brotherhood’s organization, the Brotherhood has a similar understanding—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. The Muslim Brotherhood? 

Mr. NAWAZ. The Muslim Brotherhood. They will target the Muslim world first and with a view to establishing side by side a federation of Islamic countries, which will then all eventually become 

one and then expand from there. 

The purpose of these organizations in the West, I again summarize into three points, and that is to recruit, and those recruits can 

then be sent back to Muslim-majority countries, as I was, to recruit 

in those Muslim-majority countries and they have the standing in 

society as being educated in the West, as speaking English, as 

being relatively more wealthy, and so they command that immediate respect. 

The second aim is to raise funds. Now, the Pound Sterling goes 

a very long way in Pakistan, I can assure you. It goes quite far 

here in the United States, as well. So it is to raise funds. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Farther than we would like. [Laughter.] 

Mr. NAWAZ. That is to my advantage. And the third is act as a 

political and diplomatic hub. London especially is the center for the 

international Arab media. Now, even before I left HT, I appeared 

on the media regularly, and in fact, BBC’s ‘‘Hard Talk’’ interviewed 

me and I was able to use that as a platform to project what was 

even at the time a relatively moderate version of HT’s ideology to 

my own internal confusions. However, HT and other Islamist organizations, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, have been very 

successful in using the Western countries as a media and diplomatic hub. 

So those three general strands are what they are looking to 

achieve. But the establishment of the Shariah law as state law is 

focused on, for practical purposes, the Muslim-majority countries 

with a view to expanding after that. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Very helpful. I am really out of time, but 

I want to give you, Ms. Baran, just a moment to get into this discussion, if you want to add anything to Mr. Nawaz’s characteristics 

of Islamism as opposed to Islam, and if you want to say anything 

about what you take to be the goals of the Islamist movement within the United States. 

Ms. BARAN. I agree with Mr. Nawaz. One thing I would like to 

add is that I am originally from Turkey, one of the countries where 

the groups would like to establish Shariah law. When I was growing up there, a very different understanding of Islam was mainstream. And when I first came to this country, I was quite surprised that I saw so much Islamism at university campuses, and 

I do believe, because I was also very actively involved as a student 

activist during the Bosnian war, if it wasn’t for my background in 

a different type of an Islamic upbringing, I probably would have 

joined one of the radical organizations—probably Hizb ut-Tahrir. 

24 

In the West, including in the United States, the focus is to enable having the Shariah law for Muslim communities—so having 

Shariah for American Muslims, having Shariah in certain parts of 

Britain for British Muslims. We see more and more of these discussions coming up. In Canada several years ago, it came very close. 

I think as these groups increase their activity, we will probably 

hear more demands for Shariah for American Muslims. They will 

say it will be compatible with the American legal system and probably there will be analogies made with Jewish traditions and others. But, of course, the big difference is what Mr. Nawaz said; that 

normally, you don’t try to impose your belief on the whole society 

and community. The West, including the United States, is now the 

best place for Islamists because of the openness, and of the tolerance of many different ways of living. This is where the Islamist 

communities get organized, funded, provide the structure, but the 

focus still is to change the Muslim-majority countries. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much. Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. Ms. Baran, you gave us a very different picture this morning of the efforts of FBI agents to reach out 

to the Muslim community in our country. In previous hearings, witnesses have generally pointed to the FBI effort as being the model 

of outreach to the Muslim community. By contrast, in your testimony today, you stated, for months now, FBI agents have been 

trained by CAIR to be sensitive to Muslims, which you say is completely self-defeating. Could you expand on why you think the 

FBI’s effort is not an appropriate and worthwhile one? 

Ms. BARAN. Sure. Thank you. As I mentioned, CAIR was created 

by Muslim Brotherhood organizations. It has ideological and other 

connections to groups like Hamas. It does not represent the Muslim 

community as a faith community; it is mostly focused on political 

issues. Often, we hear CAIR raising, for example, civil rights 

issues. But if you look at the cases, it is almost exclusively of those 

Muslims who are following a particular Islamist way of thinking. 

Issues about Muslims that are not Islamist or don’t follow a particular way of thinking are hardly ever raised. 

So I can give many other examples, but ultimately, it is about 

what CAIR will define as sensitive, being properly respectful and 

sensitive to Muslims. If, indeed, the Islamist thinking is the way 

as Mr. Nawaz outlined, then the agents are going to be misinformed and they will be overly sensitive and they will not be able 

to ask certain questions or go in certain directions. They are going 

to be told whatever they want to ask or do will be offensive to Muslims: It is in Islam. Don’t touch this. Don’t go there. So I believe 

they are not going to be properly prepared for the work they need 

to be doing. There are other ways to reach Muslim communities. 

It is not just through CAIR, I believe. 

Senator COLLINS. Whom should the FBI be dealing with? 

Ms. BARAN. Well, if the issue is to reach to communities—— 

Senator COLLINS. Right. 

Ms. BARAN [continuing]. Then other community organizations. 

There are women’s groups. There are all kinds of groups that are 

not organized based on an Islamic political issue. There are other 

forums; a whole set of non-Islamist-based organizations. 

25 

Now, going back to Chairman Lieberman’s question, where do 

you find those non-Islamist Muslims, or Muslim organizations? 

Well, as I said, some of these organizations that are there now and 

are easy to work with, they have been created over a period of decades with billions of dollars coming from the Gulf. So there is this 

established network and structure and money already there. 

The alternative never has gotten support. This foundation that 

Mr. Nawaz is involved in was only created in January of this year, 

after there were homegrown terrorist attacks in Britain and after 

British citizens had to say, what is going on, and after people like 

him left these radical organizations. We don’t have that in America 

at this point. 

Again, if you look at the NYPD report, there are many cases of 

homegrown extremism. We have been lucky that some of those terror attempts simply have not been successful. But I think at some 

point, hopefully soon, there will be people coming out and denouncing the ideology, but then the question is: Will they get money, will 

they get support? There is no money outside government support. 

The British government started to understand this and now supports organizations that are trying to help Britain. They have to 

somehow counter the money coming from the Gulf with other 

money. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. Let me ask the two professors 

what you think of the FBI’s outreach efforts, whether you share the 

concerns that we have just heard. I will start with you, Dr. 

Mandaville. 

Mr. MANDAVILLE. Thank you, Senator Collins. I am not familiar 

with the specifics of the CAIR training program for the FBI and 

so the answer to the question, I think, would depend very much on 

what is going on in those sessions. If they are primarily aimed at 

providing basic information about Islam, Muslims, the basic beliefs, 

issues of cultural sensitivity, that is one matter. 

I don’t share the view that CAIR as an organization is best understood primarily as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood, whose 

core agenda is about the realization of that ideological project. I do 

believe that there are individuals associated with that movement 

who hold those views, but I think we would be wrong to simply 

characterize the organization in its entirety in relation to that organization. 

Senator COLLINS. Professor Moghaddam. 

Mr. MOGHADDAM. I agree with Dr. Mandaville. I would also add 

that we are really looking at short-term issues here. I mean, in the 

longer term, the key to changing the situation, I believe, is to 

change the situation of Muslim women, and the way to do that is 

to make sure they have greater opportunities for equal participation in economic, political, cultural life outside the home, and when 

you do that, you transform the family, you transform the socialization of the next generation. 

The FBI agents that I know, some of whom have been my students, former students, I don’t think they would have problems 

cross-examining Muslims in any way. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. Mr. Nawaz, I have very little time 

left, but let me just read an excerpt from a report that I found very 

intriguing. In December 2007, the Dutch intelligence agency issued 

26 

a report warning that the Muslim Brotherhood has a strategy of 

covertly infiltrating social, political, and educational institutions, 

and the report went on to state, ‘‘rather than confronting the state 

power with direct violence, this strategy seeks to gradually undermine the state by infiltrating and eventually taking over civil service, the judiciary schools, local administrative units.’’ Do you think 

that is an accurate reflection of what the Muslim Brotherhood’s 

strategy is today in Western countries? 

Mr. NAWAZ. I think definitely it is an accurate description of the 

strategy the Muslim Brotherhood have been employing since the 

1920s in Muslim-majority countries. In Western countries, they are 

beginning to move along this same track, and the reason why they 

are beginning to shift in the direction that you have just outlined 

is because we are now in the third generation of Muslims who are 

being born and raised in Western countries, such as myself, people 

who call themselves British Muslims, people who consider that our 

expression of faith is indigenously British by definition. 

Now, you have at the same time Islamists who are in their third 

generation who express Islamism as a Western expression. They 

consider it something which is indigenous. So what they have decided to do, there has been a shift that the original tactics of the 

Brotherhood to gain power, political power in Muslim-majority 

countries, these guys do not belong to any of those countries. They 

don’t have nationality or citizenship of any of those countries. Their 

nationality, even their identity, is becoming Western. And so they 

are thinking, well, we are here to stay. What do we do if we are 

here to stay? This has become our home. 

So a shift is occurring and we saw this in the U.K., that the institutionalization of Islamism is occurring, and what you have just 

described is within many factions of Islamist-inspired organizations 

who are not directly Muslim Brotherhood, it is the tactic that they 

are beginning to use. 

I was the other day speaking to somebody who was a detective 

in our police services and happened to be Muslim. I know I have 

to keep this brief. And I was speaking to him about the July 7, 

2005 bombings that occurred in London. This man, as I said, was 

serving in the police, a detective, and now he is serving as an immigration inspector at Heathrow Airport. And this man said to me, 

well, of course, you know it wasn’t the Muslims that committed 

July 7, 2005. It was the U.K. government and there is a conspiracy 

and these people are the ones who blew the trains up so they could 

further their aims and demonize the Muslim community. I said to 

him, my God, you really believe that? He said, of course. These people are against Muslims. And this is a policeman who is now working on the immigration patrol at Heathrow Airport. 

His ideas come from somewhere. There is something we have in 

the U.K. called the Muslim Safety Forum, an organization that 

purports to advise the police. This forum has been largely influenced by Islamist ideals and these are the sorts of ideas that are 

coming out into law enforcement officers who happen to be Muslim. 

There is a concern we have. 

So to summarize, I would say, yes, I am very concerned that the 

tactic is shifting and moving towards infiltrating with a view, because they now consider these countries their homes, with a view 

27 

to at least forming what I call Muslim-centric policies, if not to 

take over—that is still very much focus in the Muslim-majority 

countries—but to form Muslim-centric policies that only look after 

the affairs of the Muslim bloc as a bloc, as a fifth column. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Mr. NAWAZ. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Collins. 

Senator Voinovich, a vote has just gone off and I want to propose 

this, that you take over and ask your questions. I think maybe Senator Collins and I will go over and vote, and if we don’t get back 

by the time you finish your questions, please recess the hearing 

and I will begin again as soon as I come back. 

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much. Senator Voinovich. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH 

Senator VOINOVICH [presiding]. Thank you. I want to thank both 

of you for holding this hearing. 

One of the concerns that I have as a Senator, and a citizen of 

the United States, is that we have such little knowledge about the 

Muslim religion and the Koran. I am not here to hustle a book, but 

Dr. Moghaddam, I am promoting your colleague’s, John Esposito’s 

book called ‘‘What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam.’’ It is a 

fundamental book that I think lays out what the Muslim religion 

is about. Do you think this is a pretty good book? It answers lots 

of questions about Islam and what the Koran says and so forth. 

Mr. MOGHADDAM. Yes. It is excellent. 

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. The other is a gentleman I have met 

with, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, and he has an effort going throughout the United States now to try and prove that there is nothing 

inconsistent in the Koran with our Declaration of Independence 

and our principles here, that you can be a good Muslim and you 

can be a good United States citizen. They are not inconsistent with 

each other. 

And last of all, the book ‘‘Mecca and Main Street,’’ by Geneive 

Abdo, whom I have met with. It is a very interesting book because 

of the fact that she, for 3 years, traveled around the United States 

and interviewed various Muslim people and commented on what 

she found, and what she said, and I would be interested in your 

reaction to this, is that ‘‘the younger generation of Muslims in particular is charting a different way of life. They are following new 

imams and placing their Muslim identity before their American 

one. And unlike their parents, they do not define themselves by 

their ethnic background as Pakistani, Palestinian, or Yemeni. Instead, they see themselves as belonging to a universal faith. 

Through their new organizations and websites, they exchange ideas 

about how to create a more Islamic lifestyle. 

‘‘Are there strident voices critical of U.S. foreign policies? Without doubt. But these voices, at least for now, have not made the 

leap as some European Muslims have toward violent radicalism.’’ 

That was kind of the summary of what she found while going to 

various communities. 

And the other point I want to make is this, and it is one that 

you have made, Dr. Moghaddam. It is the issue of women’s rights. 

28 

And I don’t know if any of you have read ‘‘Infidel.’’ I am finishing 

that book, as well as the ‘‘Nine Desires of Muslim Women.’’ All over 

the world, Muslim women are being cramped and I believe that the 

more we can open up opportunities for Muslim women to get out 

into society, the more impact we will have on moving in the direction that we would like, to see a more open secular society than 

we see today. 

Dr. Mandaville, you said that while there is not yet evidence of 

a systemic or widespread threat of homegrown terrorism in the 

United States, it is worth considering the kind of circumstances 

that might allow such a situation to emerge. The real issue is what 

can we do to create an environment in the United States where it 

doesn’t happen. By the way, the people that I talk with in CAIR 

in Ohio, I like them. I think they are good. I don’t know what has 

influenced them, but I think they are pretty responsible citizens, 

and at least from my observation have been OK. But if these are 

organizations that we are not supposed to talk to or they are being 

influenced, who do we talk to? 

Does anyone want to comment on that? Dr. Mandaville. 

Mr. MANDAVILLE. Thank you very much for the question, Senator 

Voinovich. To the point of what it would take, what circumstances 

would actually bring about a more pervasive or systemic problem 

with radicalization, this is where I think the differences between 

the United States, the Muslim community in this country, and Europe are very important. Muslim immigrants came to this country 

for the most part with high levels of education, often professional 

jobs in hand, and indeed, the data we have suggests that the average Muslim household income in the United States is actually at 

or slightly above the national average for the United States as a 

whole, compared with Europe, where we actually see the average 

Muslim family in the lowest 20 percentile of household income. 

The structures for addressing grievances when Muslims here 

have them, I think are better available than in the United Kingdom, which again on the surface of it, as I have said in my testimony, suggests that this kind of homegrown radicalization is likely 

to be less of a problem here, although we obviously have seen instances of it. 

My concern in part is that one thing that would lead to this becoming a more pervasive problem is an increased sense of victimization on the part of the American-Muslim community, if it increasingly feels as if it is being singled out. This is very much a 

dynamic that has happened in the United Kingdom and one can explain it and put the blame—— 

Senator VOINOVICH. And by the way, I think people should understand, it is the fastest growing religion in the United States 

today. 

Mr. MANDAVILLE. Absolutely. Yes. In the case of the United 

Kingdom, a number of the Muslim organizations themselves have 

not been particularly helpful in this regard. Mr. Nawaz mentioned 

the Muslim Safety Forum, and I believe that the dynamic coming 

out of that group has been very much as he has characterized it. 

There are certain self-appointed spokesmen for the Muslim community in Europe and the United Kingdom that have a tendency towards self-victimization. At the same time, however, some of the 

29 

funding and some of the outreach coming from law enforcement 

and government agencies in that country has been exclusively devoted to issues of radicalization and terrorism. Some, particularly 

the younger generation within the community being primed in this 

very polarized environment by some of the ideas coming out of 

groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, increasingly have a sense of themselves as a community being defined in relation to terrorism, being 

told that its sole contribution to society is to counter radicalization. 

Now, this is a concern that the community has. However, the 

Muslim community has any number of other concerns, and so my 

fear is of a growing dissonance, a gap between the concerns and 

issues that the community sees and the priorities of those in the 

government and local authorities who are reaching out to them. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I am going to have to recess this hearing because I have to go vote, and I am sure that Senator Lieberman and 

Senator Collins will be back. Ms. Baran, you did not have an opportunity to respond to my questions. Do you have real quick responses? 

Ms. BARAN. I just want to be clear. I am sure an overwhelming 

majority of people in CAIR or other organizations I have named are 

good citizens, decent people, wonderful human beings. That is not 

the issue. I am talking about the institutions and the leadership. 

So I am sure the people you met are really good, wonderful people. 

And also being nice does not mean they don’t have a different ideology. We need to be clear about that. 

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. Well, that ideology hasn’t bubbled up as 

far as my relationships with them. 

I will be back. This hearing is recessed until Senator Lieberman 

comes back. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman LIEBERMAN [presiding]. Let us reconvene the hearing. 

Thank you for your patience. I know Senator Collins will return. 

We will go now to another 7-minute round of questions. 

Dr. Mandaville, I want to bring you into the discussion particularly in regard to what your research tells us about the policies of 

the government of the United Kingdom in relationship to various 

Muslim groups or Islamist groups in the U.K. What lessons do we 

learn from that? 

Mr. MANDAVILLE. There are two points in particular, Senator 

Lieberman, that I would like to make in this regard. First, in the 

aftermath of September 11, 2001, and in the wake of the July 7, 

2005, bombings in London, the chief interlocutor for the U.K. government in terms of outreach to the Muslim community was an organization called the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), founded in 

the late 1990s. This is an umbrella organization representing some 

500 Muslim organizations, national, regional, local in nature, spanning the gamut from madrassas operating in the Pakistani model 

essentially up in rural Yorkshire in Northern England, to quite relatively cosmopolitan, progressive, professional Muslim organizations in the southern cities of England. So there is a wide range 

of views within this entity, meaning that its claims to be able to 

say anything representative on behalf of something called the British Muslim community were always dubious. 

30 

And part of the problem here, I think, and this was a lesson that 

the U.K. government learned after some years, was the fact that 

most Muslims in the U.K., and I would argue in the United States, 

as well, do not understand or pursue their religiosity or their religious identity primarily through groups and organizations. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. MANDAVILLE. Futhermore, with the case of the Muslim 

Council of Britain, the leadership ranks of this organization tended 

to feature, in my view, a fairly disproportionate number of individuals with strong linkages to some of the Islamist movements, such 

as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jama’at-i Islami, and they 

have managed to maintain something of a stranglehold over that 

organization. This is unfortunate because I believe that there are 

within the second and third generation of Muslims in the United 

Kingdom those who are ready to set off on a different course and 

I think could have a major impact. 

Now, what happened is that the Muslim Council of Britain, for 

any number of reasons that I won’t go into, found itself in a number of controversies and the U.K. government began to see that it 

was not necessarily the most effective point of interlocution with 

the community. So a couple of years later, the MCB was, I think 

it is fair to say, deprioritized as that point of contact and any number of organizations were brought into the picture, and I think that 

move was important simply because they began to realize that 

there really was no such thing as an organization that represents 

the Muslim community in the U.K. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So in reaching to other organizations, did 

the U.K. government attempt to reach out to—you posited a problem here—— 

Mr. MANDAVILLE. Yes. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN [continuing]. Which is that most Muslims, 

I suppose like most other people of other religions, don’t belong to 

organizations. So if minority views or extremist views, Islamist 

views are disproportionately represented, let me put it that 

way—— 

Mr. MANDAVILLE. Yes. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN [continuing]. In the organizations, how do 

the authorities, how does the government reach out to try to create 

constructive linkages with the Muslim community? So were any of 

these other organizations—for instance, I wonder if there are not 

uniquely religious organizations that don’t have a political agenda 

within the Islamic community. 

Mr. MANDAVILLE. Yes, absolutely. The shift that we saw 2 years 

ago went along two different lines, and I think there is utility in 

looking at that, and also, I think, looking at what the German government has been doing in recent years with its new Islamic Conference. The German government had the benefit of the hindsight 

of the British experience, I think, and when the Minister of Interior 

in Germany set up the Islamic Conference, they made sure to include within its membership a number of Muslim members at large 

who are not actually affiliated with any organizations per se, but 

who had a following, who were notable voices and figures representing particular constituents and local groups. 

31 

What the British government has done is to widen its outreach 

to include groups that will represent either more sectarian views 

or groups such as the Sufi Muslim Council, which is not at all political in orientation. Now, part of the problem that they have encountered, I think, is the question of the extent to which some of 

the groups they have reached out to or some of the groups that 

have come to them wanting to be reached out to actually represent 

sizeable constituencies within the community or have any legitimacy. 

A more profitable line that I think that they went down is to 

abandon the idea of trying to find representative groups altogether 

and focus instead on problems, to get back to this idea that Mr. 

Nawaz mentioned that we are talking about local grievances that 

get turned into global problems. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. MANDAVILLE. So let us start not by addressing or trying to 

find particular organizations to work with but by identifying problems and work this issue via local problems rather than particular 

groups and associations. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. But problems uniquely within the Muslim 

community? 

Mr. MANDAVILLE. Yes, and in some cases these are problems that 

are unique to a community that is often living a highly ghettoized, 

insular existence in the peri-urban areas of post-industrial Northern cities in England where levels of employment are very low—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. In other words, the problems may not be 

uniquely Muslim. Obviously, there are non-Muslims who are experiencing high unemployment. But the governmental reaction may 

be directed at the problems and perhaps focused on the Muslim 

community. 

Mr. MANDAVILLE. Absolutely right, and what my research would 

suggest is that a profitable line of inquiry, or a profitable line of 

policy in this regard would actually be to encourage Muslims and 

non-Muslims who share those same kinds of problems to form coalitions focused not on their religious identity, but the fact that they 

face a similar kind of issue regarding access to education, access 

to social mobility, so that the focus becomes the shared issue that 

we face and not the religion. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Dr. Mandaville. 

Ms. Baran, let me ask you to comment on this idea that Dr. 

Mandaville has just suggested as one path to find the non-Islamist 

leadership or membership within the Muslim community. I mean, 

you have said to us today that most Muslim Americans are not 

Islamist, and yet if I am hearing you correctly, you are also saying 

that a lot of the established Muslim organizations are, if not dominated, disproportionately influenced by Islamist groups. I have a 

quote from your testimony. You have a section, and which will be 

part of the record of the Committee, and it is quite strong and provocative, but I think very important to listen to. 

‘‘The most prominent Muslim organizations in America were either created by or associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, and 

the Wahhabis, and they have therefore been heavily influenced by 

Islamist ideology over the course of four decades. Islamists have 

taken over the leadership in almost all Islam-related areas in 

32 

America. This is scary’’—these are your words—‘‘yet almost no one 

in the U.S. Government deals with it.’’ 

So I take it that in speaking about—for instance, as Senator Collins said, we had testimony here saying that—including from Muslim organizations and the FBI that they, surprisingly, do the best 

outreach to the Muslim-American community. So I take your testimony not to dispute that in terms of the volume or quantity of the 

outreach, but to say that in that outreach, they may actually be influenced disproportionately by Islamist ideology and Islamist 

groups. 

Ms. BARAN. Yes. Thank you. I think what we just heard from 

Professor Mandaville in the British case is a very good example, 

and there are a lot of parallels in terms of what those in the British system end up learning, even though at the beginning they did 

not want to move away from established partnerships. Moving 

away from these partnerships brings political cost. 

For me, the question is what is the purpose of outreach? You can 

always have nice conversations with a whole set of people. What 

is the purpose? Is the purpose, as some people in the law enforcement have told me, to co-opt them? If that is the case, then I think 

the people who are doing the outreach are being co-opted because 

they are going into an area where they are not well educated or 

informed and they are open to learning. They are not critical and 

they are not criticizing because as I said, they think what is told 

to them is Islam and they are not qualified to judge or ask questions about a particular religion. 

If the goal of outreach is to talk to the Muslim community, fine, 

but what is the point? The point is that we want these citizens to 

be happy, loyal, and, of course, also for homeland security concerns, 

not radicalized, not engaged in terrorist acts. Then the issue is not 

to reach out to them based on their Islamic identity or based on 

their religiosity, but based on the problems. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Ms. BARAN. What are some of the problems? Unfortunately, because Islamism thrives on victimization certain issues are exaggerated so that Muslims come together in this ‘‘us versus them’’ mentality. They are basically saying, we Muslims need to be an ummah 

because Islam is under attack. So you have now all kinds of stories 

circulating about Muslims being mistreated, this and that. Some of 

them are true and those need to be addressed; those are basic civil 

rights, and equal treatment issues. And there is also some bigotry 

and there are some activities against Muslims and those need to 

be dealt as law enforcement issues. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Ms. BARAN. And in general, we are lucky that in America, of 

course, Muslims do not have the same kind of problems that we 

often find in Europe. So the purpose of outreach, the counterpart 

you choose, what you want to get out of those interactions needs 

to be much more clearly defined. I think after September 11, 2001, 

there was this urge that we have to talk to Muslims and we have 

to make sure that they don’t hate us. But I think now that with 

enough time, we understand that alone does not really answer the 

questions and doesn’t resolve anything. I think if we look at the 

33 

rate of radicalization among American youth and look at all the activities of outreach, we don’t see necessarily an impact. 

So there is one set of outreach that needs to be done to understand the community issues and resolve them, but there are also 

issues that deal with the ideology and what is being supplied. I 

mean, ultimately, if you think about supply and the result, then we 

have to address both elements. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much. I would like to 

come back to that briefly in a moment. My time is up, though. Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just one final question for Mr. Nawaz. Both the Chairman and 

I are very interested in better understanding the radicalization 

process and you described witnessing terrible acts of prejudice and 

violence and unfair law enforcement actions when you were a teenager. What would have been an effective counter message for you 

to have heard as a teenager? 

Mr. NAWAZ. On that point, I think that an effective counter message would have been for localized grievances to have an outlet to 

be channeled through localized, or local-based solutions and channels, especially when it came to the crisis of faith that I talked 

about. There needed to be a strong, firmly grounded, traditional 

theological leader there to be able to deal with some of these questions, who is articulate in English, fluent and able to communicate 

with the second and third generations. That was, and to a large extent still is, missing in the U.K. We do not have the imams that 

are trained and raised from within the U.K. They are still going 

abroad to take their training. In fact, a recent suggestion was made 

by our government and was very conveniently and correctly forgotten very quickly, and that was the suggestion that we should take 

imams and send them to Pakistan for training. 

I don’t think the solution is that. I think the solution is that 

there needs to be an indigenous British Islam, or more generally 

Western Islam, that arises. There are some very encouraging movements in that direction. One of our advisors for the Quilliam Foundation is a wonderful man by the name of Usama Hasan who in 

his youth went to Afghanistan to train with the so-called jihad 

there, but has abandoned all of that and now takes very courageous theological stances. 

To give you one example of his stance—this man is qualified 

theologically. He is an imam of a mosque and is also a university 

lecturer, and he says that Muslim women do not have to cover 

their heads from a theological perspective. One of our advisors. We 

need to have more people like this. 

I think in the U.K., I am very encouraged by signs of the discussions coming from people like Imam Hasan, Usama Hasan, that I 

see, very non-Islamist messages. Though they are pious or religious 

in their personal practice, they are very clear not to encourage, and 

in fact, they critique the Islamist message. So there needs to be an 

indigenous growth from within the West of Western Islam, and 

that is something that the Quilliam Foundation has put as one of 

its objectives to encourage. 

If that had been there for me in my crisis of faith, I don’t think 

I would have turned to a political ideological alternative. I was not 

34 

able to relate to the village religion of the mosque imams who did 

not speak my language. 

In terms of the crisis of identity, and this is something where if 

you caught my facial expressions, I was very keen to interject. All 

I did is I settled for writing ‘‘excellent’’ on Dr. Mandaville’s book 

here. And that is that the whole discussion—I agree entirely with 

what he said, and there is something I would like to add and that 

is the psychological state of somebody approaching this discussion 

in the first place, is that when we talk about the Muslim community, that is a paradigm which we have adopted from Islamists and 

the British government has recently shifted in this and now they 

are talking about Muslim communities, and that is more accurate, 

because in the U.K., we have very recent immigrants who aren’t 

settled as the immigrants who originally came from the Indian subcontinent are, but rather we have had Somalis that have immigrated to the U.K. due to the war and the conflict that is there. 

There are others, North Africans that have immigrated due to the 

conflicts in Algeria, and others have immigrated from many different regions. 

The expression of Islam from each one of these communities is 

very different. And in some cases, they are at conflict with each 

other. The default form of religious expression for the majority of 

Muslims in the U.K. is the Sufi Barelvi tradition coming from the 

Indian subcontinent, which is historically apolitical and, in fact, is 

anti-political. 

Now, if we can grasp that there is more than one Muslim community but rather there are Muslim communities, we will not 

adopt the paradigm of the Islamists in dealing with this problem 

as a Muslim problem but rather looking at it as localized problems 

and trying to deal with the problems themselves rather than adopt 

the paradigm that it is one community that requires one solution 

and one representative. 

The U.K. government made a mistake with the MCB. I pray that 

your government here does not make that same mistake. And now 

they have learned from that. The British Government has set up 

a department called the Department for Communities and Local 

Government (DCLG), that has a 3-year budget of 70 million Sterling, which again is a lot of dollars. Now, that 70 million Sterling 

is allocated specifically for dealing with this problem. I recently 

met with the minister responsible for that department, Hazel 

Blears, and I am very encouraged by her understanding on these 

issues. 

Now, that department is there solely to take this money and to 

distribute it on a localized basis through local councils, not through 

a centralized national body, and I think that is the encouraging 

way forward. If these measures were there in the early 1990s, we 

would not have had the situation that we had through the mid- to 

late 1990s of Islamists pretty much becoming institutionalized. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Collins. 

Unfortunately, we are going to have to move on in a moment. I 

did want to say, Mr. Nawaz, I am so glad you came here, but I 

really object to your rubbing in the dropping value of the dollar so 

often. [Laughter.] 

35 

All in good spirit. 

Let me just see if I can ask this question because a part of what 

motivates this hearing is that the insight, which I quoted from the 

9/11 Commission Report, that this so-called war with terrorism is 

really an ideological war at its essence, so that while we are fighting it in a military sense, we also have to try to figure out how to 

counteract the ideology. 

This is not easy because it requires non-Muslim governments in 

countries like the United States and the U.K. to find an effective, 

thoughtful, and honest way to reach into the Muslim community, 

and I think this is part of what the outreach is supposed to be 

about, but it may not be working. You are absolutely right in the 

experience that you both reflected from the U.K. Your testimony, 

Ms. Baran, should really be a warning to the U.S. Government 

about what they are doing and whether it is really achieving the 

goals. 

But some of the goals are pure law enforcement, there is no 

question about it, trying to develop links to the community, to the 

mainstream, law-abiding Muslim-American community so that if 

they hear of the growth of violent Islamist activities, that they will 

let law enforcement know. Some of it, I think, is also aimed—and 

this is not easy—at encouraging leadership to emerge from the majority, mainstream Muslim-American community. In other words, 

the picture that I am getting today is that there is a silent majority 

within the Muslim-American community and it is an American 

community. It is a mainstream community. 

In addition, I think you have given us a good idea here, which 

is that we have to be not just reaching out to organizations, maybe 

we have to do that with open eyes, but also really to the problems 

within the community. How do we create a situation where when 

someone like Mr. Nawaz as a teenager develops these grievances— 

and look, teenagers of any religion and race will find various reasons to develop grievances. Yours happen to have been quite palpable and real and severe. What can we do to create an alternative 

vehicle for expression other than Islamism? Ms. Baran. 

Ms. BARAN. Well, if I can talk about my teenage rebellious years. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. You are not under oath now, so—— 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. BARAN. I was also looking for different identities. Now, I 

wasn’t born in America; I was a teenager in a Muslim country and 

there were many different options. There were the Islamist options. 

There were different options. I think having the variety of options 

is very important and also having good role models and trusted 

sources. Again, I say that if I had learned my religion from the 

wrong people, I could have become an Islamist because the ideas 

are extremely attractive, partly because everything becomes so simple and understandable. In a way it empowers you because all of 

a sudden, from not being able to change your life or bringing meaning to it, you have a meaning and everything easily makes sense. 

So there is not a single answer, and like in the British case, in 

America, too, I think there are multiple communities. Some of 

them are more religious, some of them are less religious. You can’t 

even say the Arab-American community. Within the Arab community, there are so many different ones. 

36 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Leiter appears in the Appendix on page 95. 

In, again, my case, in this neighborhood, the Turkish-American 

community goes to the Turkish mosque, and so we don’t even go 

to the same mosques because there are different cultures and, of 

course, when it comes to second generation, third generation, the 

issues are also different. 

There are many ways that this issue can be addressed, but I 

think the starting point has to be that we need to define what we 

want in reaching out to the communities because ultimately they 

are citizens and there are certain citizen rights and there are certain needs for their faith, for their education. I am worried about 

raising my children in this country because I would not know 

where to send them to teach them Islam. I would have to do that 

at home at this point. But I would like to be able to send them to 

a mosque and be comfortable that what they are going to learn 

there is going to be about the faith and is going to anchor them 

in a way that they are going to be Muslim and American and will 

not find a conflict in the two. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That is a perfect and strong place to end 

the testimony of this panel. I thank you all very much. 

Mr. Nawaz, I want to thank you really for the foundation. It 

seems to me that is part of the answer, so I wish you well in what 

you are doing. I hope that the four of you will remain available to 

the Committee as we continue to consider these really important 

but difficult questions and try to play a constructive role. Thank 

you very much. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Mr. NAWAZ. Thank you. 

Mr. MANDAVILLE. Thank you. 

Ms. BARAN. Thank you. 

Mr. MOGHADDAM. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. We will now call Michael Leiter to the 

stand. Michael Leiter is the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, served as Deputy General Counsel and Assistant 

Director of the Robb-Silberman Commission and then as Deputy 

Chief of Staff at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 

also an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. 

Mr. Leiter is responsible for administering the National Implementation Plan, the Federal Government’s efforts to coordinate the response to terrorism. One component of that is to Counter Violent 

Islamist Extremism (CVIE). 

We welcome you, Mr. Leiter. Thank you for being here and we 

look forward to your testimony now. 

TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL E. LEITER,1 DIRECTOR, NATIONAL 

COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER 

Mr. LEITER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Collins, and 

Senator Voinovich. It is a pleasure to be here. I am happy to talk 

about the intelligence community’s efforts to understand this very 

difficult problem, and most importantly, in many ways, the broader 

U.S. Government efforts to counter it, as well. 

I am going to focus today on the role of ideology, as you asked, 

and I am also going to talk about the National Counterterrorism 

37 

Center’s (NCTC’s) effort in that part, and I ask that my more detailed statement be made part of the record. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. LEITER. Thank you. Now, before focusing on the very specific 

topic today, I do want to make one clear point and that is that although clearly the greatest terrorist threat we see in the United 

States today is from al-Qaeda and associated ideologies, this violent extremism is not historically, nor is it today, associated only 

with Islam. A generation ago, the violent extremist threat came 

primarily from the far left and the Red Brigades, and even today 

we continue to see a terrorist threat from organizations like the 

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia that are clearly terrorists 

and violent extremists in their own right. Thus, although I think 

the focus today is quite appropriate in light of the seriousness of 

the threat, it is not the only terrorist ideology that we face. 

Now, as you have already heard this morning, the extremist ideological leanings that set the precedent for many of today’s groups 

were articulated first by Sayyid Qutb, a member of the Egyptian 

Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s. Now, in the most 

basic sense, he argued that the notion of Islam’s primary enemies 

are Western cultural liberalism and its Middle Eastern ally, Zionism. Al-Qaeda continues in their propaganda to echo those same 

views today. 

The core narratives repeated in al-Qaeda’s message to the West 

and repeated in the United States at times is that the West and 

its allies are seeking to destroy the Muslim world and Islam and 

that Muslims must counter this through violence and that just rule 

under Islamic law is the reward for expelling Western influences. 

At the National Counterterrorism Center, we assess the evolution to violent extremism consists—and this is in very general 

terms, it does not obviously speak to every precise individual—but 

in general terms, it breaks down to a four-step radicalization process. Now, first, and you heard this again from some of the panelists 

on the first panel, an individual develops a sense of crisis and it 

is often brought about, or at least accelerated by, specific precipitants, depending on their environment. Second, the affected individual seeks answers to those perceived or real crises through ideological or a religious framework. Third, the individual develops contact with a violent group and that violent group establishes a sacred authority for the individual. And fourth and clearly most troublesome, the individual internalizes that group’s values and its 

support for violence. 

Now, of note, ideology is not necessarily central to the start of 

this process. Other factors before ideology might be key. And rather, it gains its greatest importance in later stages and it takes on 

a crucial role of preserving the radical commitment to violent extremist activity. 

Now, beginning with the first stage of the process, there is no 

single underlying catalyst for this initial period of radicalization. 

Although most individuals clearly reject extremism outright, personal frustration and perceived social injustices and other grievances can prompt individuals to reassess their general world view 

and be open to more alternative perspectives, some of which can, 

in fact, espouse violence. Now, the most common catalyst, but 

38 

again not the only ones, in Muslim-majority countries tend to include blocked social mobility, political repression, and relative 

socio-economic deprivation. 

Now, the second stage begins when individuals seek answers to 

their sense of frustration through a politicized version—and I want 

to stress here a politicized version—of Islam, or in fact, it could be 

any other religion, and thus they become what we term religious 

and ideological seekers. And here again, I want to stress that in 

no way do I mean to suggest that seeking answers to one’s problems in life through religion is in and of itself the least bit worrisome, problematic, or negative. Rather, the key component here is 

not the contact with religion, it is the contact with a violent extremist group or message and is an ideology which clothes itself in 

some ways in religious viewpoints. 

Now, the third stage of the process distinguishes between those 

individuals who have contact initially with that violent-prone group 

and those who are drawn fully into violent extremist activity, and 

specifically it is at this stage that an individual’s willingness to accept the sacred authority of the violent extremist, that is the extremist right to interpret Islam or provide an ideological framework 

for violence that marks the passage to a latter stage of radicalization and ultimately a support for violence. 

Now, simply reaching step three in this process doesn’t in all explain why some individuals absorb this and adopt it for their own 

perspective, and some do not, and there are numerous factors that 

we assess, that will play into whether or not an individual will ultimately accept that violent extremist ideology. Some of those include, first, I would say, a previous knowledge of Islam. Many academic studies, and our views as well, have found, especially in the 

U.K., that many of the radicals, in fact, have a far lower level of 

religious knowledge than those who do not accept an extremist violent perspective. 

Second, who are they learning from and what is their authority? 

What are their attributes? Sociological and psychological studies indicate that individuals and communities that emphasize rote 

memorization and an unwillingness to challenge authority are 

more likely, just more likely, to lend themselves to radical indoctrination than others. 

Third, we have seen this and it is very vividly illustrated in the 

case studies of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, those 

with a technical education, that black-and-white ideology of violent 

extremism, often appeals to individuals with that background. 

Fourth, and this is almost self-evident, but whether or not there 

are countervailing influences. A lack of exposure to a variety of Islamic perspectives and non-Islamic perspectives makes it more 

likely that individuals will fully internalize the violent extremist 

message. 

Fifth, and again, this is, I think, obvious to anyone who has a 

teenager, peer pressure. Group dynamics are key, particularly in 

extremist study circles. Most likely, those will affect the prospects 

for successful indoctrination. Family members and friends with 

connections to extremist movements are critical in determining 

whether or not an individual will adopt this ideology. 

39 

And finally, a lack of exposure to extremist atrocities. In this 

case, studies such as a Pew poll published in July 2007 found that 

the confidence in Osama bin Laden among Jordanians dropped significantly, by 36 percent, between 2003 and 2007, reflecting at 

least in part the Jordanian population’s widespread revulsion to alQaeda’s attacks against hotels in Oman in 2005. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, this gives you 

a very small sense of how we look at it in this basic four-step process, and obviously there is much greater detail and we look at it 

differently in different places in the world. I just want to note that 

from my perspective, there is simply no more important issue that 

NCTC, and in that sense the U.S. Government, faces in the war 

on terror. In this regard, we have significantly increased both our 

analytic resources with a variety of expertise and also our planning 

resources to make sure the U.S. Government is pursuing this effectively, and we hope in the coming year, contingent on Congressional approval, to dedicate even more resources to this issue. 

Now, I also want to note, and Chairman Lieberman, you noted 

this in part in your closing comments, that this is very different 

from classic intelligence challenges. A very small section of how we 

will understand this comes from the world of clandestine intelligence reporting that I deal with most of my day. To understand 

and combat radicalization requires new sources of information, and 

equally important, new partners, and it is new partners within the 

U.S. Government, with State and local authorities, and I want to 

stress with non-government officials and leaders in the Muslim 

community in America and abroad. 

It also requires us to approach this from multiple angles, which 

we currently do, because we now approach this not only from a religious perspective, which is certainly critical, but from a sociological perspective, from a regional perspective, and from a psychiatric perspective. All four of those are pieces to this puzzle of 

understanding why an individual chooses to adopt this ideology. 

Now, as we improve our analytic understanding of Islamist militancy, we can better shape our policy response to the threat, and 

through our responsibilities as the strategic operational planner for 

U.S. Government-wide efforts, what we did was we created what 

we have termed a Global Engagement Group, and this group’s sole 

function is to coordinate, integrate, and synchronize all elements of 

U.S. power to engage and combat this ideology. 

Now, I want to give you a few specific examples of what this 

group is doing, and I can do that—I will do that to the best extent 

I can here in an open session. First, the group coordinates potentially divergent department and agency responses to specific situations that might be used by violent ideological extremists in their 

own propaganda. 

Second, we are also establishing the capability to provide situational awareness to U.S. policy makers and officials about all of the 

things that the U.S. Government is doing, across departments and 

agencies, across the world, to combat this, because without that situational awareness, we cannot actually shape what the U.S. Government is doing. 

If I may, Mr. Chairman, I just have another 30 seconds or so. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Go right ahead. 

40 

Mr. LEITER. Third, the group is coordinating the long-term effort 

to combat this, and what we are doing is identifying very specifically through means such as sociological studies, psychiatric studies, religious studies, and the like, identifying who the next generation of recruits most likely is, and that is both domestically and 

abroad. And then we are shaping over 5 years and beyond, attempting to shape department and agency programs and budgets 

to address those in the long term. 

Fourth, we work extremely closely with our department and 

agency partners. I want to just mention two, but the Department 

of Homeland Security, the Civil Liberties Protection Officer Dan 

Sutherland has been a fabulous partner in this, and overseas, the 

newly confirmed Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Jim Glassman, two key partners, and also, as we have talked about before, 

the FBI. 

And finally, and this is, I think, especially important, we work 

very closely with the Office of Management and Budget to identify 

where these programs are today, how they are coordinated, and 

whether or not they are actually synchronized and complementing 

one another for the long term. 

Now, I do believe that working with partners at home and 

abroad that we can develop targeted and refined approaches to undermining the attractiveness of violence to certain susceptible audiences. But I don’t want to leave any doubt in this Committee’s 

mind that this is an effort that is going to take many years and 

many new partnerships, and I also want to note that tangible results in this area are going to be both elusive and at many times 

very difficult to measure with any sort of reliable metrics. But none 

of those make the effort any less important. 

Now, we are going to require cross-government efforts, as I have 

already noted. This Committee is a key part of that. And it is not 

only going to be about words, it is going to be about a diplomacy 

of deeds, both domestically and overseas. And I very much look forward to working with this Committee and the larger Congress, because so many committees have a hand in this, and getting your 

guidance on how you believe we should approach this challenge. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Mr. Leiter. That was 

very good testimony. I must say, some of the programs you describe, you have gone beyond at least what I contemplated the 

NCTC would be doing, which we saw in its creation as the central 

place to make sure that all the dots were connected of intelligence 

in a way that was not done before September 11, 2001. But what 

you are doing also seems to me to be directly related to counterterrorism, which is what your defining mission is, so I appreciate 

it and I am interested in asking some questions about it. 

Let me first talk about the language we use here, because it is 

significant and has some substance to it. You said at the outset 

that what we have been calling this morning Islamism is not the 

only terrorist ideology we’ve faced, and, of course, I agree with 

that, nor is it historically the only terrorist ideology we have faced. 

But it does seem to me that it is the most significant terrorist ideology we face now. In fact, it motivated the attacks of September 

11, 2001, which are the very reason that we created the NCTC in 

the 9/11 Commission legislation. So do you agree with that, that we 

41 

are dealing more with Islamist, what we have called this morning 

Islamist, ideology-inspired terrorism than any other kind? 

Mr. LEITER. Undoubtedly and without question, the greatest 

threat we face today and in the world of terrorism is from Sunni 

extremist ideology. I will say one thing, if I may, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Sure. 

Mr. LEITER. I think part of the challenge here is about words, 

and I think just from the four panelists you just heard from, there 

are not insignificant differences in how individuals and professionals would define Islamism. So I think that is a challenge. But 

undoubtedly, Sunni extremism is the greatest terrorist threat we 

face today. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. As you know, in March, there was a State 

Department document released that said, ‘‘Words that Work and 

Words that Don’t: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication,’’ 

and the document recommended that government officials not 

make references to Islam when talking about terrorism. And, of 

course, our whole focus today has been to try to distinguish between the religion Islam and this radical political ideology which 

we have called Islamism. 

I think that there was some misunderstanding, I hope, of what 

that report intended to say, but I just wanted to ask you whether 

you agree that—because I think if we don’t—just listening to the 

four witnesses on the first panel, three of whom are Muslims themselves, that we are not going to be able to deal with the problem 

unless we describe it as what it is, which is originating from a radical political version of Islam which we have called today Islamism. 

So how do you understand that State Department guidance? 

Mr. LEITER. Senator, that State Department guidance, I think 

was a policy choice by the Department as to how they believed individuals should speak about it. I would say that I don’t agree with 

everything that was in that document. I do think that you cannot 

separate out the fact that the terror fight we are fighting today involves Islam as a religion. But the ideology which motivates these 

terrorists has very little to do in reality with the religion of Islam. 

It is the difference between a religion and a violent ideology that 

has motivated these individuals. But we can’t simply ignore the 

fact that there is a link to the religion. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I thank you for that and I appreciate it 

personally. Let me go on to something you talked about, really interesting, which is a quote again from your testimony. ‘‘Much of 

NCTC’s growth over the past 2 years and much of our planned 

growth in the coming year is dedicated to government-wide coordination and analysis to counter radicalization,’’ exactly what we are 

talking about today. I think it is very important. You talked about 

it some in your opening statement, but I want to ask you to expand 

on it, if you would, for the Committee. 

What kind of people are you hiring? What will improvements of 

government-wide coordination look like, and a little bit more about 

what other agencies you are working with and how you are working with them. We know, for instance, that the State Department 

cannot be involved in domestic counter-radicalization, but still they 

have international experience that is relevant. So talk to us a little 

bit more about your counter-radicalization efforts, because it seems 

42 

to me that they are really at the heart of what the U.S. Government should be doing now. 

Mr. LEITER. I am happy to, Mr. Chairman. First, on our analytic 

front, the intelligence side, we are significantly increasing our analytic resources, and the people that we are hiring come from a variety of backgrounds. I have an individual with me today who has 

a Ph.D. in political science who has looked at these issues and lived 

in the region throughout the Arab world for many years. That is 

one example. I also actually have an M.D. psychiatrist trained at 

Harvard who has spent significant amounts of time speaking with 

individuals who have become radicalized from a psychiatric perspective, and so on down the line. So the stress in hiring has been 

to get a wide variety of views, people who have an understanding 

of domestic issues and foreign issues because as you well know, our 

mandate is transnational, United States and abroad. 

Now, on the coordination side, we have also attempted to bring 

in people from—the lead from our team of the Global Engagement 

Group is a State Department Foreign Service officer who has spent 

a significant number of years in Arab countries and Africa. But 

working alongside him are individuals from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, so we can take those lessons from 

places like Africa or the United Kingdom and see the degree to 

which they do or do not apply to the United States, and they are 

very different situations and much of our work is trying to understand where the threat has been, how it does or does not apply to 

the United States. 

In terms of concrete efforts, as I said, one of our biggest efforts 

is to actually understand what everyone in the U.S. Government 

is doing on counter-radicalization on any given day. Understanding 

what the Department of Defense, Department of State, Department 

of Homeland Security, FBI, and on down the list are doing globally 

is important because anything is said anywhere in the world today 

can also be circulated in the world anywhere today on the Internet. 

So I like to think of it as we have to think about this globally, to 

borrow a phrase from another era, think about this globally but act 

locally. We have to think about the global challenge of violent extremism, but then we have to apply it to individual local circumstances. And by gaining that situational awareness and working with State, FBI, DHS, and others, we can then shape those 

messages in a way that is consistent and appropriate for the target 

community. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Because you have no doubt that we do 

have to confront the threat of homegrown terrorism here in the 

United States. 

Mr. LEITER. Senator, I would agree with some of the—from the 

prior panel of comments. We certainly have not seen the same 

threat of radicalization here in the United States that we have 

overseas, in particular the United Kingdom and other nations. 

That being said, we have seen some instances, and I will certainly 

not rest on our current good situation to assume that will continue 

into the future. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

43 

I want to follow up on your comments that you provide situational awareness and intelligence analysis that helps other government agencies forge a counterterrorism message. This morning, we 

heard from one of our witnesses, and I believe you were monitoring 

the hearing, as well—— 

Mr. LEITER. I prefer not to use the ‘‘monitoring’’ phrase. [Laughter.] 

Senator COLLINS. Good point. FISA has been passed now. 

[Laughter.] 

But I know that you were following the hearing and one of our 

witnesses was quite critical of the FBI’s outreach efforts. The FBI 

has been on the front lines of trying to develop a liaison to the 

Muslim communities in this country and it was interesting to hear 

from this one expert’s opinion that we are reaching out using the 

wrong groups or the wrong organizations. What was your reaction 

to that testimony, since you, after all, are the agency that is doing 

the analysis to provide the situational awareness that groups like 

the FBI use in their outreach? 

Mr. LEITER. Senator, I think that outreach by both the Federal 

Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security to 

both groups within the United States and individual leaders within 

the Muslim-American community is critical. I think that understanding that there are certain groups that might have individuals 

with whom the U.S. Government might not want to associate does 

not and cannot stop us from doing the outreach that this government needs to do both to understand the communities more effectively, but also, frankly, to provide these communities with a sense 

that they do have a voice in how their government operates, that 

they do not feel disenfranchised because it is just that disenfranchisement that we heard from some of the other panelists that has 

contributed and acted as one of the precipitants to give people a 

sense of crisis and a lack of connection to their government, and 

outreach is one way to ensure that does not occur. 

Senator COLLINS. So what criteria should the Federal Government use in determining who or which groups are useful allies in 

developing a counterterrorism message? If you listened to our previous panel, there are some who believe that if a group holds an 

Islamist ideology, then even if it has renounced violence as a 

means to achieving the goals of that ideology, that we should not 

interact with that group. Others are saying that as long as the 

group is non-violent, it does not matter what its basic ideology is. 

Mr. LEITER. Senator, I want to be a bit careful because ultimately this obviously is a decision for Director Mueller, the Attorney General, and Secretary Chertoff about exactly what that line 

should be. I will say one clear line is if a group espouses violence, 

it is quite clear that the U.S. Government should not be talking to 

them. 

Senator COLLINS. But that is the—— 

Mr. LEITER. That is the extreme. 

Senator COLLINS. Right. 

Mr. LEITER. Exactly. Beyond that, I think that the U.S. Government, as a general matter, has to become more comfortable speaking with more groups who may be opposed to many policies that 

the U.S. Government has, and it may be slightly uncomfortable, 

44 

but we have to think of this as a full-spectrum engagement, and 

what I mean by that is we have to be willing to engage with most 

people on most of the spectrum regardless of how they view U.S. 

policy. You are going to have to talk to some people that make you 

uncomfortable. 

I analogize back to my days as a Federal prosecutor. I would 

have gotten very few prosecutions successfully—I could have 

brought a lot. I would have had very few successful prosecutions 

in the world of drugs or organized crime if I never dealt and spoke 

to individuals who at one point in their life had or had not been 

associated with drugs or organized crime. 

Senator COLLINS. You talked about the four steps of radicalization. The third step that you outlined was the development of 

contact with radical groups. It used to be that contact involved a 

face-to-face meeting or perhaps going to Afghanistan or Pakistan 

for training. But today, it is far more insidious and far easier to 

accomplish because one has only to go to the Internet to make contact with a radical group. How much of our effort is directed toward providing a counter message through the Internet? 

Mr. LEITER. Senator, before answering that question, I just want 

to note how well the NYPD has done in some of their work, so well 

that we actually brought an inspector from the NYPD who is now 

a full-time analyst at NCTC deployed from the New York Police 

Department. So this is another example of a new sort of partnership that in 2000 we never would have imagined having. 

Senator COLLINS. I am very glad to hear that, because we have 

pushed to have more involvement with State and local law enforcement. 

Mr. LEITER. Absolutely. 

Senator COLLINS. I am very happy to hear that. 

Mr. LEITER. In terms of the Internet, the Internet certainly is 

key and I would say that it tends to be key at the earlier stages 

when the individuals—they are experiencing the precipitants. They 

have that sense of crisis and they start looking around and the 

Internet gives them those initial ideas. 

Now, we have seen some cases, more overseas than in the United 

States, where there was kind of a complete transformation in the 

process of radicalization that occurred almost solely from the Internet. But that still tends to be the exception rather than the rule. 

Again, it can be key for that initial guide towards this world, but 

more often than not, we still see the contact with a charismatic 

leader who adopts it, that face-to-face contact being very important. 

And I would actually venture that is most people’s experience with 

the Internet, regardless of violent extremism, that once you have 

that face-to-face contact with a product or people, it becomes slightly greater pull than just from the Internet. 

Now, we spend an enormous amount of time both looking at the 

Internet and then working with various parts of the U.S. Government on countering messages through the Internet. I will say you 

rather rapidly enter in a very difficult area both in terms of legal 

policy and the First Amendment. I am certainly no expert anymore 

on these issues. But you run into many difficult challenges there, 

most particularly because anything you put on the Internet is by 

definition a global message. 

45 

So what the U.S. Government does and says overseas is often 

quite different from what it says here in the United States. The 

Internet doesn’t give you the option necessarily to limit your message in the same way. So this is a new challenge with policies and 

legal challenges that we really do have to address more over the 

coming years. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Collins. 

Senator Voinovich. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thanks very much for being here today. 

From a management point of view, I am quite pleased with what 

I have heard in terms of your efforts to coordinate the various 

agencies and the fact that you have a connection with OMB because I have found that there are many areas where we need coordination to get the job done and my feeling is that you have to 

have somebody at OMB that you can talk with and talk about the 

various agencies and how important their budgets are in regard to 

various aspects of the work that you are doing. We don’t have it 

all in one place. 

Mr. LEITER. Right. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Second, I was thinking about low-hanging 

fruit in terms of things that you can do to influence people, and one 

of the things that you mentioned at the end was the violence and 

the impact that it has. I was there in Jordan and absolutely, they 

know who these people are right now. And I think that my two colleagues are aware of the fact that the Sunnis in Iraq found out who 

these people were and now have turned against them because they 

don’t like them at all. I wonder, could we be doing more in that 

area to get across how violent these people are and who are the 

real victims of their activity? 

And then the other one, is the issue of women’s rights here in 

the United States and even over in various other countries. There 

is a woman named Madsen, who is a leader trying to elevate the 

rights of women within the Muslim community in the United 

States. I wonder whether or not that is something that we should 

be more focused on or maybe that is something that we should stay 

out of. 

I guess the last thing would be the issue that Senator Collins 

brought up, and that is, who do we deal with? One of the things 

that we have done in my State, we have had a very aggressive effort to reach out to the Muslim community. In Cleveland, for example, we have the Ishmael and Isaac Organization. 

But we need some help. Who are the groups that we ought to be 

talking to in our respective States and you have identified as people that we should be talking to, because I think it is important 

that we talk to them, too, so that they know that they are a political constituency out there and that we are interested in what they 

have to say and make sure that we are talking to folks that we 

ought to be talking to. 

Mr. LEITER. Senator, thank you for all three. I will try to take 

them in order. First of all, I agree with you. I think one of the most 

critical underlying messages that we have to get out is that this 

is not—the war on terror is not us versus them, West versus Islam, 

and there is no point that illustrates that more effectively than 

46 

that more than 50 percent of the individuals who are the victims 

of al-Qaeda’s terrorist violence are Muslims. Whether you look at 

Oman or Iraq or Afghanistan, the individuals being killed tend not 

to be Westerners. In fact, they are Muslims. Al-Qaeda is killing 

Muslims and we do have to get that out more effectively. 

We work with the State Department on an annual report of terrorist incidents. We post that on our own website and the State Department website and we have to get that out more effectively, and 

I would say that we have to get it out more effectively through nontraditional means because it isn’t just about doing press conferences in embassies. It is about getting it on YouTube and the 

like so we are hitting the target population that we are actually 

most concerned with. 

Now, as to your second question, I am going to admit that as we 

were monitoring the hearing in the anteroom, and I listened to 

your questions about women, I spoke to some of my analysts about 

that, and frankly, I think we have not focused the same attention 

on it that we probably should, so we already have it as a do out 

to go back and think more clearly about how the issue of women’s 

rights does apply to this. We look at the issue of women in the Islamic world in some other contexts, and I think that the idea of 

empowering individuals to participate in their political system and 

political life, in this instance women, is again one of those powerful 

elements which starts to reduce the possible precipitants for people 

to go down this path in the first instance. Creating that opportunity to express themselves in the political system, whether or not 

they are women or men, is a key element and it is one that I would 

like to come back to you in the future and speak to you more about 

it. 

Now, on your last point about with whom should you deal, and 

I would agree with you, far be it from me to set your agenda and 

your schedule, but I think it is critically important for elected representatives at all levels of government, from the U.S. Senate down 

to the city councilman—I should say council person—to go out and 

engage with their communities and understand the issues and 

make sure that their concerns are being reflected in the public discourse. 

Now, I would be happy both to offer you experts from the National Counterterrorism Center and I am also more than happy to 

help serve as a conduit with you with the Department of Homeland 

Security and the FBI and other agencies to figure out groups and 

leaders who you might want to engage with, people who you might 

want to consider whether or not you should engage with them, and 

what concerns other people in the U.S. Government should have, 

recognizing that you engaging with people, you might have a very 

different set of standards than, say, the Department of Homeland 

Security, and that is entirely appropriate. But I am happy to both 

offer our expertise and also help you work with DHS, Secretary 

Chertoff, and Director Mueller in determining who you and other 

Members of Congress might wish to engage with. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. Under Secretary of State Glassman now is our public diplomacy lead. Our earlier witness indicated that there is a dilemma today, and that is that we talk about 

democracy and freedom, and the President articulated that in his 

47 

second inaugural address, but it appears that we have backed off 

substantially from that. Is that having any influence at all on folks 

here in this country? 

Mr. LEITER. Senator, I have to apologize. This may have been 

one of the moments that I was not monitoring. But I will say that 

the idea of democracy is certainly a key characteristic of any public 

diplomacy message that we have, but it is one part of the message, 

because—— 

Senator VOINOVICH. When we began the global war on terrorism, 

the President said that we wanted democracy in Iraq. That is one 

of the goals that we had. Now, we seem to be talking just stability. 

Mr. LEITER. Yes, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. And there is an appearance out there that 

we just kind of backed off this effort after we had elections. 

Mr. LEITER. Senator, I don’t want to dispute people’s perceptions 

because perceptions are reality in this case. Certainly, my experience with the President and senior leadership is that democracy 

agenda has not changed in the least. Now, I do believe we have to 

make sure if people perceive that it has, that will be a challenge. 

I also want to stress that is one part of a message that will appeal to one section of the community. We have to have many other 

messages and speak to the entire community, because there are 

some individuals who could be at risk for the activities we have 

talked about, for becoming violent extremists, that may not actually be drawn or stopped or countered through a pure democracy 

message. It is a series of messages that—some of which we may 

feel a little bit uncomfortable with at times. But if we are serious 

about countering that radicalization process, we have to be ready 

to do that. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Voinovich. 

Thanks for giving time to this hearing. 

Director Leiter, thank you for your testimony. I think we are 

going to have to close the hearing here, but I really appreciate 

what you are doing, particularly this, I think, pioneering work on 

counter-radicalization. I think you are really on the front lines of 

the attempt to get at the ideological underpinnings of Islamist extremism and terrorism, and I hope you will come back at some 

point and tell us what your conclusions are and how you are trying 

to transport the product, if you will, the result, down to the field 

so that if there is a young Muslim American, like Mr. Nawaz in 

England, growing up with grievances, that he not turn to violent 

Islamist extremism as the expression of those grievances. But I 

thank you very much for your work. 

We are going to leave the record of the hearing open for 15 days 

for additional questions from Committee Members or statements 

that witnesses want to add to the record. 

For now, that concludes our business. The hearing is adjourned. 

Mr. LEITER. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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