It did not take long for the images of the US Marines urinating on corpses of Taliban fighters to go viral. A moment of lapsed judgment will circulate as long as anyone is interested in seeing it, certainly long after short attention spans move on to other things and the fallout – including, presumably, disciplinary actions for the soldiers – settles.

Predictably, extremist sites have been all over this. In Indonesia, the story has run on Voice of al Islam, Hidayatullah, ar Rahmah, and others. Voice of al Islam made a clever play on words in their headline; they cited the Council on American-Islamic Relations by using its acronym CAIR, which means “liquid” in Indonesia. The headline “CAIR Kutuk Penodaan Mayat Anggota Taliban oleh Marinir AS” means “CAIR condemns the desecration of Taliban Corpses by US Marines,” but it could be read “Accursed Liquid Desecrates the Taliban corpses by US Marines.” The story itself is a pretty straightforward account of CAIR’s reaction – writing to secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, issuing a condemnation, and hoping for justice.

VOI’s subsequent post ratchets up the rhetoric, however. “Animals! American Marines Piss on Taliban Mujahidin.” The story quotes Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, who stated that “actions such as this make the Taliban want to continue to attack America.” For emphasis, the quote was highlighted and used as a pull quote in the text. The behavior is condemned as abominable, wild, and animalistic.

Ar Rahmah’s coverage invokes the Crusader master narrative, linking the act to centuries of perceived conflict and occupation. The headline quotes Taliban Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed’s statement that there are hundreds of similar unreported cases.

The story is also being repeated in the Arabic-speaking world. The bladialyoum blog embedded the video, and refers to the soldiers as barbarians, condemning the occupation of Muslims lands, and linking the act to other perceived acts of aggression against the Muslim world. In this post on Arabic.rt, comments condemn the act, and link it to the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed denounced the act as “barbaric.”

That extremist sites are reporting this story should come as no surprise, nor should it be surprising that mainstream media outlets are covering it as well. In Indonesia, for example, both English language dailies – the Jakarta Post and the Jakarta Globe – ran stories, as did most Indonesian language outlets such as Kompas, which embedded a link to the video on its website. Al Jazeera has been following the story, and updating it as details emerge (such as this report about the identification of US soldiers). These mainstream outlets reach exponentially more readers, and their coverage is nearly identical to the extremists, minus the hyperbole and the explicit anti-Americanism.

Not to say that those interested in combating extremism shouldn’t be paying attention to the extremist sites, but the readers of the mainstream sites are important too. Most of those few who follow the extremist sites have already chosen sides, but many in the mainstream media audience are “middle ground” observers, who may not have a strong opinion about the conflict. Stories such as this may push them toward sympathizing or even supporting extremists.

The story also shows the importance of non-verbal communication in the digital age. The despicable act itself was communication, but seeing and hearing it for oneself has much more of an impact than simply reading about it. Will the images inspire copycats and image manipulators in the same way the infamous images from the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib did? Will they become memes? Cartoon parodies have popped up, in both liberal and (neo)conservative media.

Domestic reaction to the images is mixed. Public officials and military spokespeople are nearly unanimous in their condemnation. So are many among the commentators on mainstream new sites. But many other sources  are not, arguing, essentially, that it is “no big deal.” Floundering presidential candidate Rick Perry’ argued, essentially, that it was no big deal, and criticized President Obama’s (and just about every other public figure’s) reaction. Islamist sites duly reported Perry’s words, and continue to follow the story, reporting on new details such as the identification of the soldiers.

It is, however a “big deal.” The internet age has drastically changed strategic communication, which is why it’s unfathomable that these soldiers thought it was a good idea to film this. As Robert Wright in the Atlantic writes in “The Banality of Urination,” that the act itself was committed is not particularly surprising:

You send hordes of young people into combat, people whose job is to kill the enemy and who watch as their friends are killed and maimed by the enemy, and the chances are that signs of disrespect for the enemy will surface–and that every once in a while those signs will assume grotesque form.

It is, rather, the “transparency of war” and the danger that the act will spread hatred and revulsion among those who view it.

The attention surrounding this act gives the extremists symbolic ammunition and may make the “middle ground” readers forget about the Taliban’s horrendous atrocities, such as their bombings of weddings, volleyball games, and other events that kill Muslims, or training children to behead their enemies. It may appear that they have gained the “moral high ground” for a brief period. Swift and public disciplining of those responsible may help reduce the fallout, but as the conflict in Afghanistan winds down, this is another reminder why the US needs to go to great lengths to try to minimize negative perceptions in the Muslim world.

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Have you seen this picture?

Last Friday the always-excellent PBS Newshour ran a story that left me floored.  It featured interviews with several ordinary Afghans who were handed pictures of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack. Of a dozen or so people asked, only one man (a police chief in Marjah) knew the story behind the pictures. All but one person said they had never seen the pictures before and did not know what they represented.

The conclusion of the segment mentioned a report published last November by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS).  It is odd that we were not previously aware of this report, and that it seems not to have gotten much play anywhere in the strategic communication blogosphere. It paints a concise picture of our narrative problems in Afghanistan.

One thousand participants from Helmand and Kandahar provinces were shown pictures of the 9/11 attacks, and asked if they recognized the pictures. About two-thirds said yes.

But then they were read the following story of the 9/11 attacks:

On September 11 2001, Al Qaeda attackers hijacked planes in the United States which were full of ordinary passengers, including women and children. They flew these planes, full of people, into two tall buildings in the city of New York. They destroyed both buildings, which were full of ordinary people. The attacks killed 3000 innocent citizens, including Muslims. They were organised and directed by Al Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden, who was then living in Afghanistan protected by the Taliban government. The American government asked the Taliban to hand over Osama Bin Laden. They refused, so the Americans and their allies NATO attacked the Taliban, and came into Afghanistan to look for Osama Bin Laden and overthrew the Taliban.

When asked “Did you know about this event which the foreigners call 9/11?” only 8% responded “yes,” 11% responded “no,” and 81% responded “no answer/don’t know.”

There could hardly be a more stark illustration of the essential strategic communication problem of the Afghan conflict: Huge swaths of the population have seen foreign troops enter their land and launch attacks for 10 years but seem to have no idea why they are there. Since nature abhors a narrative vacuum, this is fertile ground for the development of alternative stories about what we are doing there.  These integrate to form a narrative that is not favorable to our interests.

In the same study ICOS asked participants: “Why do you think the foreigners are here?”  Here is a graphic I produced based on a table from their report (click to view full-size):

Half of respondents either don’t know why we are there or think it is for “evil” reasons–my term for a set of responses.  Only half think we are there for benign reasons (consistent with the narrative we favor).

Looking at the breakdown on the right, we see that of the respondents who see “evil” motives, around three-quarters believe we are there to create mayhem (terrorism?).  A bright spot is that few participants think we are there to destroy Islam, but the “evil” set overall is consistent with our opponents’ narrative that we are crusaders.

Among other interesting results in the report is the belief that foreign forces kill around two times as many civilians as the Taliban.  These figures are almost exactly opposite those released by UNAMA at around the same time, which show that anti-government forces kill twice as many civilians as pro-government forces (i.e. ISAF plus the Afghan military).  As I have argued before, we are missing a significant opportunity by allowing such beliefs to persist.

The ICOS study shows, and the more recent PBS interviews reiterate, that our narrative in Afghanistan remains remarkably murky.   Only a small number of people in that country know the story of 9/11.  As for why we are there, the reason that actually aligns with our domestic narrative–namely that we are there for self-defense–is believed by only one out of six respondents.  Over twice that many believe we are there for reasons that align with our opponents’ “crusader” narrative, and that we are killing most of the civilians.

This makes it pretty easy to understand why people there would support an insurgency.  As the tenth anniversary of our invasion of Afghanistan approaches, we still have a lot of  ‘splaining to do.

Update 9/7/2011

A colleague from the UK informs me that a book just published by Frank Ledwidge, Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan (Yale, August 2011) has a whole chapter on this subject and that the book “makes very sober reading.” Here is a reviewer who says it is “one of the most upsetting books I have read about Britain’s part in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Update 9/9/2011

A colleague forwarded me this link to a related story that ran yesterday on National Public Radio.

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2. With bin Laden Dead Let’s Kill the Binary Narrative by Scott Ruston As details pour in regarding this past...
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President Obama’s speech from the Oval Office last night announced the end of combat operations in Iraq. The speech was largely driven by his choice of a defining metaphor:

“We have sent our young men and women to make enormous sacrifices in Iraq, and spent vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home” . . . “Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it’s time to turn the page.”

But as I’ll explain, that page-turning metaphor fails to deliver the closure that is so important to a good narrative.

Ever since he assumed the presidency, I have been following Obama’s “narrative gap” on matters related to the conflict formerly known as “the global war on terror.” His speech in Cairo seemed like a good start for defining a new beginning in our relations with Muslims and with the Middle East.

Yet I found his subsequent speech at West Point to be a narrative failure. It neither advanced the themes of the Cairo address nor broke new ground in the way Americans (or indeed the world) were to understand our continuing role in the Middle East.

I was then greatly pleased to see a major leap forward in his masterful Nobel Prize address in Stockholm. There he not only outlined a clear and–in my view–responsible mission for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also complicated the dominant binary of war/peace that so divided public opinion.

Viewed as a narrative trajectory, the previous speeches defined the U.S. mission as a reluctant but noble quest, casting the women and men fighting the war in the role of reluctant heroes who aimed to secure the safety of war-torn countries and reestablish local authority for policing and governing them. The speeches reserved for Obama the behind-the-scenes role of a wise wizard who commands “the long view.”

In such narrative constructions–think of “Lord of the Rings” or “Star Wars”–otherwise ordinary citizens are called to action (usually against their better judgment) to fight dark forces that threaten their way of life (or sometimes the security of the universe). The wise wizards provide helpful advice and direction, but rarely give final answers. Nevertheless, these oft-told tales–whether in fiction, film, nonfiction, or presidential speeches–provide powerful cultural expectations for not only “what should happen next” but also for “how it should (or must) end.” In other words they create expectations for closure.

The president’s speech last night offered him the opportunity to provide narrative closure on Iraq. Did our would-be wise wizard succeed? The short answer is that he did not. Those on the left wanted to hear our president blame his predecessor for an unwarranted war that cost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and over a trillion dollars in treasure that has been a major cause of our burgeoning budget deficit. There was no blame for the Bush administration; in fact, the president was gracious in his avoidance of blame. There was even praise for Bush’s patriotism.

For those on the right it was (predictably) even less successful. As Representative John Boehner (R-OH) observed even before the speech was given, it didn’t give credit for the surge where it was due–the Bush administration. David Gergen, commenting on CNN on the speech on behalf of mainstream Republicans, said the message that Obama “loved the troops but hated the war” probably wouldn’t help. Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, when asked after the speech whether the war had been worth it, replied somewhat evasively if honestly, “It really requires a historian’s perspective in terms of what happens here in the long run.”

Beyond these partisan interpretations, Obama’s end-of-war speech was also notable for what it did not include. There was no declaration of “victory,” no mention of “democracy,” and no clean announcement of an exit from the country or region. There was no mention of the awkward ironies that permeate our seven-year involvement in Iraq:

• We declared victory after two months of war despite the fact that nothing has been won.
• The democratic government that we promised has yet to fully materialize and is possibly even in serious jeopardy.
• No clean exit was likely, there would be no immediate “happy ending,” because there is rarely a clean-cut outcome in this kind of conflict.

Instead we are “turning the page” from combat in Iraq to combat in Afghanistan, and the story goes on. This is a fact that is neither popular with the American people nor with politicians on either side of the aisle.

Realizing this, President Obama, in his role as wise wizard, once again affirmed the longer view:

“One of the lessons of our effort in Iraq is that American influence around the world is not a function of military force alone. We must use all elements of our power — including our diplomacy, our economic strength, and the power of America’s example — to secure our interests and stand by our allies. And we must project a vision of the future that is based not just on our fears, but also on our hopes — a vision that recognizes the real dangers that exist around the world, but also the limitless possibility of our time.”

Given these responses to the speech, it would be wrong of me to suggest it was successful. There was good in it–praising the troops for their valor and sacrifice, ending the official combat commitment to Iraq, and reminding us that we still have responsibilities to “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat” al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But it was narratively and pragmatically unsatisfying because it clearly demonstrated a lack of closure so necessary to a successful “end of war” speech.

Put in the terms of narrative trajectories associated with heroic quests: order has not been fully restored and justice does not yet prevail. True to his theme, Obama announced only that we had “turned the page.” But what he failed to do was close the book.

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Yesterday the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released a report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan over the last year.  It concluded that “2009 proved to be the deadliest year yet for civilians since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.”  The surprise is what it says about the causes of these deaths, which in turn identifies an under-exploited opportunity to amplify ideological contradictions.

Sources of conflict-related civilian deaths in Afghanistan, 2009

Of the 2412 conflict-related deaths in 2009, 67%  were at the hands of “anti-government elements,” whereas 25% were attributable to ISAF and other pro-government forces.  Eight percent “died as a result of cross fire or by unexploded ordinance[sic].”

The anti-government figures represent an increase of 41% over 2008.  According to the report this is attributable to an increase in suicide and IED attacks.  Militants are also killing people they believe to be government supporters.

The pro-government numbers represent a decrease of 28% over the same period.  A report by Dexter Filkins in the New York Times attributes this welcome news to a tightening of restrictions on use of airstrikes.  To maintain the downward trend, American commanders also plan to reduce their use of night missions into villages, which often lead to unintended firefights with locals.

The state of affairs signaled by this report presents the UN/NATO/ISAF forces with a crucial opportunity.  As we argued in a white paper published last year, one of the critical functions of ideology is to smooth-over contradictions, like the one between the realities of extremist operations and the Qur’anic prohibition on killing innocents (especially when they are Muslim).

This function of ideology is why we were treated last month to a desperate video by Adam Gadahn, in which he said his buddies are not killing civilians, and are sorry for any civilians they have killed by accident. His dissembling is a clear sign of worry about the issue, and these new numbers show that there is good reason for worry on their part.

The pro-government response should be to push this contradiction into the open.  Norah Nilan, Chief Human Rights Officer for UNAMA, took a small step in this direction by saying in today’s release

Anti-Government elements remain responsible for the largest proportion of civilian deaths, killing three times as many civilians as pro-Government forces. It is vital that determined efforts are now made by the insurgency to put into effect the Taliban “Code of Conduct” that calls on them to protect the lives of civilians.

She added that “Anti-Government elements must realize that they too have obligations under international law.”

To me this statement is too tepid and deferential to the Bad Guys.  It more or less says that they have good intentions but have problems with execution, and they need to do better.  This is not unlike Gadahn’s argument.

Yet this assessment is at odds with facts stated in the same report that a number of the casualties are from cold-blooded political executions.  And isn’t killing 70 adults and children (and wounding 65) by bombing a volleyball game in Pakistan something more than a failure to stick with policy?

A better statement would be that the extremists are insincere in their claims that they want to protect civilian lives.  The Good Guys should be putting Gadahn saying “we don’t kill Muslims,” and quotes from the Taliban “code of conduct” about protecting civilians, side-by-side with press reports about and images of the innocent civilians who they are killing.

They should ask how the extremists can say they value and protect civilian lives when they bomb volleyball games and execute people.  And how could it be true that the extremists value innocent civilians while the Western forces hate them, as Gadahn claims, when the extremists’ deaths are going up and the Westerners’ numbers are going down?

Muslim allies in the region should be branding the extremists al-Munafiqin (or perhaps an equivalent in local languages).  Because like the Hypocrites of Medina they say they accept the word of God, but then act contrary to it when they see some advantage in doing so.  They are pretending to be devout Muslims for the sake of political expediency, but they are not acting like devout Muslims.

These kinds of efforts would help amplify the extremists’ contradictions and show them for what they really are.  Chiding them about their obligations under international law, not so much.

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Adam Gadahn in mid-rant

Jarret Brachman just did a post on a new video by nice-Jewish-boy-turned-AQ-mouthpiece Adam Gadahn (a.k.a Azzam al-Amriki, video linked on Jarret’s site). Jarret points out that this is the first video in a good long while from as-Sahab, and it has notably lower production values than its normal fare.  But to me the most significant thing is the subject matter of the video.  I, with the help of Jeff Halverson, produced a transcript of the video that you can find here.

Gadahn devotes at least half his time to a refutation of claims that the mujahideen are conducting attacks that are killing innocent Muslims:

we have also begun to see an increase in random bombings and attacks that target innocent Muslims, often in  known centers of support for the mujahideen.  These criminal acts usually result in large number of casualties, especially among women and children.  And invariably the enemies of Islam and Muslims pin the blame for them on the mujahideen. The mujahideen’s denials of responsibility fall on deaf ears.

He goes on at length arguing that the mujahideen are the true vanguard of the Muslims, and that it would just make no sense for them to kill the people they are trying to save:

But I ask every intelligent and thoughtful Muslim to ask himself: Who are the likelier culprits in such brutal, heartless, and unjust attacks?  Are they the mujahideen who have sacrificed everything to defend and liberate weak and oppressed Muslim peoples, uh, wherever they might be, and who have dedicated their very lives to the implementation of Islam and its Sharia which forbids the taking of even one innocent life?

The best explanation for Gadahn’s rather desperate defensiveness is that the killing of innocent Muslims is turning popular sentiment against the extremists in SW Asia.  The recent suicide bombing of a mosque in Rawalpindi, Pakinstan (one of s string of such attacks in recent months) was especially horrific.  A former Pakistani military official expressed his outrage in a BBC interview on December 4, saying that if this incident does not unite Pakistan against the extremists, nothing will.  Perhaps it was indeed some kind of tipping point that resulted in the apparently hasty production of the rant by Gadahn.

Faced with momentum turing against his cause, Gadahn does what any politician does when the wheels start to come off his campaign:  Blame the media.

the uncorroborated allegations of the regimes are carried without criticism and in a one-sided way by the so-called independent media in Islamabad, Kabul, and other world capitals.  Why?  Because these media are now willing weapons of propaganda in the pockets of the crusaders and their puppet governments and armies allied with them.

Not only do these immoral and biased media organizations shamelessly slander the Mujahideen, they also conspire with the regimes to cover up the true extent of the losses suffered by the apostate puppets of the crusaders and even describe those killed as martyrs.

But it’s hard to make that argument stick when mujahideen forces are directly claiming responsibility for attacks, as they did for the Rawalpindi bombing.

Could it be that some rogue elements are doing the killing, rather than people associated with Gadahn?  If so then we are at a loss to explain why Gadahn spends the second half of his speech rattling-off Taliban talking points against the Pakistani government:

The corrupt puppet armies and the affiliated intelligence agencies who fight and kill their own populaces and displace them and leave them homeless for a few billion dollars of crusader bribes, they aren’t your friends and protectors. The atheistic, uh, ethnic and tribal nationalists who murder their own learned men (Alam) to advance their evil ideologies and please their polytheist-idolater (mushrik) patrons and paymasters, they aren’t your friends and protectors. The apostate secular regimes who oppress, rob, and imprison you and sell-out the sovereignty of your countries for personal profit, they aren’t your friends and protectors.

And anyway the record of Gadahn’s outfit with respect to killing Muslims is pretty clear.  As Helfstein, Abdullah, and al-Obaidi point out in a just-released study based on non-Western media sources:

The results show that non-Westerners are much more likely to be killed in an al-Qa’ida attack. From 2004 to 2008, only 15% percent of the 3,010 victims were Western. During the most recent period studied the numbers skew even further. From 2006 to 2008, only 2% (12 of 661 victims) are from the West, and the remaining 98% are inhabitants of countries with Muslim majorities.

Finally we have the fact that Gadahn directly contradicts himself in the video.  At one point he says “the mujahideen declare themselves innocent of these attacks” that have killed innocent Muslims.  But in the next breath he says “we also express the same [condolences] to the unintended Muslim victims of the mujahideen’s operations.”  Adam, if you expect your audience to believe your comrades didn’t intend to kill innocent worshipers in Rawalpindi when they detonated a suicide vest, then threw grenades and sprayed the place with machine gun fire, then it’s time to cut way back on the hashish, m’kay?

So the good news is that this video seems to confirm that the Bad Guys have opened up a say-do gap of stupendous proportions.  We here in the US know what a pesky problem that can be, and our say-do problems are nothing compared to murdering the very people you claim to represent and protect–while they’re at worship.  It’s going to take a lot more than a video to close that gap.

That said, I have to add that I’m a bit baffled as to whom as-Sahab conceives of as the audience for this video.  It’s produced in English and contains no foreign language subtitles or voice-over (unless there are other versions that have it).  Based on that you would think his audience would be the English speaking world.  Yet everything Gadahn says seems to be aimed at people in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.  Previous videos by Gadahn seemed clearly targeted at a Western audience, even addressing them directly.  It made sense that AQ would use an American traitor to deliver such messages.  But why they would choose him as the messenger for this message is a mystery to me.

UPDATE 12/13

Re that last paragraph, mystery solved.  See Aaron’s comment below.

UPDATE 12/15

Leah Farrell concurs that this video shows that the AQ media wing has seen better days:  “If ever one needed proof that As Sahaab is going down the tubes here it is.”

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Yesterday’s speech by President Barack Obama at West Point about the future of American commitment to Afghanistan contained no real material surprises for anyone paying attention to the news reports that led up to his carefully planned and executed event.  It was an Obama speech that lacked his usual rhetorical flair but came down hard on pragmatics, including a frank assessment of time, costs, and the real problem that is less Afghanistan than it is Pakistan.  But I, for one, who appreciated the President’s directness and honesty on pragmatics, was surprised by one glaring omission:  the absence of a compelling narrative that links who we are, as a people, to what we are trying to accomplish over there.

Why was I surprised?  Because in the 92 days of deliberation and considerable press build-up to the President’s address the multiple audiences for the speech–both at home and abroad–were made aware of most of the debates about the plan and, finally, the details of the plan prior to its delivery.  We already knew what the plan would be.  Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and other administration officials slowly and methodically released those details over the weekend, and on Monday Gibbs ended public and press speculation and told a war weary and economically challenged nation that “the commander in chief issued the orders” for an additional 30,000 troops for Afghanistan.

That was not “the news” in the speech.  It is the same narrative about the success of the surge in Iraq.  A surge in troops for Afghanistan, will be combined with a corresponding “surge” in financial assistance  that is required to secure neighborhoods, build schools, roads, and hospitals, and otherwise provide gainful employment to citizens who, without it,  might become (once again) insurgents.

So what did the President’s speech accomplish as a narrative?  He began by reaffirming the Bush message:  We are still after those who started this fight and who were responsible for the tragic events of 9/11.  He admitted that the distraction that led us to invade Iraq was a mistake that he didn’t support it; moreover, that our invasion of Iraq has led to a world whose once good opinion of us has been seriously tarnished.  So far, the narrative of Obama begins with 9/11, a desire for justifiable revenge, a need for securing our future against future attacks, and the support of the world against terrorism.

Next he positioned himself as the inheritor of a bad situation.  The announced new Afghanistan strategy of “a surge” and mission to turn over control to the locals, combined with a timetable for initial troop withdrawal–by July of 2011– offers a narrative sense of an “ending” to this so-far-never-ending story, if not exactly a fully articulated exit strategy.  But as far as endings go, it isn’t a very satisfying one.

Other themes in the speech were that the real problem is less in Afghanistan than it is in Pakistan, less with the Taliban than with nuclear weapons.  Also we cannot afford a longer term commitment without jeopardizing our economic strength at home.

In my mind these elements do not add up to a coherent, compelling narrative about what we are doing there.  I recently posted a blog here about this “Narrative Gap” in which I observed that

what the Obama administration is missing is a collection of stories that provides a clear explanation of our military mission in Afghanistan. We don’t have a well-imagined view of the future of the world with our troops active in Afghanistan, or absent from it. We lack a firm (or better yet passionate) resolve among our leaders not only to accomplish our mission, but also to enact a particular storyline.

Apparently this observation was shared by columnist Thomas Friedman, who, shortly after my post and for the first time used the idea of a “narrative problem” to describe Obama’s inability to provide a clear and compelling case for “nation building at home“:

He has not tied all his programs into a single narrative that shows the links between his health care, banking, economic, climate, energy, education and foreign policies. Such a narrative would enable each issue and each constituency to reinforce the other and evoke the kind of popular excitement that got him elected.

He used it again to discuss Obama’s failure to adequately provide a counter-narrative to “The Narrative” currently dominating discussions in the Muslim world:

The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books — and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes — this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand “American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy” to keep Muslims down.

As Steve Corman pointed out, what is needed is what Friedman overlooks.  We do not simply need Muslims to speak out against The Narrative, but instead we need a president and other military, diplomatic, and interested citizens to offer the world a better narrative about ourselves.

That’s not an easy task. Nor was it one that Obama addressed in his speech.

Other commentators, including John Brown as well as a host of television and news reporters, have collectively argued that Obama’s narrative about our continued efforts in Afghanistan admittedly confronted the President with significant rhetorical and logical challenges that he needed to address at West Point.  Most importantly, as Brown observed, Obama has demonstrated an “unwillingness (some would call it a failure) to craft a clear, simple, ‘saleable’ message of ‘why we must fight’ in a little-known land, thousands of miles from our shores.”

By my own reckoning, since roughly 9/12 we have tried, and abandoned several attempts at an overarching narrative, from  “they’ve got WMDs in Iraq and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan” which morphed into “we need to rebuild Iraq and, by the way, al-Qaeda is no longer a threat,” that recently became “even though al-Qaeda is no longer a threat we still need to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban and ensure a stable government.”  All of which has coalesced, as of yesterday, to become “disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Qaeda and its extremist allies, and … to better coordinate our military and civilian effort.”

In his blog, John Brown goes on to detail possible alternative storylines to continue our presence in the region, which he generously referred to as “oxymorons”:  “we-are-getting-in-it-to-get-out” or “we-do-it-to-avoid-it,” both of which ended up as part and parcel of Obama’s speech.  As Brown points out, narrative strategies such as these rival Woodrow Wilson’s infamous (and, as it turned out, untrue) pronouncement that our involvement in World War I would be to participate “the war to end all wars.”

At least we didn’t hear that.  But neither did we hear answers to the most important questions that still define us, as a people, to the world.  So, did Obama’s speech help to close the narrative gap?  In my view, not very much.

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A colleague in the UK military recently sent an e-mail remarking on the brewing controversy in the UK about casualties from the war in Afghanistan.  Growing numbers of citizens are witnessing “repatriations” of dead soldiers, and Prime Minister Brown is under fire for botched communication with a grieving mother.

Brits are crowding the route between the Lynham Air Base and the Oxford Coroners Court.  Here is a YouTube video of one of the processions, not unlike Canada’s Highway of Heroes.  The spectacle hasn’t escaped the attention of those responsible for the deaths, the Taliban, who use the image on their web site as evidence of the pain they are inflicting on their enemies (see inset screenshot).

UK Repatriation on Taliban Site

PM Brown is also in the midst of a controversy over his communication with a grieving mother, Jaqui Janes.  Her son, Guardsman Jamie Janes, bled to death while awaiting evacuation by helicopter, which Ms. Janes is blaming on substandard equipment levels for British troops in the theater.   Brown sent her a handwritten note of condolence in which she claims he misspelled the name of her son.  Learning of the controversy, he telephoned her to straighten things out by claiming the perceived slight was a matter of bad handwriting.  For more details see this story in The Sun.

Note to Mr. Brown:  Though a handwritten note is more folksy, that only works if the recipient can read what you write.  You really do have atrocious handwriting, so a typewritten note would more reliably prevent miscommunication.  Also once a miscommunication has developed, listening is a better choice than defensiveness when dealing with an angry, grieving mother.

Says my colleague: “These are incredibly tense times – not sure even the meltdown of Major or Thatcher compares.”  The tense times also come as President Obama weighs additional troop commitments in Afghanistan, for which he would like to see comparable support from allies.

As this colleague points out, there is a strategic communication issue here for the UK government.  What started out as a few people paying their respects to fallen soldiers has self-organized into gatherings of thousands of people, at times shutting down one of the major routes into Oxford. The traction the Janes controversy is getting is further evidence of growing public discontent with the UK’s participation in the war. For me it is hard to avoid a comparison to the Vietnam, when nightly scenes of returning American dead at Dover Air Force Base fueled growing public opposition to the war effort.

David Betz has recently complained that in the West “we do not focus enough effort on winning and maintaining the hearts and minds of the most critical and accessible population: our own.” Bud Goodall concurs in an earlier post (also drawing a Vietnam comparison), saying that there is no coherent narrative about what we are doing in Afghanistan.  Until one is developed it will be hard to convince Brits to tolerate lengthening processions of coffins toward Oxford–or Americans to send tens of thousands of additional troops.

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One of the important challenges of President Obama’s administration is to sell the continuation of our “overseas contingency operation” (or perhaps FATAVE) in Afghanistan to an increasingly disenchanted audience at home and abroad. But there is a worrisome absence of a good narrative–a coherent collection of stories–about why we are there and what we hope to accomplish.

In recent press conferences and briefings, President Obama and Secretary of Defense Gates have maintained a consistent posture of support for a continued U.S. military presence, despite polls showing a growing lack of popularity for that posture. In a recent (September 22. 2009) Pew Research Center poll, the results were striking:

The poll shows that even though 76 percent of Americans see a Taliban takeover of the country as a major threat to U.S. security, 43 percent favor pulling out all U.S. and NATO troops as soon as possible. The number of those advocating withdrawal has increased five percent in just three months (from 38 percent in June), while the ranks of those set on ‘staying the course’ shrank by seven percent during the same period.

Since that poll was released there has been an upturn in debate over direction and policy in the White House, including a plea from General Stanley McChrystal for an additional 40,000 troops. As a Washington Post story about the apparent disagreement between McChrystal and the White House put it yesterday:

Obama may take weeks to decide whether to add more troops, but the idea of pulling out isn’t on the table as a way to deal with a war nearing its ninth year, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. “‘I don’t think we have the option to leave. That’s quite clear,” Gibbs said.

With due respect to Mr. Gibbs, I think nothing about this decision is yet “very clear” and much of the storyline is simply “missing.”

What is missing from reports about the ongoing debate over the future of our military mission in Afghanistan? From a strategic communication perspective, it is any mention of narrative. As Scott Ruston pointed out in a previous post:

A narrative is a system of stories that hang together and provide a coherent view of the world. People use narratives to understand how their world works. Narratives contain patterns that fit the data of everyday life (events, people, actions, sequences of actions, messages, and so on), explaining how events unfold over time and how one thing causes another.

In other words, what the Obama administration is missing is a collection of stories that provides a clear explanation of our military mission in Afghanistan. We don’t have a well-imagined view of the future of the world with our troops active in Afghanistan, or absent from it. We lack a firm (or better yet passionate) resolve among our leaders not only to accomplish our mission, but also to enact a particular storyline.

Without such a coherent system of stories to provide a clear and credible narrative storyline, American and overseas audiences are left with what narrative scholars call “the presence of an absence, and the absence of a presence.” That is, what we lack is the knowledge that there is, in fact, a believable, credible storyline guiding the trajectory of political decisions and military actions in Afghanistan.

What fills this gap for audiences is increasingly made up of competing narratives, which further fragment the issues and divide citizens and politicians from each other. Our public discourse about Afghanistan is a disconnected series of conflicting news accounts and press statements, daily political opinion polls, the (often inflamed) rhetoric of commentators on the left and right, and the rantings of our opponents overseas. The gap is also filled by widespread public and political anxiety. We fear what we do not know, and in this case, what we do not know is the narrative guiding vital decisions and actions.

Meanwhile, are left with one consistent pattern, one coherent, credible and disturbing storyline. Our leadership seems impotent as an undeclared war goes on, Americans continue to die, the leadership in Afghanistan remains corrupt, the Taliban grow stronger, and our treasury is drained of resources.

This narrative–constructed out of the noise of media stories and images–is eerily similar to the one that corroded support for the White House during the Vietnam War. It eventually led to political defeat, military withdrawal, and a resulting genocide as insurgents sought revenge on those who had assisted U.S. efforts.

It does not have to be this way. The American people expect a believable, credible narrative from this White House. We have learned to expect it. We want a story that closes the gap and provides us with a hopeful view of the future, whatever policies that future must embrace. More importantly, we want to have confidence in the resulting storyline. We want to understand where and how this story ends and have some way of accurately assessing the effectiveness of the steps taken to accomplish those ends.

We will not be satisfied by “a never-ending story.” Notice how short-lived was Secretary Rumsfeld’s rhetoric of “a long war.” Nor will we be content to support characters who don’t demonstrate what we expect from our national leaders/heroes. Bravery, honesty, and justice are all qualities that depend on connecting the narrative to desired ends.

Finally, there is an important principle from narrative theory that ought to guide the reinvention of America’s role in Afghanistan: The story determines the content, not the other way around. Translated into political language this simply means that until our leadership has settled on the narrative, there should be little discussion of specific policies (those smaller stories that make up the system) in the public sphere. A narrow focus on policy absent a compelling narrative will only confuse the popular audience and anger the pundits, leading to a further division of citizens from whatever the resulting storyline might be.

So, to fill the dangerous narrative gap, our leadership must first get the story straight. Then they should keep to it, measure success against it, and demonstrate those qualities of leadership, and leadership communication, that we associate with stories worth living, fighting, and/or, even dying for.

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Admiral Michael Mullen’s recent essay in Joint Forces Quarterly criticizing “strategic communication” lambastes the US government for its failures of strategic communication and the growth of a bloated bureaucracy fueling an agency-funded, contractor-filled cottage industry.  We have previously flagged Admiral Mullen as someone who “gets it,”  and it is welcome news that a US government official with his level of respect and stature continues to bring attention to the myopia that pervades US strategic communication.

We agree with the Admiral’s call for better listening. We should listen to not only what the locals say, but also to what extremists say, and how they say it in a manner the locals already understand. And, we should get back to the basics, understanding what narrative is and how our opponents craft their narratives. This knowledge will help build trust and relationships.

Admiral Mullen does not dismiss strategic communication as a process, technique or as a tool for decision makers and operators. But he does critique the bloated bureaucracy that has become strategic communication within the U.S. government, with its numerous, uncoordinated efforts that are disconnected from actions on the ground (both meritorious and unfortunate).

Presumably within the field of fire of Mullen’s critique is the recent announcement of new counter-propaganda efforts by the Obama Administration in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This new initiative funds (possibly up to $150 million) new communication infrastructure investment, new programming, training and “pamphlets, posters and CDs denigrating militants”.  Admiral Mullen suggests that relationships and trust are the key, not new programs:

We need to get back to basics, and we can start by not beating ourselves up. The problem isn’t that we are bad at communicating or being outdone by men in caves. Most of them aren’t even in caves. The Taliban and al Qaeda live largely among the people. They intimidate and control and communicate from within, not from the sidelines.

Mullen advises that we refocus efforts on operating within the communities and build relationships and trust, rather than lobbing “information bombs” over the walls of a metaphorical (and literal) Green Zone. Here he is fighting an outdated view of the communication process, that is unfortunately still deeply entrenched in government and the military.

But when Admiral Mullen says the Bad Guys are operating from  “within,” it is important to recognize that this does not solely mean physically or socially within the community. It also means culturally within, another area where we need to spend time, energy and resources for listening and understanding. Admiral Mullen notes:

Only through a shared appreciation of the people’s culture, needs, and hopes for the future can we hope ourselves to supplant the extremist narrative.

Admiral Mullen’s desire to supplant the extremist narrative echoes the consternation circulating throughout the DoD, Dept. of State, and strategic communication profession, that somehow the US message machine has been outflanked by unsophisticated operators.  Mullen identifies a fundamental component largely missing from US rhetoric: Cultural understanding.

Why is the extremist narrative more successful than the American narrative?  Because our strategic communication has so far failed to listen, failed to understand that the issue is not our story but their story.  To correct this problem, significant attention needs to be paid to not only “extremist narratives”, but also the deep cultural narratives that circulate in communities and sub-cultures within which the extremist message (in narrative form) is deeply intertwined.  More on that in a moment.

Strategic communication professionals, diplomats, and warfighters need to get back to the basics and understand what a “narrative” is.  Part of the reason the extremist narratives are more successful than American narratives is that the American messages are often not narratives at all. “The Taliban have archaic values” (to paraphrase Ashley Bommer, advisor to Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke) is not a narrative. It is an opinion, forged within a particular worldview, a worldview itself shaped by certain narratives that valorize equality, a free market regulated by law rather than pecuniary circumvention, the role of women as leaders in society, etc.

What then, is this slippery term “narrative”?  A narrative is a system of stories that hang together and provide a coherent view of the world.  People use narratives to understand how their world works.  Narratives contain patterns that fit the data of everyday life (events, people, actions, sequences of actions, messages, and so on), explaining how events unfold over time and how one thing causes another.  For instance, President Obama’s speech in Cairo wove together these patterns by discussing his own biography along with a notion of mutual progress between the Western and Muslim worlds.

Narratives consist of two components, the data (the stories, what is told) and the pattern (how they are told and what is not told).  The process of matching data to patterns happens repeatedly and continuously. People acquire the patterns through upbringing, culture, education and experience. A pattern might specify that a story includes opposing forces, that these forces cooperate (or fight), that what happens earlier always influences what happens later (or not), and so on.

As people hear stories, they acquire the data and distribute it into roles and relationships according to the narrative patterns they already know and understand.  If the story doesn’t fit the pattern, they try an an alternate pattern (or perhaps a different ordering of the pieces of data) until they can understand what is happening.  This process occurs not just in individuals, but in groups and societies too.

A quick example is 9/11, and your reaction to it.  If you are like most people, images and reports of airplanes flying into buildings made no sense to you. This probably caused much confusion and disbelief at first. But then a narrative pattern was applied (probably coming from news reports): Terrorists (antagonists) hijacked airplanes full of innocent people (victims) to use as flying bombs (tools) to attack (conflict action) U.S. society (protagonist). Suddenly it all made sense.

It made sense (to most Americans) because it tapped a narrative in which an organization and an ideology are at war with the United States–not unlike the Cold War narrative of conflict between the USSR and the US. The similar narratives of the Cold War and the Conflict Formerly Known as the Global War on Terror (now Overseas Contingency Operation, or perhaps FATAVE) explains why we have such a hard time seeing the differences between them–we are blinded by the similarities we have constructed by our method of making sense of these actions.

The critical point here is that narratives shape our understanding of the world, and recurrent patterns help make new situations familiar (despite, perhaps, some significant differences). This is why extremists routinely refer to US forces as Crusaders or liken former President Bush to the Pharaoh (not a Pharaoh, but the Pharaoh). These terms reference deep seated cultural narratives that are familiar to individuals and sub-cultures across the Muslim world.

Taliban communication also integrates deep-rooted cultural narratives to aid their audience both in understanding their message and subconsciously constructing affinity. It is widely reported that their shabnamah, or “night letters”,  contain threats warning against cooperation with US and Afghani government forces.  But what is often overlooked is their eloquence and careful crafting of a narrative that unites citizen and Taliban together.

Dr. Thomas Johnson at the Naval Postgraduate School offers an insightful analysis of the night letters.  In one of his examples, the night letter invokes hero narratives from Afghan history.  It draws on particular Ghilzai-tribe heroes thwarting incursions dating from the dawn of the second millennium all the way through the anti-Soviet jihad.  By using this narrative, the Taliban imply they are the inheritors of this Ghilzai heroism, blurring distinctions between ideological or theological affinities and tribal loyalty. Thus, in communicating to a Ghilzai (or Ghilzai-friendly) audience, the Taliban position themselves as allies of the audience. Together, they oppose Crusaders, invaders, and their tribal enemy the Durrani–who just happen to be a significant part of the base of Hamid Karzai’s government.

The tribal, cultural and political situation is far more complex than this forum can accommodate. But the point is that narrative has a common function wherever it is applied.  In the West, recasting the conflict between the US and terrorist groups as a war of Western versus hostile ideology makes the situation familiar and understandable (i.e., like the Cold War). Likewise in Afghanistan, playing on existing narratives of tribal loyalty, heroism and national origin simplifies the Taliban’s message and makes it familiar.

What to do? The strategic communication landscape, of course, cannot be abandoned, nor put on the back burner.  Rather, it needs to be foregrounded and integrated into Strategic, Tactical and Operational levels of planning and decision-making. But as Admiral Mullen said, we don’t need a branding or marketing campaign, based on a 20th Century hypodermic model of message injection. Instead strategic communication needs to focus on getting a handle on the culture of the region. It must understand the narrative patterns by which actions, messages and images will be organized and understood, and figure out which part of the extremists’ actions contradict the prevailing patterns.

No amount of new radio stations, cell phone systems or mobile trivia games will sway the Afghan populace to supporting the Karzai government and US interests until the government and US presence becomes integrated into the narratives that govern the individual, tribal, regional and national world views.

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In the run-up to today’s Afghan elections, the Taliban have been asserting that participation is un-Islamic.  But this infidel thinks these students (Talib translates as “student”) deserve an F.

A recent New York Times Op-Ed by Mirwais Ahmadzai, a program manager with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, reports the appearance of ominous “night letters” warning Afghan civilians not to participate in national elections. The letters reportedly give the following argument, as paraphrased by Ahmadzai, against voting:

The theological claim is that good Muslims are not allowed to seek any state position for themselves, and it is “haram” — forbidden — to cast a vote for anyone who chooses to do so.

The use of the term “theological” here is actually misleading, or at least inaccurate. Theology, or ilm al-kalam, involves the rational investigation and defensible articulation of the articles of belief (click here to see an example of real Sunni theology). The Taliban most certainly have religious convictions and espouse a certain dogmatic creed (aqidah). But  like most Islamists they adhere to school of thought in matters of belief that considers theology, as a rational project, to be blasphemous.

The peak of theological discourse in Islam occurred in the eleventh and twelfth centuries when Asharite scholars like al-Juwayni, al-Ghazali, and Ibn al-Khatib, were producing classic Sunni treatises (e.g. ar-Risala al-Qudsiyyah) and “refuting heretics.” In Sunni Islamic thought, the differences between theology (kalam), creed (aqidah), philosophy (falsafah), and jurisprudence (fiqh), are important.

I make this point not to be pedantic.  Rather, it is important to understand the Taliban’s claims not as “theology” (which the NY Times chose to do), but as jurisprudence.  Accordingly, let’s take a closer look at the Taliban’s explanation from a juridical standpoint.

Declaring an action, like seeking state office or voting, as haram (“forbidden”) is the function of a jurist (alim or faqih) who issues legal opinions. Sunni Islam standardized a methodology for such opinions (fatawa) in the 9^th century. This achievement is traditionally credited to Imam Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi’i, who died in Cairo in 820. This legal methodology is known as usul al-fiqh.

The process a jurist would undertake to formulate a ruling involves the following four steps:

1. Consult the Qur’an – what does God’s Speech have to say on the subject?
2. Consult the Hadith – If the Qur’an does not provide a conclusive answer, what do the traditions of God’s Messenger tell us?
3. Assess Ijma (“consensus”) – Okay, I still don’t know the answer; do the ulama (scholars) or the community agree on an answer? Maybe the sahaba agreed?
4. Undertake Qiyas (“analogical reasoning”) – Still no luck. Some folks disapprove of this step (e.g. Ibn Hazm), but since we can’t find a clear cut answer to the question, is there an analogous problem that has an answer we can look at?

Only if these four procedures fail to determine a definitive answer can the mujtahid be allowed to formulate an opinion to the best of his ability. Now that’s a simplified version of course, but it gives you an idea of what I’m about to do.

Step 1: Consult the Qur’an

The foundational postulate of the the Taliban argument is: “Good Muslims are not allowed to seek any state position for themselves.” The Qur’an has little guidance to offer on this issue. Islam had no explicit political role in society for the first thirteen years of its existence under Muhammad in Mecca (610-622 CE), so we won’t find much in the way of political content in the Meccan surahs (“chapters”). That means we can eliminate 85 of 114 surahs from the equation.

So now we’re left with 29. From those 29 Medinan surahs, these are two verses that seem relevant.  The first is:

If any do fail to judge by what God has revealed, then they are disbelievers. (5:44)

This verse was preceded by the passage: “It was We who revealed the Torah, therein was guidance and light; by its stand have been judged the Jews.” Verse 5:44 is followed later by this passage: “Let the People of the Gospel judge by what God has revealed therein; if any do fail to judge by what God has revealed they are rebels.” Clearly these passages deal with matters of orthopraxy, which are a major concern to Islam, just as they are to Orthodox Judaism. But they don’t have anything to do with “good Muslims” not seeking state positions.

What about this second Medinan surah?

Oh you who believe! Obey God, and obey the Messenger (Muhammad), and those charged with authority among you. If you differ in anything among yourselves, refer to God and His Messenger. (4:59)

This verse reiterates the role that Muhammad played as a judge in Medina, and the fact that he judged matters according to the content of the revelations (e.g. the Qur’an for the Muslims, the Torah for the Jews). But there is still nothing prohibiting good Muslims from seeking state office.

Indeed a “state” didn’t really exist during the time of Muhammad. It was more like a loose tribal confederacy centered around a city-state. In fact, if Muhammad is the perfect example of how Muslims should live their lives, and he was a judge and a “head of state” in Medina (as Islamists maintain), then shouldn’t Muslims also seek positions of authority to rule with justice and piety as the Messenger did? Isn’t that the Sunnah? But I’m getting ahead of myself.  On to…

Step 2:  Consult the Hadith

Sunni Muslims recognize six authentic or sahih collections of Hadith which were written and compiled in the 9^th and 10^th centuries (Muhammad died in the 7^th c.). Each of these six collections consist of literally thousands of (previously) oral traditions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and his closest companions. These books are the basis of what Muslims call the “Sunnah” (Muhammad’s exemplary behavior).

In addition to those six, there are other collections, such as the 8^th century collection of Imam Malik called al-Muwatta (“the beaten path”), but they don’t carry juridical weight the way the authentic books do. There’s a lot to consider here (thus the existence of scholars trained in the science of Hadith). Regarding our juridical investigation, here are a few Hadiths related to politics:

From Sahih Muslim:

It has been narrated on the authority of Ibn Abbas that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upoh him) said: One who dislikes a thing done by his ruler (amir) should be patient over it, for anyone from the people who withdraws (his obedience) from the government, even to the extent of a handspan and died in that conditions, would die the death of one belonging to the days of jahilliyya.

The above tradition from the revered collection of Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj doesn’t say anything about “good Muslims” not seeking state offices. But it does say that Muslims who rebel against their governments will die like pagans. Well, aren’t the Taliban fighting against the Karzai government? Perhaps their ”scholars” don’t have this book in their collection.

We also find this in Sahih Muslim:

‘Urwa b. Zubair reported that Hisham b. Hakim found a person (the ruler of Hims) who had been detaining some Nabateans in connection with the dues of Jizya. He said: What is this? I heard Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Allah would torment those persons who torment people in the world.

Again, there’s nothing here prohibiting people from holding political office. But this Hadith does admonish rulers who do not treat their subjects well. Has anyone else seen the video footage of Taliban “police” beating women with clubs for showing too much ankle beneath their tent-like burqas? Let’s keeping going.

From Sunan Abu Dawud:

Narrated Al-Miqdam ibn Ma’dikarib: The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) struck him on his shoulders and then said: You will attain success, Qudaym, if you die without having been a ruler, a secretary, or a chief.

Could this be the smoking gun? This tradition has the Prophet telling a man named Qudaym that he’ll have success if he stays out of politics (at least that’s how I read it). But he’s addressing a particular individual – was he giving some personal advice based on his own experiences? Or was he making a prophetic premonition of some kind? Or was he politely telling Qudaym that he’d be a terrible ruler? The Hadith doesn’t provide enough contextual material for us to know for sure.

Let’s look at another Hadith to try and clarify things, Book 19, Number 2966, Narrated Umar ibn AbdulAziz:

When Abu Bakr was made ruler he administered it as the Prophet (peace be upon him) had done in his lifetime till he passed on. Then when Umar ibn al-Khattab was made ruler he administered it as they had done till he passed on…

This Hadith, which actually discusses inheriting a plot of land, reminds us that the Prophet’s closest companions, Abu Bakr and Umar, were both selected as rulers, specifically caliphs, over the “Islamic state.” Both are revered as sahaba among Sunni Muslims making them essentially beyond reproach. Even if we understand the previous Hadith to mean that holding political office dooms one to failure (which probably means Hellfire), then obviously such a mistake cannot apply to the honored sahaba of the Messenger. In fact, Abu Bakr accepted the position of caliph (khalifah) after a council (shura) of community elders selected him. Was he doing something forbidden when he accepted? And the council of elders? Certainly not. As I said, Abu Bakr is beyond reproach in Sunni Islam (it’s a different story in Shi’ite Islam).

Step 3: Assess Ijma

There are so many Hadiths to examine and so little time. So let us be conservative and conclude that they provide conflicting advice.  In that case we examine the principle of consensus. There are hundreds of millions of Muslims in the world, including ulama (scholars), who see no problem with seeking state office and participating in elections. Even many Islamists accept this, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan, or even Hamas in Gaza, among many others.  The Taliban themselves were rulers of the Afghan state a few years back.  So I think we can conclusively acknowledge a consensus among Muslims that seeking state positions is permissible.  And anyway, aren’t military coups and armed insurgencies examples of “seeking state positions”? I think I’m jumping to step four again, so let’s just get right to it.

Step 4: Undertake Qiyas

Qiyas is analogical reasoning. I’m going to approach this in an unconventional way. Traditionally, one would use qiyas to look for an analogous precedent in other legal rulings. But I want to take a look at Islamic history instead because it will be far more fruitful. Islam has never been known to embrace monasticism and reject the world of politics and material goods. On the contrary, the Qur’an explicitly forbids monasticism and calls on Muslims to strive to establish a social order based on justice and equity rooted in the “revealed law.”

Muhammad’s closest followers seemed to take this to heart, because after he died in 632 C.E. they went to war with each other over who would rule the Islamic empire. For example, at the “Battle of the Camel” in 656 C.E., Muhammad’s wife Aisha (the daughter of the first Caliph, Abu Bakr) led an army with Talha and al-Zubayr (two of the Prophet’s best companions) against Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet and the fourth Caliph according to the traditional Sunni formula of the “Four Rightly Guided Caliphs.” When Ali won, he later went to war with Mu’awiyyah of the Umayyad clan. Then in 680 C.E. Muhammad’s grandson Husayn (the son of Ali) rallied his supporters and claimed his right to rule only to be killed in a lopsided battle at Karbala against the army of Mu’awiyyah’s son, Yazid. I’ve only scratched the surface here, but needless to say, the companions (sahaba) of Muhammad seemed to be very interested in seeking state office. Were they sinners? No, they were sahaba!

In conclusion, a proper application of usul al-fiqh shows that there is nothing un-Islamic about seeking office or participating in the election of rulers.  These Taliban “rulings” are al-bida (innovations) of  uneducated tribesmen who seem to know less about Islam than an American kafir.

*Jeffry Halverson is a CSC Postdoctoral Research Associate who holds a Ph.D. in Islamic studies.  His book, entitled Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam , will be published in 2010.

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