Colorado, Collegiate Peaks
At the invitation of the Collegiate Peaks Forum Series, Professor Walid Phares delivered two lectures on the "Jihadi wars against Democracies" based on his latest book The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad. Professor Phares, a Fox News Terrorism Expert and the Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is also a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy. In his two lectures, Phares focused on the essence of the ongoing confrontation opposing the United States and the free world to a vast web of Terror forces and regimes. "As for the Lord of the Rings Tale we're dealing with a long conflict with many lords of Jihadism around the world," said Phares. "But the important and dangerous enemy is mostly those rings, that is the ideology producing the lords." Speaking of Iraq and Afghanistan Phares said "the war waged by the Jihadist forces isn't limited to a particular area of the world, to one or two zip codes, rather it is global and boundless."
The "Collegiate Peaks Forum Series" began as a small group of intellectually curious citizens in Chaffee County, Colorado, who determined that their lives could be enhanced by investigating the challenging questions raised by the interrelationship of philosophy, religion and science through academic stimulation, related discussions and their ensuing insight. To that end, notable speakers and scholars active in these disciplines would be invited to speak, offer their published work and engage in constructive dialogue.
The two lectures were held on Thursday August 28 at 7:00 PM Topic: "Future Jihad and The War of Ideas" and on Friday August 29 at 7:00 PM Topic: "Jihad in America" at Salida Steam Plant Theater & Event Center Ballroom/exhibit hall.
"It should be called the Jihadi war against democracies and not the war on terror," said Dr. Walid Phares in his two lectures at the SteamPlant on August 28 and 29. Dr. Phares, the fourth lecturer sponsored by the Collegiate Peaks Forum this summer, was born in Beirut, educated there, in France and the United States. He is one of the foremost consultants on terrorism in the United States and the West. He is currently a Senior Fellow and Director for Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C. Before that, he has been a professor of Middle East studies at Atlantic University and has briefed the US Government and other western countries. He has been an analyst for NBC since 2003 before becoming an expert for Fox News as of 2007. He is the author of many books including "Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against America," the Foreign Affairs best seller of 2006. He speaks English, French, Lebanese and Arabic.
He began his lecture by pointing out that terrorism is not a strategy but one tactic among many tactics used by the "Jihadists". Moreover, Jihad as an ideology is not a response to conduct of Americans over recent generations but began in the early 1920s after WWI when Ataturk, following his decision to join the secular societies of the West as evidenced by the League of Nations and later, in 1945, by the United Nations, abolished the caliphate, a word for the theocratic Islamic empire. Immediately upon its abolishment, the Jihadi movement sprang forth by radicals attempting to restore the caliphate and the Islamic empire and it is that movement that we are dealing with today.
The Jihadi movement is not in response to social disenfranchisement or particular U.S. foreign policies. It is an ideologically grounded movement with members from all walks of life including students, doctors and religious emirs. As such, Jihad is a worldwide movement to restore the Islamic empire and, while its meaning may be debated in the United States, its meaning is clear in the Middle East. Its strategy is to reestablish control over the dozens of Arab and Muslim countries which used to be part of the Islamic empire and then expand into other countries including the democratic countries of the West by destroying their democratic process.
To the teachers of the nation, he would say that the story of what has happened to us is as important as the story of what we are going to do about it. The "old" Jihad is part of History. But al Qaeda recreated a contemporary form of Jihadism and is just the tip of an iceberg which goal is to extend the caliphate and dominate the world. In February 1998, Osama Bin Laden declared war on America and the Infidels which was hardly reported in American newspapers. Before that, Jihadist influence infiltrated the classrooms of the West. Dr. Phares came to America in 1990 partly because of his concern that the West was uninformed about the nature of the mounting Jihadi threat and needed to be warned about the growing movement and had to develop strategies to defeat it.
There are two Jihadi fronts which simultaneously seek to restore the caliphate. One school, called the "Realists", infiltrates and penetrates the educational system and other places of influence and spreads propaganda to deflect our ability to see what they are really doing – from seeing the enemy. Thus, they try to assert the notion that "the Muslim world hates us because of our policies" in order to suggest that violence and terror are our fault. Yet, these activities are not our fault, not the direct result of our foreign policy, not a mere reaction of our economic system – it is mainly the result of ideological forces aiming at crumbling the free world and establishing the caliphate.
The other front is al Qaeda which uses terrorist tactics like 9/11 and suicide bombings in the Middle East to "crumble our will". Dr. Phares explained that, until 9/11, Jihadi ideological strategies had worked in America by dominating Middle Eastern studies programs in most universities and spreading ant-Western propaganda. He estimated that there were a dozen scholars (like himself) attempting to expose the Jihadist movement though they were opposed by as many as 1,200 academics in Middle Eastern studies programs throughout America since the 1990s. Currently he estimated that there are approximately 300 academic (who are opposing the apologists) but mostly young and who are mostly part of academic programs in security studies because reforming Middle Eastern studies to introduce different points of view has been practically impossible.
His recommendation for defeating the Jihadi war against democracies is to isolate the jihadists by supporting and expanding democratic elements in the Arab and Muslim world whom are opposed to the terror forces. For example, about 35% of the people in Iran are ethnic minorities opposed to the regime as are a great number of women and students in the other 65% of the population. He said, "The classroom impacts the newsroom." And thus it is important that citizens be educated on Jihadism, that citizens be encouraged to detect Jihadi infiltration. "The war will be mostly won by the citizens, not only by guns and bullets or by government," said Dr. Phares. He also said we could not successfully isolate the enemy as long as we subsidized their activities with petro dollars. Energy independence is an essential strategy for defeating Jihadism. He opposes talking to Iran regime's leaders on the ground of cutting deals with them. "These are jihadists; we should reach out and talk to those who oppose the regime." He also warned that we should not give in, little by little, to the jihadists by tolerating small encroachments to our democratic culture such as conceding to Islamist-Jihadi lobbies for special hours, for example, exclusively for Muslim women swimming in public places because of so-called "Islamic rules". This is a path leading to a Taliban regime and apartheid in our society.
Dr. Phares concluded that Jihadism is a worldwide phenomenon and is as large and dangerous as the Soviets threat during the Cold War which ended in 1989. "The war waged by Jihadism is not a conflict which will end if we get out of Iraq. It is not waged by zip code but is worldwide. It is a conflict we must win and a conflict which is winnable. It is a conflict bigger than war. Appeasement can buy us time but is not a solution. It is a question of whether the youth today or the youth tomorrow bear the burdens associated with this conflict." He likened Jihadism to the "Lord of the Rings". "It is not the Lord (Osama Bin Laden)," he said, "but the Rings – the Jihadist ideology.