Newt Gingrich, writing in the Wall Street Journal, has a list of things he wants the US Congress to study --
5. The Arab countries—including Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria—that have successfully contained and minimized radical Islamists. We must learn how this was accomplished and what aspects should be replicated.
This would indeed be a good topic for investigation, but it wouldn't go the way Newt suggests. It was Egyptian repression of Islamist opposition that led to the birth of Al Qaeda. And France's 1990s terrorism problem suddenly worsens when Algeria launches a brutal assault on its own Islamists. When the Arab countries lean on their own Islamist opposition -- with their grudging support of their middle classes -- the world ends up with more virulent forms of radical Islam. Ask Syria.
5. The Arab countries—including Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria—that have successfully contained and minimized radical Islamists. We must learn how this was accomplished and what aspects should be replicated.
This would indeed be a good topic for investigation, but it wouldn't go the way Newt suggests. It was Egyptian repression of Islamist opposition that led to the birth of Al Qaeda. And France's 1990s terrorism problem suddenly worsens when Algeria launches a brutal assault on its own Islamists. When the Arab countries lean on their own Islamist opposition -- with their grudging support of their middle classes -- the world ends up with more virulent forms of radical Islam. Ask Syria.