Obama's Outreach to Muslims -Jim Hoagland
President Obama repeatedly extended his hand to the world's Muslims in his first ten days in power. His respectful tone and gestures toward Arab states in particular were as welcome as they were deft. But it would be a mistake to conclude that the gears of history have shifted and what Americans have come to call the "war on terror" is over.
Americans did not initiate the conflict with al-Qaeda and other Muslim extremists, and Americans will not be the ones to declare an end to the struggle against violent extremism practiced in the name of jihad.
President Obama repeatedly extended his hand to the world's Muslims in his first ten days in power. His respectful tone and gestures toward Arab states in particular were as welcome as they were deft. But it would be a mistake to conclude that the gears of history have shifted and what Americans have come to call the "war on terror" is over.
Americans did not initiate the conflict with al-Qaeda and other Muslim extremists, and Americans will not be the ones to declare an end to the struggle against violent extremism practiced in the name of jihad.
The war on terrorism over? As Hemingway has Jake say ruefully to Brett at the end of "The Sun Also Rises": "Isn't it pretty to think so?" Pretty, but self-deceiving, for sure.
(Washington Post)
Note: Mr. Hoagland's article is, in part, a response to an article that appeared in the New York Times by Roger Cohen titled "After the War on Terror." In that piece Mr. Cohen declares that "[t]he war on terror is over."
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(Washington Post)
Note: Mr. Hoagland's article is, in part, a response to an article that appeared in the New York Times by Roger Cohen titled "After the War on Terror." In that piece Mr. Cohen declares that "[t]he war on terror is over."
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