Losing the War on Islamic Terrorism

“A national security professional’s duty is not to know true Islam; it is to identify and establish a functional threat doctrine, regardless of whether that doctrine accurately tracks with ‘true’ Islam or not. What matters is that we understand the enemy’s doctrines, not whether he is correct about them,” writes Stephen Coughlin in his most recent book Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad.

Detailing how the War on Terror has effectively been lost through decision making that is increasingly less focused on the threat as it presents itself and more on the narratives that have reduced the threat to a nameless abstraction, Coughlin notes, “Today, individuals with Muslim Brotherhood affiliations dictate who can and cannot work for the government on War on Terror issues. They also dictate what can and cannot be discussed.”

“As long as they can keep us from understanding the enemy doctrine, they can…