-Caveat Lector-
http://www.mepc.org/journal/9710_khan.html
Policy Entrepreneurs: The Third Dimension in American
Foreign-policy Culture
M. A. Muqtedar Khan
M. A. Muqtedar Khan is a PhD candidate in political
science at Georgetown University
"The Great oil boom was an event so profoundly and
broadly influential that it provides the key to
understanding the surge of Islam.." � Daniel Pipes,
1983.1
"Yet it is naive to attribute the Islamic revival
mainly to oil." � John Esposito, 1985.2
"Yes, I did publish a book in 1983, In the Path of
God, suggesting that the resurgence of Islam in the
1970s resulted from the boom in oil wealth. At this
point I don�t know what causes fundamentalism....[It]
may be too complicated for us to figure out." � Daniel
Pipes, 1994.3
"In the long run, many academics were proved right." �
David D. Newsom, 1995-96.4
Policy is the codification of politics. They are
inextricably linked, making consensus among the policy
community essential to articulating and implementing a
cohesive and consistent policy. This is particularly
true in American foreign policy, given its
significance and complexity. In the specific case, for
example, of how America should deal with the
phenomenon of Islamic resurgence, consensus has been
lacking, and for over two decades a vitriolic debate
has raged among politicians, policy makers,
practitioners, academics, journalists and policy
entrepreneurs.5
This paper is an attempt to make sense of the circus
that American foreign-policy making has become, due to
the competition between national interests and special
interests. Two perspectives have emerged,6 one
advanced by academics and the other by "policy
entrepreneurs." While attempting to shed light on the
politics of policy making, my primary objective is to
contextualize the role of various communities of
specialists in the shaping of American foreign policy
towards Islam.
TWO CULTURES: ACADEMIA AND POLICY-MAKING
Alexander George has devoted his career to reducing
the gap between the practitioners of American foreign
policy and academics who study it.7 He argues that
even though a substantial mingling of the two cultures
has taken place,8 bridging the gap between the two
worlds has been increasingly slow and difficult,
especially in the area of conflict management and use
of force.9 George chooses to attribute the differences
between policy makers and academics to "culture," that
is, different practices, operational styles and
professional missions.10
David Newsom, a former U.S. ambassador and
under-secretary of state and a distinguished professor
of international relations who has first-hand
experience of both cultures, presents the dichotomy as
one between actors and observers.11 He contends that
while, in the long run, academics have been proven
right, practitioners are more concerned with the
articulation and justification of current policy. This
preference leads them to often ignore advice from
academics, whose concern is intellectual.
Practitioners generally seek to balance domestic and
international politics, resources and realities in an
effort to hammer out a workable policy.12
Both George and Newsom observe that academics tend to
prefer theory to pragmatism. International-relations
(IR) scholars are primarily concerned with eliciting
generalizable conclusions and may gloss over specific
particularities that may have grave policy relevance.
A mutual distrust exists between the two groups that
could be attributed to an absence of communication.13
However, IR scholars are not the only academics who
write about U.S. foreign policy. Regional scholars,
area specialists and historians also offer criticism
and advice to the foreign-policy establishment, and
these disciplines are outstanding for their lack of
theorizing.
Gary Sick, an expert on Iran, who, like Newsom, has
experienced both the cultures of academia and policy
making,14 makes a similar observation:
There is a deep and widening gap between the
perception of Iran by the Washington policy community,
on the one hand and by many if not most academic
specialists on the other. Given the divergence of
interests between these two groups, perhaps this
should not surprise us; but to me, as one who has
worked both sides of that fence, the present emergence
of two contradictory "truths" about Iran goes far
beyond the usual differences between policy wonks and
eggheads.
Norvell B. De Atkine, a practitioner, also expresses
disappointment at the lack of influence that Middle
East scholars have on U.S. foreign policy:15
American specialists on the Middle East are not just
talented but have replaced their British colleagues as
the greatest sources of knowledge on the region. Why
then are they out of the loop?
His response to the question is a polemical
condemnation of academics in the field. He casts
aspersions on their loyalty, dismisses their
commitment to objectivity and methodology, and finally
declares them unreliable because of their obsession
with the Arab-Israeli conflict. He accuses the entire
academy of being inclined towards apologizing for
Islamism rather than producing knowledge that can be
used to shape American foreign policy.16 To grasp what
has so exercised De Atkine, one needs to understand
the issues and actors involved in the debate.
THE POLICY TERRAIN
The debate over whether Islamic resurgence presents a
threat to the West or not is now concentrated on two
issues. One, are there any moderates among the
millions who advocate a return to an Islamic way of
life and are actively involved in it at the
intellectual, social, political and radical levels?17
Two, is the advice academics are giving to the
administration sound or tainted by sympathy for
Islamism and Marxism?18
The debate on the first issue involves three major
players: practitioners from the National Security
Council and the Department of State, academics and
scholars of Islam and the Middle East, and policy
entrepreneurs from think tanks and the media. The
second debate has been in a sense initiated by the
academics who lament that their influence on policy
has gradually decreased to the point where they feel
alienated from government. Rashid Khalidi, a recent
president of the Middle East Studies Association
(MESA), lamented in his presidential address,
"Expertise on the Middle East is simply ignored by
governments and to a lesser degree by the media and
other institutions of civil society."19 This feeling
is echoed by Gary Sick, who is appalled at the extent
to which the foreign-policy establishment has ignored
the advice and research of academics.20 Part of the
explanation is that the policy entrepreneurs have cast
aspersions on the relevance and even the loyalty of
the academics in an attempt to convince the
administration to eschew their advice.21 Let us
examine the three groups that constitute the policy
community.
The Practitioners
Practitioners are the foreign-policy establishment:
members of the NSC, the State Department and the
Defense establishment. In a symposium conducted by the
Middle East Policy Council (Washington, D.C., May 26,
1994), Ambassador Robert Pelletreau, the assistant
secretary for Near East affairs, articulated the U.S.
position towards Islamic resurgence.22 He said that
the prism through which the United States views the
Middle East is U.S. interests:23 (1) peace between
Israel and its Arab neighbors; (2) the security and
well-being of Israel; (3) an assured access to energy
sources; (4) non-proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction and prevention of destabilizing arms
transfers; (5) promotion of democracy and human
rights; (6) an end to terrorist activities; (7)
promotion of development, a market economy and
investment opportunities.
I find it rather curious that, while the ambassador
was explicit in underlining the well-being of Israel
as an American interest, he did not deem it necessary
to state that America sees good relations with Muslims
(nearly a quarter of the world population) as an
American interest. Perhaps that is taken for granted.
In this statement, the Muslim world emerges merely as
a "source" for energy resources, markets and political
instability.
Ambassador Pelletreau then elaborated the official
posture of the United States towards Islam and
contemporary Islamic resurgence. He pointed out that,
unlike the media and certain segments of the policy
community, the government believed that the term
Islamic fundamentalism was misleading and often used
indiscriminately. To avoid this confusion, the
foreign-affairs community preferred to use the term
"political Islam" to refer to Islamic groups and
movements with specific political goals.24 Ambassador
Pelletreau spelled out the American position toward
contemporary Islamic resurgence in the following
terms:25
1. We view the religion of Islam with great respect.
Islam is one of history�s civilizing movements that
has enriched our own culture.
2. While it is true that the concepts and symbols of
Islam at times are exploited by extremists, this
should not blind us to the legitimacy of the broader
study and debate about the proper role of Islam in
societies and governments of the region.
3. We, as a government, have no quarrel with Islam.
4. We reject the notion that renewed emphasis on
traditional values in many parts of the Islamic world
must lead inevitably to conflict with the West.
5. However, certain manifestations of the Islamic
revival are intensely antiWestern and aim not only at
elimination of Western influences but at resisting any
form of cooperation with the West or modernization at
home. Such tendencies are clearly hostile to U.S.
interests.
6. But we see no monolithic international control
being exercised over the various Islamic movements
active in the region.
The fact that the administration is able to articulate
a cohesive and unambiguous policy does not suggest
that there is a broad consensus on all the issues
among all parts of the policy community. Given the
complexity of the foreign-policy establishment, it is
difficult to capture "the official position" merely on
the basis of statements made by State Department
officials. Often one can hear different signals from
the White House, the Congress and State. It is also
not unusual for these signals to be contradictory.26
But on this issue the espoused positions of the NSC
and State are very similar.
The administration�s policy is criticized by both the
academics and policy entrepreneurs. The academics
criticize the administration for not standing up for
the principles it espouses in policy statements, such
as support for democracy.27 They criticize it for
often justifying policy objectives in the light of
values such as human rights and democracy28 while
continuing to tolerate undemocratic measures by
governments in Algeria and Egypt.29 They also
criticize the administration for having strong
relations with states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait and Israel, which systematically violate human
rights and continue to use violent means of
repression. While the academics are nearly in
agreement with the administration�s espoused policies,
they are, however, not encouraged by its actual
policies toward Algeria, Egypt, Israel and the Arabian
peninsula.30 Policy entrepreneurs, on the other hand,
are unhappy with the United States for not being
tougher on the Islamists.
The Academics
Scholars of Islam and the Middle East are disturbed by
the policies of their governments, especially with the
widening gap between espoused principles and actual
practices. They are concerned about the manner in
which the media and the governments in the West have
attempted to construe Islam as the new global threat
after the demise of the Soviet Union. Many academics
are not just critical of the policy, they also play a
constructive role in defining the principles and
direction of the policy.31 A useful list of academics
involved in the debate around U.S. foreign policy is
furnished by De Atkine and Pipes in their attacks:32
John Esposito, John Voll, Yvonne Haddad, Hisham
Sharabi, Judith Tucker, Mamoun Fandy and Michael
Hudson, all from Georgetown University; Edward Said,
Richard Bulliet and Lisa Anderson of Columbia
University; Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins; Richard Falk
of Princeton; and John Alden Williams and James Bill
of the College of William and Mary.
In recent years, even as the media and the policy
entrepreneurs went overboard in their attempts to
paint Islam as the new threat to the free world, the
academics managed to establish an alternate school of
thought that challenges such formulations. They argue
for a more sophisticated understanding of Islamic
resurgence and are critical of the simplistic
formulations of the media and the entrepreneurs. The
recognition of this school of thought was clearly
manifest in the Middle East Policy Council symposium
referred to above. Representatives of the three
subgroups of the policy community were present to
articulate their respective positions.33
The academics maintain that the term "Islamic
fundamentalism," especially when used as
indiscriminately as it is, merely generates
stereotypes and misinforms policy. Esposito points out
that Iran, Saudi Arabia and Libya are labeled
fundament-alist. He wonders what exactly is common to
a revolutionary Islamic Iran that is hostile to the
United States, a traditional monarchy in Saudi Arabia
that is its best ally in the region and a socialist
Libya that is as vulnerable to Islamic resurgence � as
are other states such as Tunisia and Morocco.34
Islamic fundamentalism, in Esposito�s opinion, is a
pejorative used to demonize Islamic resurgence.35
Others, such as Zachary Karabell, Graham Fuller and
Ian Lesser, have also argued that the use of the term
serves to delegitimize and demonize attempts by
Muslims to apply their religion to their own lives.36
The following points sum up the academics� position:37
1. The state and the media look at Islamic resurgence
through the prism of Iran/ Khomeini and overlook the
diversity of contemporary Islamic movements.
2. Islamic movements function in Muslim societies to
provide social services and enhance political
awareness. Labeling these moderate and popular
movements extremist has justified violent and
indiscriminate repression.38
3. Islamic moderates such as the Muslim Brotherhood in
Egypt, the Jamaat in Pakistan, Refah in Turkey and the
FIS in Algeria have genuinely contributed to the
development of civil society and democratic impulses.
Labeling them extremists has justified their
repression by authoritarian regimes, leading to an
unnecessary radicalization of some of the moderate
forces.
4. Violence and terrorism are the acts of a small
minority, often in retaliation against state
repression or Israeli excesses in occupied Palestine
and Lebanon.
5. Blaming Islam is misleading. The United States
should consider the political situation, economic
conditions, development issues, unemployment and
maldistribution of wealth in its assessment of the
conditions in Muslim societies.
6. The cases of Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey and Malaysia,
where Islamists have been allowed to participate in
the political process and have been co-opted
satisfactorily into the system, should encourage the
West to have dialogue with the moderates and allow
them to enter into the political process elsewhere
too.39
7. Islam and democracy are not incompatible.40
Democratic values are realized when Islamists come to
power democratically.
8. The assumption that secularism is a universal value
and that all should embrace it regardless of their
beliefs and values is problematic. "Secular
fundamentalism" leads to a preference for repressive
and authoritarian secular regimes over nonsecular and
popular ones.
9. In principle, the United States should not object
to the implementation of Islamic law or the
participation of Islamic activists in government.41
As this summary suggests, the academics disagree with
some of the practices of the United States, but tend
to agree with the espoused principles of the policy.
Over the years, the official position has tended to
shift increasingly in the direction suggested by the
academics. The issue of Islamic resurgence is now into
its third decade. In the long run, as Newsom points
out with other relevant examples,42 academics are
usually proved right. Thus the long life of this issue
has resulted in the administration�s gradually
realizing the wisdom and value of systematic research
and genuine scholarship. Academics in this area do not
theorize excessively. They understood the needs of the
practitioners and appreciate the constraints and
limitations under which they operate.43 Thus, while
the gap between academics and practitioners has closed
significantly, consensus is still not in sight.
The Policy Entrepreneurs
The policy community has seen the gradual development
of a third dimension, composed of non-academic and
even some academic experts, former government
employees, journalists and lobbyists. Unlike the
academics, the policy entrepreneurs� interest in the
issue is not intellectual, nor is their objective the
advancement of knowledge. They are primarily driven by
a policy preference, which they seek to impose on the
policy-making process. They bring a composite of
concern, professionalism and ideological activism to
bear on this task.
The most articulate and outspoken policy entrepreneur
is Daniel Pipes, director of the Foreign Policy
Research Institute in Philadelphia. Others are Judith
Miller, a senior New York Times reporter; Steve
Emerson, a free-lance reporter and documentary film
maker; professors Barry Rubin, Patrick Clawson and
Bernard Lewis (the quintessential Orientalist); Martin
Kramer, an Israeli academic; and think-tank analysts
like Peter Rodman of the Nixon Institute. These
individuals stand out for their consistent policy
preferences regarding Islamic resurgence. I am not
suggesting that the group acts in cohesion to advance
a particular objective. But in their similar policy
preferences and their radical departure from the
policy recommendations of the practitioners and
academics, they constitute a distinct group.
The assessment of contemporary Islamic resurgence from
the policy entrepreneurs� perspective has been
articulated for over a decade by Pipes, Rubin, Rodman,
Kramer, Miller and Lewis:44
1. There is a centralized international infrastructure
of Muslim fundamentalists.45
2. This conspiracy is dedicated to the destruction of
the West, Israel and American values.
3. The threat is similar to the global communist
threat.46 In his article "Fundamentalist Muslims,"
Pipes equates the Quran to the writings of Marx and
Engels.47 Bernard Lewis advances the idea of a global
revolt of Islam.48
4. Fundamentalist Islam is an ideological
interpretation geared toward mobilizing anti-American
and anti-Israeli sentiments. Adherents can be
identified by their slogan "Islam is the solution."
5. Fundamentalists call on Muslims to adhere strictly
to Islamic ways and believe they will prosper only if
they do so.49
6. For centuries there has been an enduring clash of
values and cultures between Islam and the West. The
present American support for Israel and its domination
of the Middle East is seen by these fundamentalists as
the continuation of the Crusades. Therefore, the roots
of Muslim resentment are historical and cultural, and
the response is geared towards a destruction of all
that the West stands for.50
7. All fundamentalist Muslims are inherently
extremists.51 The so-called moderates are extremists
who lack the power or the opportunity to indulge in
violence and terrorist activities.52
This third dimension of the policy culture can be
described as an epistemic community. Epistemic
communities, according to Ernst Haas, are "composed of
professionals (usually recruited from several
disciplines) who share a commitment to a common causal
model and a common set of political values. They are
united by a belief in the truth of their model and by
a commitment to translate this truth into public
policy."53 Members share the same beliefs, as
enumerated above, about contemporary Islamic
resurgence. They all seem to share the same values,
particularly an unconditional support for Israel and
its military hegemony. They are all committed to a
remorseless containment of Islamic resurgence (as
evinced in their policy recommendations discussed
below) since they seem to place Israel and Islam in
the context of a zero-sum game.
The entrepreneurs are committed to the maintenance of
a political and socioeconomic status quo in the Muslim
societies of the Middle East. They assume as
inevitable the worst-case scenario. Their commitment
to policy goals that have not changed since the early
eighties is comparable only to the fanatical adherence
to Sharia and the Bible espoused by the most radical
Islamic and Christian fundamentalists.54 It is this
non-negotiable antipathy toward Islam and its
contemporary resurgence that has led Leon Hadar and
John Esposito to coin terms such as "anti-Muslim
fundamentalists"55 and "secular fundamentalism" to
explain these attitudes.56
The following are the principal recommendations of the
Policy entrepreneurs:
1. America must refuse to engage the so-called
fundamentalists in public or in any official capacity.
Since in their opinion there are no moderates, the ban
on communication extends to all Islamic activists,
including those who are nonviolent and have expressed
a willingness to participate in political and
democratic processes.57
2. America must support everyone who is "in combat"
with the fundamentalists,58 even if it means
supporting repression, violation of human rights,
curtailment of democratic processes, alignment with
communists and even terrorist organizations who target
populations in fundamentalist regimes (such as the
People�s Mujahadeen of Iran).59
3. The United States should pursue an activist policy
that will both contain and roll back the so-called
gains made by fundamentalist Islam in Iran and Sudan.
Judith Miller explicitly recommends "a liberal
militancy, or a militant liberalism that is
unapologetic and unabashed" against Islamists.60
4. America must press fundamentalist states
(Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan) to reduce their
aggressiveness.
5. Democracy should not be promoted in the Muslim
world until civil society has been developed.61
Pipes goes further, recommending peace first, then
civil society, then elections.62 The entrepreneurs are
severely critical of scholars such as John Esposito
and Graham Fuller, who suggest that Islamic movements
are democratic initiatives for liberty and should have
more say in the way society is politically managed.
Policy entrepreneurs, on the other hand, suggest that
democracy be postponed until Islamic resurgence either
subsides or is repressed by authoritarian governments
with American support.
The recommendations of this epistemic community have
two outstanding characteristics: a dogmatic
consistency in policy preference, suggesting that it
is more ideological than rational, and a tendency to
use polemics against those who challenge their
position.
TOO MUCH CONSISTENCY?
Since 1983 the policy entrepreneurs have maintained
that Islamic resurgence, in all its forms, is
inherently anti-West and must be either contained or
militarily repressed, directly or through
unconditional support (regardless of means and
human-rights violations) to autocratic regimes such as
those in Egypt and Algeria. The end of the Cold War
and strong empirical evidence such as the good
relations that America has enjoyed with conservative
Islamic regimes of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (under
Zia-ul-Haq) have not moderated their position.
Evidence that when Islamists are allowed to
participate in the political process they do so with
responsibility (as in Pakistan, Malaysia, Jordan and
Turkey) has yet to impinge on their analysis. The
experience of Algeria, where radicalization was caused
by the military junta and its reversal of the people�s
mandate, also suggests that it is repression and
exclusion, not inclusion and tolerance, that lead to
violence, radicalization and the politics of
extremism.
Yet these stark realities have escaped some of these
experts, who have watched the Middle East and studied
Islamic resurgence for decades. They refuse to look
into other potential sources of discontent, such as
American activities in the Middle East, Israeli
exploits, poverty, repression, authoritarianism or the
arbitrary division of societies by former colonial
empires.63 For them, Islam is the problem; Islamic
resurgence is attributable to Muslims� resentment and
hatred of America and the West and to their inherent
antimodern disposition.64
These entrepreneurs emphasize the incompatibility of
Islam and democracy65 by citing some radical Islamic
activists and ignoring the fact that over 700 million
Muslims live in democratic or semidemocratic states �
Pakistan (140 million), Bangladesh (110 million)
Turkey (60 million), Iran (65 million),66 Malaysia (20
million), Indonesia (200 million) and India (135
million). In three Islamic states, women have been
elected as the top government leader: Tansu �iller in
Turkey, Begum Khalida Zia in Bangladesh and Benazir
Bhutto in Pakistan. These are indications that Muslims
are not averse to democratic polities and that Islam
and democracy,67 including governance by women, can
coexist.68
Another phenomenon that the policy entrepreneurs
systematically exclude from their analytical framework
is the transformation of Yasser Arafat and his PLO.
>From being the world�s premier international terrorist
organization, the PLO has become Israel�s and
America�s partner in the Middle East peace process.
Arafat, once a "murderer," is now a respected guest at
the White House and a recipient of the Nobel Peace
Prize . While shifts in American-Israeli priorities
and strategy are an explanatory element for this
reinvention of Arafat and the PLO, it cannot be denied
that inclusion of erstwhile terrorists in negotiations
and diplomatic processes has contributed to their
deradicalization.
However, if tomorrow the Americans and Israelis decide
to exclude Arafat and the PLO from the peace process,
one should not be surprised if the Nobel laureate once
again resorts to the war of the weak. Similarly,
exclusion of Islamists from political processes and
negotiations, as vehemently recommended by Pipes et
al., will lead to further radicalization and
extremism. It is inclusion, as articulated by
Ambassador Pelletreau and the academics, that will
lead to democratization of Middle Eastern polities and
deradicalization of extremists.
The policy entrepreneurs continue to ignore the
benefits of inclusion, as manifest in Jordan, Egypt,
Pakistan, Turkey and Malaysia, and to recommend
policies that encourage repression and autocracy and
engender ever more radicalization and extremism. They
are not in the business of deliberating and
consensually developing policy. They are in the fray
to shape policy in accordance with their prejudice
against Islam. They seem to want to employ the vast
U.S. economic, political and military resources to
contain or even eliminate popular Islamic movements.
This goal is a natural consequence of the assumption
that Islam is anti-West and anti-Israel.
Thus, no matter what changes occur in the nature of
world politics, such as the end of the Cold War or the
partial success of the peace process, their policy
recommendations do not change. This supports the
contention that this third dimension is an epistemic
community � committed to a particular causal model and
its translation into policy. They perhaps even owe
their existence as members of the policy community to
the goal that they advocate. Their dedication to their
cause is unlike any commitment made by academics to
their intellectual interests or practitioners to their
careers. Practitioners move on to manage other
regions, academics grow in their interests and even
shift paradigms to adjust to new developments, to "new
and interesting" phenomena. But the policy
entrepreneurs remain committed to their holy war.
THE POLEMICS OF POLICY
A second and more unpleasant aspect of the policy
entrepreneurs� discourse is their use of polemics.
This is manifest in their polemical attacks on the
academy. In three recent articles, Daniel Pipes and
Norvelle De Atkine have launched an attack on the
credentials of the scholars who study the Middle
East.69 They accuse the scholars of giving bad
advice70 while simultaneously purporting to explain
why Middle Eastern scholars have little or no
influence on the policy-making process. They level the
following arguments against Middle East scholars:71
1.Academics are overspecialized, using complicated
postmodern categories in writing long, unintelligible
papers.
2.The academy is riven by factional infighting having
more to do with each other�s political leanings than
ideas.
3.Scholars are leftist, antiAmerican.
4.Scholars overemphasize the Arab-Israeli conflict.
5.Since most of the scholars are Middle Eastern in
origin, they are anti-American, anti-Israel and
sympathetic towards Islamism.
6.Scholars are countercultural apologists for
Islamism.
As to the first accusation (that scholarship is
getting increasingly arcane), I agree that scholars
who wish to influence policy should write clearly and
concisely. Indeed many scholars try their best to
accommodate the reading needs of practitioners without
compromising conceptual rigor. However, practitioners
too must occasionally refurbish their intellectual
capital and acquaint themselves with advancements in
analytical techniques. Failure to do so inhibits their
ability to absorb the knowledge being produced in the
academy and will constrain their ability to
communicate with younger practitioners fresh out of
the academy and conversant with new conceptual tools
and theories.
The rest of De Atkine�s and Pipes�s charges are
designed to simultaneously explain the failure of the
academy as well as further reduce its influence on the
policy process. In essence, they are accusing the
academy of harboring interests that are antithetical
to American and Israeli interests. In their analysis
American and Israeli interests seem to lose their
distinctness and merge. Ironically, they accuse the
academy of factional infighting while indulge in it
themselves, attacking scholars rather than limiting
their criticism to substantive arguments.
I will not address every allegation. It will suffice
to point out some glaring inconsistencies. They
contend that academics have no influence on the policy
process. However, the analysis of the policy terrain
in this paper provides strong evidence that indeed the
practitioners and academics are systematically
converging on what the policy should be, the only
problem area being the degree of implementation of the
espoused policies. Policy entrepreneurs also attack
academics for giving bad advice to the government. But
since that advice is far from their own prescriptions,
they are questioning the loyalty and cultural/national
origins of the academics, in order to discredit them.
The policy entrepreneurs accuse the academics of being
apologists for Islamism because many of them are from
the Middle East, but they accuse the following
scholars specifically; John Alden Williams, Lisa
Anderson, John Voll and John Esposito,72 all of them
Americans. Similarly, they advance an extended
appreciation of the Middle Eastern scholar, Faoud
Ajami, and condemn the academy for criticizing him and
his association with American Jews.73 As long as a
scholar�s analysis agrees with their own, origins
become unimportant, but disagreement provokes an
ethnic/nationality test.74
Thus, the use of polemics is either strategic or
coincidental. In the latter case, it is merely a
reflection of frustration. After a decade of activism,
Pipes and his colleagues continue to see Islamic
resurgence thrive and even expand, while America
refrains from launching a new Crusade against it. If
the polemics is strategic, then it becomes more
pernicious, as well as (academically) interesting.
A POLICY OF POLEMICS
Michel Foucault, the French post-structuralist,
meticulously demonstrated the intertwined nature of
power and knowledge.75 The relationship of knowledge
and power to policy is self-evident. Knowledge is
translated into foreign policy, and this policy
determines the use of power. In the American case, the
stakes are very high. Those who control the production
of knowledge (exercise epistemic sovereignty)
determine the use of American economic, political and
military resources. Thus knowledge is empowering.
However, power also produces knowledge, since
knowledge can be instrumental. Thus in order to be
knowledgeable, one has to be powerful, but,
paradoxically, only the powerful have knowledge.
The academy is accused of producing knowledge that is
tainted with anti-Americanism, personal biases and
unintelligible jargon. This is supposed to explain its
lack of influence over the policy process. The failure
of the academy to produce "instrumental knowledge," �
knowledge that will enable America and Israel to
maintain the status quo in the Middle East � has
marginalized it and denied it access to American
power. Therefore, since what the academy produces does
not empower them, it is not knowledge but arcane
gibberish. The relationship between instrumental
knowledge and power thus becomes clearer.
Instrumental knowledge also serves the purpose of
legitimizing existing "interests" and justifying the
continuation of the status quo. Knowledge should serve
power. When it challenges power by recommending change
over continuity, it becomes ideology. Thus, again, a
paradox is created by the inextricable link between
power and knowledge. Knowledge that does not serve
power becomes ideology, and ideology that serves power
becomes knowledge. It is therefore in disfavor.
Whereas, there is an epistemic community committed to
producing ideology, which legitimizes the status quo
and serves the interests of power, thereby empowering
itself. This is the essence of policy
entrepreneurship.
But if the academy were to produce knowledge that is
seen as "useful," the kind which will serve American
interests and nourish its power, then it would enhance
its influence on the policy process and become
empowered by increasing its access to power. I have
argued that a gradual convergence is occurring between
academics and practitioners on Islamic resurgence and
U.S. policy towards it. This convergence is primarily
due to the longevity of the issue, allowing the
practitioners many opportunities to realize the wisdom
behind the researched and deliberated policy
recommendations of the academy.76 This convergence
will necessarily involve a loss of power for the
policy entrepreneurs as knowledge begins to replace
ideology. Such a convergence, in my opinion, is
possible only in issue areas that have a long shelf
life, allowing knowledge to systematically erode the
power of ideology.
This gradual displacement of ideology by knowledge
entails a shift in power from the epistemic community
to the academy. It is this power shift that has
precipitated the polemical attack by the policy
entrepreneurs against the academy. We are witnessing a
struggle for sovereignty between the academy and the
entrepreneurs. The struggle is for the power to
determine the "truth." For the privilege of shaping
policy and gaining access to real power. The academy
has a track record in research as its resource, and
the policy entrepreneurs have one in defending the
status quo.77
The sense that the academy is gaining power has, I
believe, compelled the policy entrepreneurs to launch
their attack, not on substance, but on the academy�s
credentials and loyalty, commitment to America, its
allies and its interests. They are declaring to the
practitioner that the academy will not produce
ideology to serve the interests of power. It is also
an attempt to constrain scholars by strongly
reprimanding them for attempting to institute change
rather than sustain continuity. This polemics of
policy is fundamentally a strategy, not a coincidence.
Critics will be tempted to suggest that perhaps the
academy is also now in the business of policy
entrepreneurship to save itself from being
marginalized. However, "consensual knowledge,"
knowledge that minimizes the domination of ideological
interests, is still the forte of the academy.
Academics� primary interest in any issue begins with
intellectual curiosity. They study political phenomena
in order to understand and explain them and often
without any predisposition for a given outcome
(policy). Room for learning exists in their approach
opens up possibilities for dialogue and understanding.
This is not to say that academia is impervious to the
influence of power or that it is completely free of
ideology. Most policy entrepreneurs are products of
the academy, after all. Nevertheless, as long as
consensual knowledge, is appreciated, the academy will
be important. The problem remains, not simply to
bridge a gap, but to achieve a "consensual
understanding" among the government, the academy and
the policy entrepreneurs.
* I would Like to thank Andy Bennett for his useful
comments and suggestions on earlier drafts, and
particularly my father, A.H. Khanm whose committment
to my education goes way beyond the call of duty.
1Daniel Pipes, In the Path of God: Islam and Political
Power (New York: Basic Books, 1983), p. 287.
2John Esposito, "Islamic Revivalism," Occasional paper
(Washington, DC: The Middle East Institute, 1985), p.
14.
3Robert H. Pelletreau, Jr.; Daniel Pipes; John L.
Esposito," Symposium: Resurgent Islam in the Middle
East," Middle East Policy, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1994), p.
21.
4David D. Newsom, "Foreign Policy and Academia,"
Foreign Policy, No. 101 (Winter 1995-96), p. 54.
5John Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); M.A.
Muqtedar Khan, "Global Islam," The Message (October
1995); Judith Miller, "The Challenge of Radical
Islam," Foreign Affairs (Spring 1993), pp. 43-56;
Zachary Karabell, "The Wrong Threat: The United States
and Islamic Fundamentalism," World Policy Journal,
Vol. 12, No. 2 (Summer 1995), pp. 37-48; John
Esposito, "Political Islam: Beyond the Green Menace,"
Current History (January 1994), pp. 149-54. See also
Elaine Sciolino, "The Red Menace Is Gone, But Here Is
Islam," The New York Times (January 21, 1996).
6For a review of Elaine Sciolino�s perspectives, see
M.A. Muqtedar Khan, "U.S. Views on Islam," Middle East
Insight (May-August 1996), pp. 3-5.
7Alexander George, "The Two Cultures of Academia and
Policy-Making: Bridging the Gap," Political
Psychology, Vol. 15, No. 1, (1994), pp. 143-72. Also
see George, Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice of
Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: The United States
Institute of Peace, 1993).
8Ibid., p. 146.
9Ibid., p. 147.
10Ibid., pp. 146-47, 149.
11Newsom, "Foreign Policy and Academia," p. 55.
12Ibid., pp. 52-56.
13Ibid., pp. 52-67. Also see George, "The Two
Cultures," pp. 143-72.
14Gary Sick, currently at Columbia University, was in
President Carter�s National Security Council. See his
"The United States and Iran: Truth and Consequences,"
Contention, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Winter 1996), p. 59.
15Norvell B. De Atkine, "Middle East Scholars Strike
Out in Washington," Middle East Quarterly, Vol. 1, No.
4, (December 1994), p. 3.
16Ibid., pp. 3-12.
17Daniel Pipes, "There Are No Moderates: Dealing with
Fundamentalist Islam," The National Interest, No. 41
(Fall 1995), pp. 48-57; Benjamin Gordon, "Islam:
Washington�s New Dilemma," Middle East Quarterly, Vol.
3, No. 1 (March 1996), pp. 42-51; Zachary Karabell,
"The Wrong Threat," pp. 37-48; Esposito, "Beyond the
Green Menace," pp. 149-54. See also John Esposito,
"Political Islam and American Foreign Policy," Brown
Journal of Foreign Affairs (1994), and Sciolino, "The
Red Menace Is Gone."
18De Atkine, "Middle East Scholars"; De Atkine and
Pipes, "Middle Eastern Studies: What Went Wrong?"
Academic Questions, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Winter 1995-96),
pp. 60-74. See also Sick, "The United States and
Iran," and Pipes, "There Are no Moderates," pp. 53-57.
19Rashid Khalidi, "Letter from the President," MESA
Newsletter (February 1994), p. 1.
20Sick, "The United States and Iran," pp. 59-61.
21M.A. Muqtedar Khan, "American Foreign Policy and
Islamic Resurgence: The Establishment�s Perspective,"
Islamic Horizons (August 1996).
22Pelletreau et al., "Symposium," pp. 1-4.
23Ibid., p. 1. See also Robert Pelletreau, "Recent
Developments in the Middle East," The Department of
State Dispatch 5 (1994), and Pelletreau, "Islam and
U.S. Policy," U.S. Department of State (May 26, 1996).
24Pelletreau et al., p. 2.
25Ibid., pp. 2-3. These points are direct quotations
from Ambassador Pelletreau�s presentation.
26For a review of the chaotic character of American
foreign-policy making, see John Ikenberry, American
Foreign Policy: Theoretical Essays (New York:
HarperCollins, 1989). See Jerel Rosati, The Politics
of United States Foreign Policy (New York: Harcourt
Brace College Publishers, 1993); James Nathan and
James Oliver, Foreign-Policy Making and the American
Political System (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1994), and Charles Kegley and Eugene Wittkoph,
American Foreign Policy: Pattern and Process (New
York: St. Martin�s Press, 1991).
27Esposito, The Islamic Threat, pp. 241-53; Fred
Halliday, Islam and the Myth of Confrontation:
Religion and Politics in the Middle East (London: I.B.
Tauris, 1995), pp. 107-32; and Jochen Hippler, "The
Islamic Threat and Western Foreign Policy," in Jochen
Hippler and Andrea Leug (eds.), The Next Threat:
Western Perceptions of Islam (London: Pluto Press,
1995), pp. 116-50.
28Pelletreau et al., p. 2.
29Ibid., p. 11.
30See also Karabell, "The Wrong Threat," pp. 39, 43;
Esposito, "Political Islam and American Foreign
Policy;" and Arthur L. Lowrie, "The Campaign Against
Islam and American Foreign Policy," Middle East
Policy, Vol. 4, No. 1&2 (September 1995), pp. 210-219.
31Karabell, p. 54.
32De Atkine, "Middle East Scholars," pp. 3-8; and
Pipes, "There Are No Moderates," pp. 53-54.
33Pelletreau et al., pp. 1-21.
34Ibid, p. 14.
35Esposito, The Islamic Threat, p. 7.
36Ibid., pp. 168-88; Karabell, "The Wrong Threat";
Khan, "Islam and the Discourse of International
Relations," paper presented at the International
Studies Association, Chicago (February 1995); and
Graham Fuller and Ian Lesser, A Sense of Siege: The
Geopolitics of Islam and the West (Boulder: Westview
Press, 1995), p. 2.
37Pelletreau et al., pp. 8-12. Also note Michael
Collins Dunn�s comments at that symposium.
38See "There Are Islamic Moderates," M.A. Muqtedar
Khan in conversation with Ambassador Pelletreau,
Middle East Insight (May-August, 1996), pp. 3-5.
39Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, The Vanguard of the Islamic
Revolution: The Jamaat-i-Islami of Pakistan (Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1994). See
also John Esposito and John Voll, Islam and Democracy
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); and Mahmood
Monshipuri and Christopher Kukla, "Islam, Democracy
and Human Rights: the Continuing Debate in the West,"
Middle East Policy, Vol. III, No. 2, 1994.
40Esposito and Voll, Islam and Democracy.
41This position was advanced by Esposito in The
Islamic Threat, p. 245.
42Newsom, "Foreign Policy and Academia," pp. 54-55.
43Ibid., pp. 52-67. See also George, "The Two
Cultures," pp. 143-72.
44See Pelletreau et al., pp. 5-8. See also Daniel
Pipes, "There Are No Moderates," and "The Muslims Are
Coming! The Muslims Are Coming!" The National Review,
No. 42 (November 1990), pp. 28-31 and "Fundamentalist
Muslims," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 64, No. 5 (Summer
1986), pp. 939-959.
45In support of this contention, Pipes advances a
statement by the late Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak
Rabin; see "There Are No Moderates," p 56. See also
Judith Miller, "The Challenge of Radical Islam."
46Peter Rodman, "Co-opt or Confront Fundamentalist
Islam?" Middle East Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 4(December
1994), pp. 61-64. See Pelletreau et al., p. 6., and
Pipes, "Fundamentalist Muslims," pp. 951-52.
47Pipes, "Fundamentalist Muslims," p. 951.
48Bernard Lewis, The Shaping of the Midern Middle East
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 99-124.
49Pelletreau et al, p. 5.
50Pipes, "The Muslims Are Coming!" Also see Bernard
Lewis, "Roots of Muslim Rage," The Atlantic (September
1990), pp. 47-54; Lewis, Islam and the West (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1993); and Pipes, In the Path
of God: Islam and Political Power (New York: Basic
books, 1983), pp. 97-113.
51Pipes, "There Are No Moderates," pp. 49 and 54. See
also Pelletreau et al., p. 6.
52Reminiscent of the Hollywood theme in Oliver Stone�s
movie Natural Born Killers.
53I use the term "epistemic community" as defined by
Ernst B. Haas in When Knowledge Is Power: Three Models
of Change in International Organizations (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1990), p. 41.
54For a survey of the role of religious resurgence in
international relations, see Scott Thomas, "The Global
Resurgence of Religion and the Study of World
Politics," Millenium: Journal of International
Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Summer 1995), pp. 289-300.
55Leon Hadar, "What Green Peril?" Foreign Affairs,
Vol. 72, No. 2 (Spring 1993), p. 31.
56Pelletreau et al., p. 12.
57Rodman, "Co-opt or Confront?" pp. 61-64; Pelletreau
et al., pp. 5-8; Pipes, "There Are No Moderates," pp.
55-57; Miller, "The Challenge of Radical Islam," pp.
44-47.
58Pipes, "There Are No Moderates," pp.55-56.
59This extreme formula was advanced by Pipes, who
describes terrorists he likes as "less than
Jeffersonian organizations." See "There Are No
Moderates," p. 57.
60Miller, "The Challenge of Radical Islam," pp. 54-55.
61Ibid., pp. 51-54; see also Pipes, "There Are No
Moderates," p. 57.
62Pelletreau et al., p. 8.
63For a more balanced analysis, see Fuller and Lesser,
pp. 39-43; 110-113.
64Lewis, "Roots of Muslim Rage" and Pipes,
"Fundamentalist Muslims."
65Rodman, "Co-opt or Confront?" p. 64; Pipes, "There
Are No Moderates," p. 49.
66While there are those who doubt Iran�s democratic
credentials, it is more democratic now than under the
shah. Even Pipes concedes that "once in charge, he
[Ayatollah Khomeini] partially fulfilled his pledge
[to restore democracy]: Iran�s elections are hotly
disputed, and parliament does have real authority"
("There Are No Moderates," p. 49).
67See Esposito and Voll, Islam and Democracy, for an
opposite conclusion.
68For an analysis of how modernity and Islam are not
mutually exclusive, see Mohommed A. Muqtedar Khan,
"Sovereignty in Modernity and Islam," East-West
Review, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Summer 1995), pp. 43-57, and
"Dialogue of Civilizations?" The Diplomat (June 1997).
69De Atkine, "Middle East Scholars"; De Atkine and
Pipes, "Middle Eastern Studies." See also Pipes,
"There Are No Moderates."
70Pipes, "There Are No Moderates," p. 53.
71See De Atkine, "Middle East Scholars," and De Atkine
and Pipes, "Middle Eastern Studies."
72De Atkine and Pipes, "Middle Eastern Studies," p.
65.
73De Atkine, "Middle Eastern Scholars," p. 5.
74But when "the usually sensible Ajami" makes an
assertion that challenges their own contentions, a
rare faux pas, Pipes immediately clubs him with the
rest of the academics who are giving bad advice to the
administration. See "There Are No Moderates," p. 53.
75Joseph Rouse, "Power and Knowledge," in Gary Gutting
(ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Foucault (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 92-114. Also
see Barry Hindness, Discourses of Power: From Hobbes
to Foucault (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers,
1996); and Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: the
Birth of the Prison (New York, Vintage Books, 1979).
76See Khan, "U.S. Views on Islam," pp. 3-5.
77See Khan, "American Foreign Policy and Islamic
Resurgence."
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