| With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the United States was faced with a daunting new policy challenge following nearly fifty years of Cold War. Policymakers were driven to determine the path that US foreign and national security policy would take in this new era of global uncertainty and instability.Consequently, the United States remains unnecessarily vulnerable and unprepared to address this continually growing fundamentalist challenge. This study examines the true nature of the fundamentalist movement and its impact upon US policy. Recognizing fundamentalist Islam as an exclusivistic religio-political belief system bent on achieving complete religious and political power is critical to this study. The United States must now prepare for and respond to the gradually growing influence of fundamentalist Islam both at home and abroad. The continued prosperity and security of the United States and its interests abroad depends in part upon the ability of our current policymakers to formulate a principled policy approach to this growing religio-political phenomenon.Among the many new challenges facing the United States was a resurgent fundamentalist Islam. US policymakers did not then, and still do not, recognize the true motivating forces behind all Islamic fundamentalists, extremists or otherwise. In attempting to divine between what is true Islam and what is not, current policymakers completely miss the true nature of not only fundamentalist Islam, but also of Islam itself. This misunderstood ideological nature drives fundamentalists to pursue temporal power, whether peacefully or violently, as a means of fulfilling the Islamic mandate of religious and political domination. Furthermore, in attempting to distinguish between fundamentalists on the basis of whether or not they are actually violent, our political leaders make another error in policy judgment. The only true way to test the sincerity of fundamentalists is to evaluate their support for democracy, the Arab-Israeli peace process, human rights, and opposition to terrorism. If these tests were used, the supposed distinctions between peaceful "moderates" and violent "extremists" would most likely evaporate. |
