De-meaning ISIS

Public relations is all about creating meaning. If not done well, everything that follows is wasted. The same might be said of modern warfare.  

No less an authority than al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri made that clear. “We are in a battle," he said, "and more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.” So far, in that battle against ISIS, the West seems to be losing.

One key problem is that ISIS's narrative seems to be confirmed on the ground in Syria and Iraq -- Sunni Muslims are being persecuted for their religion. As Simon Cottee points out in an Atlantic essay, nothing we do or say will matter much until that changes.  In the meantime, the best the West can do is play messaging whack-a-mole, responding to every Tweet and blog post ISIS fanboys put on the web.

But that's only part of the problem. ISIS, like al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Boko Haram, and al-Shabaab, is a bigoted and midieval religious ideology. And as Turkish political analyst Ceylan Ozbudak points out in Al Arabiya, "Counter-ideological work means a battle of ideas, not weapons." Since ISIS's ideas are a perversion of Islam, they must be addressed by the Islamic community itself. 

While calling  members of ISIS "radical Islamists" seems to reflect this understanding, it risks backfiring by unintentionally encouraging Islamophobia. As both presidents Bush and Obama have stressed, we are not at war with Islam. The problem we face is not the imposition of Sharia law by growing Muslim populations. It is the spread of a midieval and corrupt version of Islam. 

Better to call members of ISIS what they are -- "violent extremists" -- and to help the majority of Muslim leaders reclaim their great religion.  

To be sure, ISIS's extremist narrative must be challenged wherever it appears, whether websites, social media, university campuses, mosques, or prisons. But those who do the challenging must be credible religious leaders and scholars, backed up by the Muslim faithful. Some Muslim leaders have already spoken up against ISIS in revulsion to its execution of its Jordanian prisoner. But they need to do more to counter ISIS's corrupt religious ideology. 

That task will prove even more difficult -- and probably take longer -- than any effort to regain territory now claimed by the so-called "Islamic caliphate." Islam has no central authority that can "excommunicate" members of ISIS. The Quran, like the Bible, has many contradictory passages ripe for cherry-picking by ISIS.  The history of Islam, like the history of Christianity, is rife with precedents of horrifying brutality in the name of religion. 

Non-Muslims can't tell Muslims how to practice their religion. But we can support -- and perhaps even encourage -- that debate within their own ranks. And we can help Muslim leaders and civil society address the social problems that make ISIS seem like a realistic alternative to some of their youth.

Those actions will be the most meaningful messages we can send.