The Strategic and Constitutional Problems With Trying to Establish an Acceptable Islam

Writing in The New York Times, NYU law professor Samuel J. Rascoff, former director of intelligence analysis at the NYPD, questions the government's "dubious enterprise of trying to shape the beliefs of American Muslims" in an effort to prevent terrorism:

The problem is that when American officials intervene in Islamic teachings — interpreting them to believers in a national-security context and saying which are or are not acceptable — they create tensions, both legal and strategic.

The strategic problem is easier to see: Is the government a credible authority on Islamic interpretation? Based on the results of comparable efforts in Britain, the answer is a resounding no. Simply put, young Muslim men in the thrall of radical teachings will not embrace a more pacific theology because the F.B.I. tells them to, any more than Catholic bishops would have yielded to Mr. Obama's plan to mandate coverage of contraceptives at Catholic hospitals if he had invoked canon law to defend his position.

Then there's the legal problem. Constitutionally speaking, a government official who sets out to determine what a contested concept within Islam means, or which imams have the right to speak for a particular community, would be in danger of transgressing one of the cardinal tenets of the Establishment Clause: the secular state shall not become an arbiter of religious content.

Rascoff argues that "countering radical religious ideology is on much more solid constitutional — and strategic — footing if the heavy lifting is done not by the government but by grass-roots organizations that are grounded in civil society or in religious communities."