Fundamental Misconceptions: Islamic Foreign Policy

The title is a research paper by Zachary Karabell published in “Foreign Policy,” No. 105 (Winter, 1996-1997), pp. 76-90. The following is the article

INTRODUCTION

For all the furor surrounding Islamic fundamentalism, there has been surprisingly little attention given tfundamentalist foreign policy. True, Iranian foreign policy has been analyzed and excoriated, and generalizations have been made on the basis of this one case. It is often assumed that fundamentalists approach foreign affairs with the same set of goals as chose that drive domestic policy: namely, rejection of the secular state and the establishment of religious law as the foundation of society. It is further thought chat lurking behind Islamic fundamentalist foreign policy is a commitment tholy war (jihad) with the non-Muslim world. And there seems t be a consensus among Western powers that fundamentalism poses a threat tthe international system.

The Clinton administration has consistently stated that it opposes violence and extremism, but not Islam. The State Department has spoken out against the repressive measures taken by the Algerian government in its ongoing civil war with fundamentalist insurgents. At the same time, the administration has supported with economic and military aid the pro-Western regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. While the U.S. government has taken great pains to differentiate between its opposition to violence and its respect for Islam, it has nonetheless supported governments like Egypt and Algeria that at times use extreme violence to suppress even nonviolent Muslims who oppose those regimes on religious grounds.

The recently passed Iran-Libya Sanctions Act penalizes foreign companies that do business with those two "rogue" states. Administration officials were careful to say that the target of the legislation is terrorism sponsored by these governments and not Islamic fundamentalism. Yet evidence does exist that associates the Saudi government with fundamentalist insurgents, the Pakistani government with the fundamentalist Taliban guerrillas who seized Kabul, and the Turkish military with violent, extraterritorial reprisals against the Kurds. No action is taken against these regimes; indeed, these countries are courted by the U.S. government as valuable allies. The discrepancy leads to the speculation chat policy toward Algeria, Iran, and the Muslim world in general is colored by an antipathy toward Islamic fundamentalism and a strong, if unstated, presumption that fundamentalism is a volatile and dangerous force in international affairs. These assumptions are predicated on a misunderstanding of Islamic fundamentalist foreign policy.

We cannot understand fundamentalist foreign policy simply by inferring from the domestic ideology. Fundamentalist foreign policy is different from the realpolitik or the liberal internationalism of U.S. policymakers. It is different from the raison d'etat of France and the communism of the People's Republic of China. Islamic civilization is not destined to clash with the rest of the world, and Islamic fundamentalists in power do not necessarily represent a threat to international security. Instead, outside of the Islamic world, most Islamic fundamentalists have no ambition other than the most anodyne desire for security. While fundamentalism is an expansive force within the Islamic world, it neither seeks jihad with nor domination of the non-Muslim world. In this respect, Islamic fundamentalism ought to matter no more to the non-Muslim world than Quebecois nationalism matters to Thailand.

There is considerable disagreement about what precisely constitutes "Islamic fundamentalism." At one time or another the label "fundamentalist" has been attached to groups as diverse as Hamas in lsrael/Palestine; Hizbollah in Lebanon; the Refah (Welfare) Party in Turkey; the al-Nahda Party in Tunisia; the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria; the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria; and the Jamaat-i-lslami in Pakistan. Yet there is nunitary lslamic fundamentalism any more than there is a unitary Christian fundamentalism. In the Middle East, fundamentalism ranges from pietist organizations to revolutionary groups committed to the violent overthrow of what they perceive to be un-Islamic regimes.

While there is no monolithic Islamand no monolithic fundamentalist movement-there is an ongoing struggle in the Islamic world. On one side are largely secular governments; on the other, there are individuals and groups who believe that politics and religion are one and who reject the secular Western division between the state and religion. As the scholar Nazih Ayubi has observed, for fundamentalists, Islam is understood as din (a religion), dunya (a way of life), and dawla (a state). Fundamentalists call for a return tan earlier, supposedly more pure Islam. They want to replace secular, civil law with the sharia (Islamic law), and they view the modern state system in the Islamic world as an illegitimate and immoral division of the umma (the community of believers). Fundamentalists share this basic ideology, but different groups adopt varying strategies to realize their vision.

FOREIGN POLICY AND IDEOLOGY

What exactly is an Islamic foreign policy? Many of the ruling Iranian elite say that Iran's foreign policy is Islamic, but what does that mean? Does the foreign policy of the state of Iran depart in significant ways from the foreign policies of states in general? The governments of Saudi Arabia and (non-Arab) Pakistan are avowedly Islamic (as opposed to secular), yet they are rarely considered fundamentalist. Though each of these countries attempts to fashion its laws in accordance with the sharia, and though the Saudi monarchy is deeply influenced by a group of Islamic puritans (the Wahhabis), they act in foreign policy matters in a more realist fashion than do leaders in Iran and Sudan, who pursue a distinctly fundamentalist foreign policy.

These questions lead t the further conundrum of whether there is anything that can be characterized as an Islamic foreign policy or as a fundamentalist foreign policy. For example, the policies that fundamentalist lran pursues as a self-declared Islamic state differ from the policies of the other, more secular Muslim governments in the Middle East, such as Syria or Jordan? In addition, the policies of Iran, whose citizens follow Shiite Islam, depart in noticeable ways from the policies of another self-declared Islamic state, Sudan, whose Muslims are Sunni? And does the foreign policy vision of Iranian or Sudanese state officials differ from that of fundamentalists currently in opposition to state governments, such as the members of Rashid al-Ghannouchi's outlawed al-Nahda Party in Tunisia? The default setting for foreign policy is realism. Most policymakers, whether American, European, Asian, or Middle Eastern, perceive international politics t be a competition between states for power, influence, and profit. Over time, diplomats and world leaders have developed what amount to rules of engagement.

One of the strongest of these dictates is that the state is inviolable. Even in war, modem states do not usually attempt to obliterate one another. When they do as Iraq tried with Kuwait in 1990 they are deemed thave broken the cardinal law of international politics and are punished accordingly.

Some states, however, champion an ideology that challenges the legitimacy of states. Cold War Soviet communist rhetoric, for instance, labeled Western states as bourgeois, capitalist tools of oppression. In due time, workers would recognize their common interests, unite, and liberate themselves from the capitalist state. That ideology, as well as the policies pursued by the Soviet Union that were designed to carry it out, profoundly disturbed the governments of the West.

Like communism, Islamic fundamentalism is an ideology. Where communism rejected capitalist rules of engagement in international affairs, Islamic fundamentalism rejects the notion that the state is an inviolable unit. But unlike communism, Islamic fundamentalism confines its aspirations tone portion of the world-the Muslim world. Thus, when fundamentalists challenge the state, it is the state within the Muslim world that is the target of their animus. Communism sought, and free market capitalism still seeks, world domination. Islamic fundamentalism does not and never will.

Any successful ideology is malleable, and Islamic fundamentalismis no exception. It does not dictate specific action and can-in the hands of adept leaders or intellectuals-justify almost any behavior. Furthermore, the relationship between ideology and actual policy is notoriously opaque. State leaders are perfectly capable of articulating a governing ideology and then acting in ways that contravene that ideology. Any regime often needs an ideology to legitimize its use of force, both internally and externally. This ideology may mask realist motives, but ideology and realism can also coexist. In the particular case of Islamic fundamentalism, ideology matters a great deal. Fundamentalists conceive of the world as two broad but distinct realms: the community of believers and the non-Islamic world. While there are great variations and divisions within each of those worlds, policy toward one is radically different from policy toward the other.

THE UMMA AND THE MODERN STATE

In a realist world of states, or in an international system in which the United Nations recognizes and sanctifies the state as the primary and morally approved actor in international relations, foreign policy is anything beyond the borders of the state. Yet, for an lslamic regime, state borders within the Islamic world are artificial constructs, created largely by the former colonial or imperialist powers of Europe. Hence they lack true legitimacy.

The lack of respect that political Islam extends to the state as understood by the West characterizes not just fundamentalists in power (Iran and Sudan) but fundamentalists in opposition (Algeria, Lebanon, and Tunisia). As Hassan al-Turabi, the spiritual leader of Sudan's military regime, has said, The international dimension of the Islamic movement is conditioned by the universality of the umma ... and the artificial irrelevancy of Sudan's borders." In the tradition of one of the foremost spokesmen of modern fundamentalism, Egypt's Sayyid Qutb, many of today's fundamentalist groups attempt trealign the traditional relationship between Islam and the state from one in which Islam serves tlegitimize state authority intone in which Islam delegitimizes the state by branding it un-Islamic. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini did this frequently in his years of opposition t the shah, and even more moderate opposition leaders like Tunisia's al-Ghannouchi label the attempts of the Tunisian and Algerian governments to suppress fundamentalism as "anti-Islamic."

Not all fundamentalist movements seek to undermine the state. Some movements (such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan) seek accommodation with the state, while others (such as Algeria's GIA) are insurgent. Almost all fundamentalist movements nonetheless seek to infuse Islamic principles into the governments of states within the Muslim world. The attempt to invalidate the state is, on the whole, more pronounced in Middle Eastern and African Islamic fundamentalist movements than in those of Southeast Asia. Indonesian and Malaysian movements call for Islamic law and an Islamic state but they do not as frequently assail the concept of the state itself.

Most fundamentalist movements in the Middle East, however, view states as artificial colonial-era dividers of the umma. Western powers drew the state lines of the Gulf emirates, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. At the same time, the boundaries of Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Morocco, and Turkey were not invented by the colonial powers. Fundamentalists in these countries cannot attack the state as a Western invention. Instead, they call the rulers of these countries "un-Islamic" and in so doing brand them as illegitimate.

In theory, the umma is one unit. All Muslims, regardless of sect, constitute the umma; hence, division among the believers is a degenerate state of affairs. In the view of many contemporary political fundamentalists, the entire community of believers makes up the universe of action. States are nothing more than lines on a map. Thus, the policies of the Iranian government toward Central Asia or the policies of Sudan toward North Africa are not really "foreign policy" at all. As al-Turabi remarked in 1995 when discussing his Popular Arab and Islamic Conference, "It represents all Muslim nations. First, because these nations cannot express their views in their countries, and, second, because the whole world is drawing closer together. It behooves the Muslims as a single nation to meet and express their views."

The same view is espoused by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. As he stated in a March 1995 sermon:

The Islamic ummah should try to preserve unity, cohesion, and solidarity, as the term ummah suggests. Today, this great community has a duty to its esteemed prophet, savior, and teacher, ta person who as God's testimony among the ummah is the most popular personality. This duty is to preserve the honor and integrity of the Islamic ummah through unity and cohesion. This is the duty of the ummah today.

Today the enemies of Islam and the Islamic community are doing their best to pit the members of this community against each other. This is not peculiar to the present time, as the situation has been the same in the past. However, today, this dastardly mission of the enemies is being implemented through systematic thought and comprehensive planning. The reason is that they feel that the Islamic spirit is growing among Muslims, Islam has awakened hearts, and with our nation's great revolution, arrogance has received a blow from Islam. This is why they want to create enmity in the Islamic community.

All the Muslims who today in some way or another feel the bite of arrogance's lashes on their bodies and souls-such as the nations of Palestine, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir, and Lebanon, and other Muslim nations in Africa and Asia-are subjected to pain and suffering because of the lack of unity and solidarity in the Islamic community. If the Islamic community had enjoyed solidarity, none of these would have happened.

Fundamentalism significantly expands the strategic universe for fundamentalist states and groups. Prior to the 1979 Iranian revolution and the accession of the government of Umar al-Bashir and al-Turabi in Sudan in 1989, neither Iran nor Sudan would have considered events in Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir, or Malaysia to be foreign policy concerns. Foreign policy in these countries now rests on the principle that the umma is a cohesive political unit. As a result, the universe has expanded. But at the same time, that universe has a finite scope: It stops where Islam stops and therefore is not expansionist toward the Western world or the East Asian world outside of Malaysia and Indonesia.

Ideologically, then, the policies that Iran or Sudan pursue toward the Muslim world are not foreign but rather are aimed at reconstituting the umma. No matter that this umma was never politically unified as a self-conscious nation stretching from Moroco to Indonesia, the ideal of fundamentalist policy is that the Muslim community is unitary. That position is shared by many of the more prominent opposition fundamentalist groups, such as the al-Nahda Party in Tunisia, the Jamaati-i-Islami in Pakistan, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, as well as by the Refah Party in Turkey, which is now in a coalition government.They therefore view the umma as a community of interests, and other Islamic countries as potential allies.

Within the Islamic world, the ideology of the umma is sometimes trumped by pure realpolitik. Iran might ideologically oppose Syria's Hafez al-Assad, but during the Iran-Iraq war Iran and Syria drew closer against the common enemy of Saddam Hussein's Ira.

In dealing with the non-Islamic world, however, fundamentalist states and opposition groups adopt a more variegated and pragmatic foreign policy that closely approximates the realist paradigm. While Iran and Sudan support, either rhetorically or with arms and money, fundamentalist revolutionary groups that operate within the umma, their policies toward China, Europe, India, and the United States are less subversive. Iran might be antagonistic toward the United States and friendly with India, while Sudan might be friendly with China and less with Japan. Certainly, there is profound antagonism toward the United States, overall, but it is an antagonism that more closely resembles state competition for power. Within the umma, fundamentalism rejects the state and thus sees no constraints on actions that might undermine the states in the region; outside of the umma, fundamentalists see an antagonistic world dominated by the United States in allegiance with other states and a system that rarely serves Muslim interests. The aim is not to undermine Western states, or to destroy them, but to try to compete internationally for influence, prestige, and power.

FUNDAMENTALIST GOALS

The fundamentalist movements, whether they accommodate the state or challenge it violently, whether they are pietistic or revolutionary, strive for the unification of the umma: Yet they differ greatly over how this goal is to be achieved. In part, the differences among the governments of Iran, Sudan, and the numerous opposition groups, such as Tunisia's al-Nahda Party, may have to do with the lifecycle of ideologies: Iran is entering a postrevolutionary phase, Sudan's Islamic regime is newer to power, and the al-Nahda Party is still an outlaw movement subject tintense repression. The al-Nahda Party is so consumed with local problems that its leader, Rashid al-Ghannouchi, talks hardly at all of exporting ideology. In both word and deed, Iranian leaders were more eager to export fundamentalism a decade ago. With the passing of the early revolutionary fervor, Iran's foreign policy is decidedly less ambitious. Even in its relations with the new Muslim states of Central Asia, its policy is more realist and pragmatic, though it is not necessarily status-quo oriented.

The regime in Sudan emphasizes rhetorically an expansionist, revolutionary foreign policy within the umma, and at times al-Turabi even suggests that world Islam is the ultimate goal. Asked by a Spanish newspaper if Sudan is destined to save the world, al-Turabi responded, "We are the spearhead of a movement which must free the world from the moral turpitude and atheism in which it is living." The leaders of Sudan sound much like the leaders of Iran did in the first decade of the revolution. Sudan has been accused by the U.S. government and by Egypt and other Arab states of training guerrilla forces at several camps in its northern region. While Sudan denies the allegations, evidence overwhelmingly indicates that the camps do exist. The primary targets of these guerrilla groups are the secular regimes of Algeria and Egypt. However, these insurgent groups do not appear to be directly controlled by the Sudanese government.

Beyond seeking to unify the umma, two additional goals of fundamentalist foreign policies are an opposition to Israel and a rejection of U.S. hegemony in international policies. The two are linked, since the existence of the state of Israel is seen by many as the most naked example of Western imperialism and intrusion on the umma. The Iranian republic is especially vehement in its rejection of the U.S.-dominated international system. "The Islamic Republic," said Khamenei, "opposes the hegemony of the United States and its influence and interference in Islamic countries and in all oppressed countries." In this view, the international system is the creation of the West and its current standard-bearer, the United States. The rules of the international system-the rules of realism and state powerwork to the disadvantage of Iran and, by extension, Islam. And the most visible local way of rejecting that influence is by negating or refusing trecognize the legitimacy of Israel. This attempt to reject "hegemony" is both a function of Islam and a natural reflection of state interests in acquiring a greater share of the international pie.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Fundamentalist foreign policy has several discernible characteristics: an embrace of the unity of the umma; a refusal to respect the sovereignty of secular states within the umma; a rejection of Western hegemony within the Muslim world; and an animus toward Zionism as the most glaring local manifestation of the Western state system that artificially divides the umma.

The intensity with which fundamentalist groups and governments seek t realize the goal of a unified umma and a destruction of the Western state system within the umma differs depending on a variety of factors. In Iran, an initial expansionist ideology has faded as that nation enters a postrevolutionary phase, and its behavior may in part be explained by theories of revolution. Sudan's al-Turabi has donned the mantle of Islamic revolution, but Sudanese society is not undergoing revolutionary transformations, and the behavior of Sudanese elites can be explained by the demands of their fundamentalist ideology more than by the pressures of revolution. In Tunisia, where the al-Nahda Party represents a nonviolent variant of fundamentalism, local concerns are dominant.

The policy implications of fundamentalist foreign policies differ depending on the nation in question and its perceived relationship to the umma. The implications for Israel are not (or should not be) the same as the implications for the United States or France. For the French, the outcome of the civil war in Algeria has substantial economic and political consequences. The prospect of hundreds of thousands of Algerians fleeing to France, combined with French investments in North Africa and French support for the military government, makes the GIA's violent ideology an immediate security concern. Similarly, the rejection not just of Zionism but of Israel that characterizes Hamas and Hizbollah means that fundamentalism is a security concern for the Israeli state.

Yet the ideology of fundamentalism should not be threatening to France itself. The effects of that ideology on a region in which France has vested interests are problematic, but the fact that fundamentalist ideology so rigorously distinguishes between the umma and the non-Islamic world means that the boundaries of ambition of the GIA or of the al-Nahda Party do not cross the Mediterranean.

For the United States, then, Islamic fundamentalist foreign policy can be read in several ways. As an ideology that seeks to disrupt the state system of the Middle East, South Asia, Saharan Africa, and Central Asia, it could create severe chaos. Though there is little hard evidence implicating the Iranian or Sudanese governments in many of the plots they are alleged to have masterminded, it is certainly true that Iran financed the Hizbollah in Lebanon, which kidnapped American citizens in the 1980s and helped t perpetuate the Lebanese civil war. The Palestinian fundamentalist faction, Hamas, seems to have received some financial support from Iran, but it also seems to have received support from the Saudis and the Gulf emirates. Given that U.S. foreign policy is geared toward maintaining the status quo, chaos is threatening. As an ideology that more immediately jeopardizes the health and security of allies such as Israel, Hosni Mubarak's regime in Egypt, and, ta lesser extent, France, fundamentalism does pose a threat. And to the extent that the foreign policy of fundamentalism challenges U.S. "hegemony" in the Muslim world, it is antagonistic to the United States.

None of the above need be interpreted as threats to the United States, however, if the United States interprets its security more narrowly. Islamic fundamentalist ideology does not challenge either the United States or the West on its own turf. Fundamentalism is not a global ideology like communism or capitalism, and hence it should not trigger alarm bells in Western states to anywhere near the degree that it currently does. The more U.S. foreign policy seeks global power and the greater the demand for an international system of liberal democracies, the greater will be the threat posed by an Islamic fundamentalism that adamantly and violently rejects that hegemony and the norms of liberalism. If U.S. goals remain relatively limited and the United States attends tissues such as global prosperity and domestic security, then Islamic fundamentalism should not be considered a threat tthe United States.

When asked about fundamentalism in the Middle East, most officials, whether at State, CIA, the White House, or the Pentagon, say that it is a pressing concern and that it has become an even more pressing concern in the past few years. Opinions over why it is a concern differ widely. The major U.S. interests in the region are oil, stability, American power, and the Arab-Israeli peace process. U.S. officials see fundamentalism as a potential threat teach of these.It is difficult to see how political Islam jeopardizes access toil.

FOREIGN POLICY

After all, even if every oil-producing country were governed by a radical Islamic regime, they would still wish to sell oil to the West, and there would be a rather low limit to how high they could price that oil. One of the lessons of the 1973 and 1979 oil crises was that once the price of oil exceeds a certain maximum, it becomes cheaper for industrial economies to switch to alternate sources of energy. In the interim, producers outside of the Middle East could increase production to compensate for the decline in supply. Therefore Islamic fundamentalism does not constitute a potential threat toil.

Islamic fundamentalism ought to matter no more to the non-Muslim world than (Quebecois nationalism matters to Thailand.

The other issues are trickier. Regimes such as Iran and Sudan are indeed hostile to the Arab-Israeli peace process, and they wish to see the United States removed as a presence in the Middle East. It is true, therefore, that a fundamentalist sweep of the Middle East could weaken U.S. influence in the region. It could also radicalize Arab sentiments that it would prevent a comprehensive Middle East peace and undermine Israeli-Palestinian relations. But judging from the problematic Arab-Israeli peace process so far, the more Israel recognizes Palestinian autonomy, the less antagonistic its Muslim neighbors are.

In addition, the diffuse nature of Islamic fundamentalism and the disunity among such fundamentalists suggests that a Middle East dominated by fundamentalism would be less of a problem for the United States than a secular dictator with illusions of grandeur. As the Persian Gulf war ought to have demonstrated, there is a far greater likelihood that U.S. hegemony will be diminished by secular autocrats than by Islamist puritans. There is a long history of Saddam Husseins. Khomeinis, however, are far more unusual, and Khomeini's Iran never posed the kind of military challenge to the region that Hussein's Iraq has.

As for terrorism, fundamentalist ideology suggests that it is the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, outside of a number of highly publicized incidents in the 1980s, such as the highjacking of TWA flight 847 in 1985 and the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, fundamentalist violence outside of the umma has been rare. Where it does occur, the motivation is usually retaliation for perceived infringement of the territorial integrity of the umma by the United Scates or other Western nations.The Iranian government has violated the state sovereignty of several European governments by sending assassination teams to murder Iranian opponents of its regime, but as outrageous as that extraterritorial violence is, it is not violence directed against the non-Islamic world. Nor is the assistance that Iran and Sudan give to fundamentalist insurgencies directed against the West as much as it is directed against governments that Islamic ideologues perceive to be un-Islamic. Indeed, the ideology of fundamentalism suggests that in foreign policy toward the non-Muslim world, there is no reason for antagonism unless the non-Muslim world cooperates in the continued division of the umma.

Furthermore, the policies taken by the United States in response to the perceived threat of fundamentalism may well exacerbate the situation. U.S. officials apparently view authoritarianism in the Middle East as an evil preferable to fundamentalism. The United States ends up supporting the very factor that gives the Islamic opposition its greatest strength: the sense that the secular regimes of the Middle East are illegitimate because they are creations of Western hegemony and not true products of Islam and the umma.

Because Islamic fundamentalism is expansive within the umma and limited without, U.S. policymakers can set aside notions that fundamentalists will not abide by international norms in foreign affairs. Within the umma, they may not, but outside of it, they will. Outside of the umma, they have no ideological reason not to abide by international norms, and the demands of the international system exercise the same constraints on them as on traditional nation-states.

Once again, the lack of a compelling ideological reason for violence against the United States has meant that fundamentalist governments do not tend to attack the United States with anything other than words. Attacks and plots against the United States and American citizens have been carried out by "freelance" fundamentalists such as Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and his followers. The recent bombing of an American military base in Saudi Arabia was probably carried out by an outlaw group opposed to the Saudi government. Despite efforts to link conclusively the policies of groups such as Hizbollah and Hamas to directives from Tehran, no such evidence appears to have been found. If monetary links make Tehran (or Riyadh) responsible for the actions of these groups, then the U.S. government bears responsibility for the victory of the fundamentalist Taliban in Afghanistan through its covert financing of mujahedeen rebels fighting Soviet forces in the 1980s.

The United States must avoid the temptation to treat all fundamentalist governments as rogues. Given the lack of action taken against the Saudis and Pakistanis for behavior that elicits condemnation and embargoes against the Iranians, it seems that at present the United States treats fundamentalist foreign policy as inherently lawless and hence threatening.

The United States should reconsider its stringent policy coward Iran, as well as its excessive support for the repressive regimes in Algeria and Saudi Arabia. Fundamentalist Iran has created far fewer difficulties for the United States than has either secular Ira or divided Lebanon. While relations between Iran and the United States are not likely to be warm, little is gained by current policy toward Iran.

Finally, the United States can afford to pay less attention to lslamic fundamentalism. If fundamentalist foreign policy is understood to be inherently circumscribed, then fundamentalism in the worstcase scenario is confined to one region. Policymakers have been able to normalize relations with communist China because China is not expansionist. So too could policy be normalized with fundamentalist governments. The United States can afford to accommodate fundamentalism, and it should. The attempt to contain it will almost certainly fail, and there is no better way to guarantee continued tension between political Islam and the West.