by Stephen Schwartz
CQ Researcher [Washington, DC]
September 2, 2011

http://www.islamicpluralism.org/1880/september-11-2001

 

The following brief comments by Center for Islamic Pluralism Executive Director Stephen Suleyman Schwartz on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were included in a special expanded issue of the U.S. policy periodical CQ Researcher:

"Whatever gains may have been made in domestic law enforcement, Stephen Schwartz, founder and executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington, says the United States will remain vulnerable as long as terrorist networks can operate outside U.S. borders.

"Securing facilities is a perfectly reasonable action to take, says Schwartz, a Muslim convert and author of a book on Islamic fundamentalism.[1] 'But the goal should be eradication. Protecting the homeland can't be done without taking action to end the threat.'

Attacks on the United States, whether originating abroad or from within the country, are all products of Asian or Middle Eastern terrorist networks, Schwartz argues. 'As long as these people are active abroad, they're going to continue organizing conspiracies in the United States,' he says. "The conspiracies uncovered here have not had to do with grievances of people living in the United States; they've had to do with Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan.'"

"Schwartz, the advocate for Islamic pluralism, forecasts an end to the global movements that have kept the West in fear for decades. 'This cycle of jihadism will end,' he says. Schwartz foresees positive change in Saudi Arabia and Iran that will combine with the positive aspects of the Arab Spring to diminish the influence of radicalism throughout the Muslim world."

 

[1] See Stephen Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam: Saudi Fundamentalism and Its Role in Terrorism (2003).