The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Council on Foreign Relations co-hosted a luncheon roundtable on "The Global Spread of Wahhabi Islam: How Great a Threat?" on May 3, 2005 at the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C.
The global spread of radical Islam, the threat it poses to American national security and the appropriate U.S. foreign policy responses are some of the most important questions facing the United States today. In July 2004, the 9-11 Commission stated pointedly in its report that the current threat that the United States faces is not simply "terrorism, some generic evil," but rather "Islamist terrorism" inspired by "a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam" that flows through the founders of Wahhabism, the Muslim brotherhood and prominent thinkers schooled in the Salafi tradition. Moreover, a recent Freedom House report contends that the "spread of Islamic extremism, such as Wahhabism, is the most serious ideological challenge of our times." But some argue that the case against Wahhabism has been overstated, and that the use of "Wahhabi" as a catchall term to describe all forms of Islamic militancy exaggerates its impact. Is Wahhabism indeed the major source of global extremism? If so, how can the U.S. most effectively counter both the ideology and its Saudi sponsors? Conversely, if the threat is being overblown, how does an undue emphasis on it undermine U.S. foreign policy interests?
