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By Shane Harris, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Jan. 19, 2007

Five years, four months, and nine days have passed without a major act of terrorism on U.S. soil. Why? Affiliates of Al Qaeda and "homegrown" terrorist cells have struck civilian targets in Istanbul, London, and Madrid, so why haven't they gone after the low-hanging fruit inside America, the highest-value target? Where are the bombings of subway trains, shopping malls, and Starbucks by terrorists in our midst?

The United States does not face the same domestic terrorist threat as do other Western nations. Some observers of the problem go so far as to say that there are no domestic terrorist cells here. Surely this is a success worth celebrating. The administration credits the work of the Homeland Security Department, the intelligence agencies, and the military, all of which are trying to work together like a well-oiled anti-terrorism machine.

But what if the source of our safety isn't the specific action of the government but the success of our overall system? You would be hard-pressed to find another country -- including in the Middle East -- where so many Muslims have attained such high levels of income, education, and civil prosperity. The fact is, large pockets of radicalized, disaffected Muslims -- particularly young Muslim men, who become terrorists in inordinate numbers -- don't exist in this country as they do in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Great Britain, where the threat is so grave that the head of MI-5, the domestic intelligence agency, recently said that officials are tracking 30 terrorist plots.

Muslims come to the United States and flourish. By most measures of prosperity, they are on par with or exceed the American average or median. Indeed, many Muslims came here to escape stagnant economies and repressive societies that breed fundamentalism. These are reasons we haven't been hit again, and they have more to do with demographics than with defense.

"I don't think we have the same degree of problem [with domestic terrorism] that they have in Europe," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a recent interview. "We have a lot more social mobility, which means our society, frankly, is less frustrating.

"I would not say that we have no problem," Chertoff stressed. There's clearly a threat. But he and others say it's smaller, and is counteracted by the very sources from which it tries to draw strength.

Most Muslims in America disdain radical Islamic rhetoric, experts say, because they tend to be more moderate in their religious practice and don't infuse it with politics. They also realize that, after 9/11, radical ideology draws negative attention to the entire Muslim community, particularly from the government. "There's much more open radicalism [in Europe] than in the United States," said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counter-terrorism consultant and former Muslim. His new book, My Year Inside Radical Islam, documents his experiences working for the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation in Oregon, which the U.S. government alleged was a source of terrorist funding. Some clandestine support for foreign terrorist groups exists in America, Gartenstein-Ross said. But in Europe, "there's a lot of openly expressed support for Al Qaeda in some mosques. That's not something you'll typically find in the United States."

The American Muslim community, insofar as there is one, also is more diverse. In Europe, Muslim populations tend to mimic colonialist histories -- large numbers of Pakistanis live in Great Britain, many Algerians live in France. But here, Muslims come from around the globe, and they settle throughout the country rather than congregate in a few communities. This tends to keep people from identifying with a particular background and encourages assimilation in order to survive.

"You cannot say 'the Muslim community,' " said Daniel Sutherland, the Homeland Security Department's officer for civil rights and civil liberties, who leads DHS's grassroots efforts to reach out to Muslim groups. Of the estimated 7 million Muslims in America, about a third are African-American converts, observers say. The other largest groupings hail from Southeast Asia and the Arab world. But they are not, by and large, recent immigrants, as is the case in Europe. "This is a well-educated, well-integrated, thoughtful community," Sutherland said. "They've been here for many years."

A 2004 survey of American Muslims by Project MAPS (Muslims in the American Public Square) at Georgetown University and Zogby International found that more than half said it "was a good time to be a Muslim in America." Ninety-five percent said that Muslims should participate in the political process, 90 percent said that they should participate in interfaith activities -- that is, with non-Muslims -- and two-thirds said that the United States should "reduce its support of undemocratic regimes in the Muslim world."

American Muslims are pluralist and upwardly mobile. Such characteristics don't lend themselves to violent extremism in the name of a cause. They do, however, help to create a Muslim middle class, perhaps the most stabilizing influence in American life. That, more than an intelligence apparatus, security checkpoint, or alert citizenry, will ensure that a potential terrorist tries to own a restaurant someday rather than blow himself up in one. [an error occurred while processing this directive]

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