Muslims need to change the religious discourse and remove from it things that have led to violence and extremism.” Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2015
President Obama’s requested Congressional authorization to indefinitely use U.S. military forces in “systematic campaign of airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq and Syria” to “degrade and defeat” it. While ISIL may be degraded in that limited area, it will not be defeated in the rear-end-war fought by the United States in the Middle East, because the organization’s core jihadist ideology cannot be defeated by non-Muslims.
The Arab Sunni states in the Middle East fear ISIL and, like Obama, condemn its jihadist barbarism as “not-Islamic”. But of all the Arab leaders, only Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi recognizes that unless Islam is reformed, groups like ISIL cannot not be defeated. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month, el-Sisi repeated his call to Muslims “to modify this religious discourse…and remove from it things that have led to violence and extremism.” On January 1, 2015, speaking at al Azhar University in Cairo, el Sisi, a devout Muslim, called on “religious clerics” to lead the “religious revolution” “The entire world is waiting for your next move,” he said.