Solution to radical Islam rests in Southeast Asia

By Lewis M. Simons USA Today

As President Obama flies from one Asian capital to another, scrambling for economic and diplomatic support, dogged all the while by the nightmare of Afghanistan, he is likely to overlook the solution to America’s open-ended war with radical Islamists that is staring him in the face.

That solution lies in Southeast Asia, home of a quarter-billion Muslims. Unlike the retrogressive Afghan tribesmen, the embittered Pakistanis and the furious Arabs of the Middle East — all of whom want Americans out — the Muslims of Southeast Asia are striving to get the United States to reengage after a 34-year-lapse that began when we lost the war in Vietnam.

Back then, I lived in Southeast Asia. Most Muslims were comfortably moderate, even laissez faire about their religious practice. While some prayed the required five times a day, others did not pray at all. Some observed dietary restrictions, but many dined and drank with non-Muslim friends. They labeled themselves by country and only parenthetically as Muslims.

All that has changed. The Muslims of Southeast Asia now watch al-Jazeera TV news and read the latest blogs about Iraq and Afghanistan. They know, at the same time as people in Texas and Idaho do, of the killings at Fort Hood and precisely what is befalling Muslims in Gaza. World events have increasingly caused them to close ranks with their co-religionists as they seek to identify themselves with Islam’s fundamentalist roots.

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