A Necessary Engagement

A Necessary Engagement reflects a rare expertise in the intelligence community on political Islam and Muslim cultures. Emile Nakhleh has produced a thoughtful and sophisticated analysis on a subject that is more important today than ever. It is a must read for policymakers in a new administration that will need a road map to both understand and engage the Islamic world. -- George J. Tenet, former CIA director This is an informed and sobering assessment of the past, present, and future of America's relations with the Muslim world. Emile Nakhleh provides an incisive analysis of the myths and reality of the Islamic challenge facing America and how American policymakers have understood and reacted to that challenge. All those interested in the future of America's relations with the Muslim world will do well to pay close attention to this timely and informative book. -- Vali Nasr, author of "The Shia Revival" This book offers fascinating insights into how intelligence bureaucracies operate and how organizational habits of thought can be challenged and changed. Making a strong case for the links between political intelligence and public diplomacy, Nakhleh offers intelligence professionals, policymakers, scholars, and the general public what they need to know in order to understand the cultural and religious dimensions of international politics. -- Dale F. Eickelman, author of "The Middle East and Central Asia" On the key foreign policy issue of U.S. relations with the Muslim world, Nakhleh's conclusions are levelheaded, to the point, and eminently reasonable. The author's wealth of experience and rich sources make this book an important contribution to the public debate. -- Farhad Kazemi, New York University Nakhleh outlines a new and revitalized course for American public diplomacy among Muslims around the world. The importance and timeliness of the book's topic can hardly be exaggerated and A Necessary Engagement should be required reading for officials in the next administration. -- Sohail Hashmi, Mount Holyoke College

Offering a balance between analysis, personal memoir, and foreign policy remedies, this book injects much-needed wisdom into the public discussion of long-term US-Muslim relations. This title argues that an engagement with the Muslim world benefits the national interest of the United States.In A Necessary Engagement, the CIA's former point man on Islam makes a vigorous case for a renewal of American public diplomacy in the Muslim world. Offering a unique balance between in-depth analysis, personal memoir, and foreign policy remedies, the book injects much-needed wisdom into the public discussion of long-term U.S.-Muslim relations. Intelligence insider Emile Nakhleh argues that an engagement with the Muslim world benefits the national interest of the United States. Therefore, the next administration should discard the terrorism prism through which the country has viewed political Islam since 9/11 and focus instead on the common interests of America and mainstream Muslims. Nakhleh investigates recent U.S. policy toward Islamic nations and offers the new administration a ten-point plan for rebuilding America's relationship with the Muslim world. The author demonstrates that winning over Arabs and Muslims requires a thorough knowledge of Arab and Muslim cultures and languages within our intelligence community, as well as a long-term American commitment of personnel and resources. While the success of these efforts will be incremental and hard to measure, Nakhleh believes that the current low standing of the United States in most Arab and Muslim countries can be reversed. Stressing that effective public diplomacy must be a serious, coordinated effort pursued at the highest political levels, A Necessary Engagement charts a new course for future ties between the United States and the Islamic world.