Again and again in our conversations, Obama spoke about the Arab and Muslim worlds in ways that ran counter—dramatically counter—to the caricature of his views as advanced by critics. At one point, he suggested, to my surprise (I’m not immune to the power of these caricatures) that far too many Arab Muslims, in particular, have given themselves over to hatred and violence. He contrasted these Middle Easterners with young people in East and Southeast Asia (and in Africa and Latin America as well), by saying, “They are not thinking about how to kill Americans. What they’re thinking about is How do I get a better education? How do I create something of value?” Obama went on to say that if America is not engaging young these young Asians “because if the only thing we’re doing is figuring out how to destroy or cordon off or control the malicious, nihilistic, violent parts of humanity, then we’re missing the boat.”
It is not only Obama’s seven-year war against jihadist organizations that calls into question Trump’s claim that he is working to advance the interests of ISIS (or, to put it another way, if Obama is indeed an ISIS agent, he’s doing a very bad job of it). It is also his publicly and frequently articulated demand, made of all Muslims, to fight harder against those who refract their faith through the prism of arid and merciless textual literalism. “There is … the need for Islam as a whole to challenge that interpretation of Islam, to isolate it, and to undergo a vigorous discussion within their community about how Islam works as part of a peaceful, modern society,” Obama told me.
He immediately pivoted from this statement, though, by addressing Donald Trump—not by name, but his target was obvious. “I do not persuade peaceful, tolerant Muslims to engage in that debate,” he said, “if I’m not sensitive to their concern that they are being tagged with a broad brush.”
This represents the core of Obama’s anti-Trump argument.
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