Many of the articles contained in the document have scholarly merit and are written by academics and researchers in the field of counterterrorism. But a chapter titled “A Strategic Plan to Defeat Radical Islam,” written by Dr. Tawfik Hamid, a self-described former Islamic extremist and fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, contains a number of bizarre prescriptions for how to defeat terrorism, few of which appear to be supported by empirical evidence.
Among Hamid’s claims are that support for militancy is primarily a product of sexual deprivation and that terrorism bears relation to religious dress. His ideas for combating terrorism thus include “addressing the factors underlying [sexual] deprivation” among young men, as well as “weakening the hijab phenomenon.” Hamid further claims that, along with fundamentalist ideology, the “hijab contribute[s] to the idea of passive terrorism” and represents an implicit refusal to “speak against or actively resist terrorism.” [...]
Still, Hamid’s thoughts are apparently influential in government; he says on his website that his opinion has been solicited by a wide range of government agencies, including the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, the Special Operations Command, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It is not clear if he has been paid for his appearances at such agencies.
Hamid is currently a writer at the right-wing website Newsmax, where he publishes a running column titled “Inside Islam.” In recent weeks, he has written several articles lavishly praising Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ben Carson for their vituperative public statements about Muslim Americans.
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