Mr. President, the Jan. 1 carnage in New Orleans is a grim reminder that America is not safe from the kind of jihadist attack now commonplace in Europe. The use of vehicles by Muslims to attack indigenous “infidels”—most spectacularly in Nice on Bastille Day 2016, and most recently in the German city of Magdeburg on Dec. 20—has been introduced to America with the same deadly results. 

Having studied for some decades the problematic relationship between Islam and non-Islam, and the challenge of Islamic terrorism in particular, I take the liberty of suggesting to you a number of steps for the near future to reduce the probability of similar attacks. While the danger of Islamic terrorism cannot be completely eradicated, it is both possible and necessary to act decisively to reduce that danger as much as possible.

As soon as you return to the Oval Office, I suggest signing another executive order like the one you issued on Jan. 27, 2017, banning the entry of citizens from seven majority-Muslim states. Expand it to include citizens from countries that are the birthplaces of terrorists who are known to have carried out or plotted attacks on Americans. This text of your original executive order should be repeated verbatim: 

In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including ‘honor’ killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.

This section correctly treats Islam (without naming it) as a violent ideology inimical to America’s “founding principles.” It is a brilliant, concise summary. It should be used to prevent future arrival to America of persons likely to support jihad and Shari’a. Demanding an aspiring newcomer’s clear commitment to this country’s traditional core values was a breath of fresh air back in 2017; it will be even more so now, after four years of the Biden administration’s nightmarish immigration policies.

On the basis of your restored executive order, you should instruct your top immigration, national security, law enforcement, and antiterrorism officials to apply the following five policies:

First, increase surveillance of Muslims. This is necessary, legal, and morally justified. The hazard posed by jihad today is different in degree to the threat posed by Communists during the Cold War, but not in kind. Strict and permanent surveillance is needed. All mosques, Islamic centers, and their members should be obliged to register with the U.S. attorney general. They need to be subjected to the legal limitations and security supervision that apply to cults prone to violence and “hate groups.”

Islamic centers have provided platforms for exhortations to the faithful to support causes and to engage in acts that are reprehensible, illegal, or detrimental to national security. Subjecting Islamic “activists,” their centers, and their lobbying groups to strict supervision is necessary and justified. 

Second, refuse or rescind citizenship to Islamic activists. Islamic activism—meaning active advocacy of the Shari’a-based social and legal order—should be treated as grounds for the loss of acquired U.S. citizenship and deportation. A foreigner who becomes naturalized has to declare under oath that he “absolutely and entirely” renounces all allegiance to any foreign source of authority and that he will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies. That is a legally binding statement. For a Muslim to declare all of the above, and especially that he accepts the U.S. Constitution as the source of his highest loyalty, is a clear act of apostasy punishable by death under Shari’a law. A self-avowedly devout Muslim cannot expect us to believe he can take that oath in good faith. How are we to know he is not practicing taqiyya, the art of dissimulation established by Muhammad to hoodwink “infidels”?

The Shari’a, to a Muslim, is not an addition to the secular legal code with which it coexists. For him, it is the only truly valid legal code and the only one requiring obedience. To a Muslim, all political power rests only with those who enjoy Allah’s authority. America itself, to a believing Muslim, is an inherently illegitimate polity.

Third, reintroduce “profiling.” The Justice Department’s 2003 ban on “racial profiling” must be rescinded. Law enforcers all over the world necessarily disregard the dictates of Western racial sensitivity. Arabs profile other Arabs, Indians profile Pakistanis, Japanese profile Chinese. Israel openly profiles everyone entering and exiting the country all the time.

Not all Muslims are terrorists, but for decades an overwhelming majority of terrorists threatening this country’s national security and the quality of life of its citizens have been Muslims. Muslims make up less than 1.5 percent of the U.S. population, yet have been responsible for an enormously disproportionate share of the country’s lethal terrorist attacks, including: the assassination of Meir Kahane; World Trade Center attacks in 1993 and 2001; the LAX millennium bomb plot; the Ft. Hood massacre; the Boston Marathon bombings; the murder of five soldiers in Chattanooga; the massacre of 17 people at a Christmas party in San Bernardino; the slaughter of 49 club-goers in Orlando; the Ohio State University attack by a Somali refugee; the New York City truck attack on cyclists and runners; and the stabbing of Salman Rushdie—to name just a few. 

Between 1979 and May 2021, there were 48,035 Islamist terrorist attacks worldwide that caused the deaths of at least 210,138 people, according to a detailed study by the French Foundation for Political Innovation. Each such attack killed 4.4 persons on average. Statistical methods may differ, but it is beyond dispute that a young Muslim man is orders of magnitude more likely to carry out a terrorist attack than a member of any other religion.

Group membership is a reliable indicator of individuals’ likely behavioral characteristics. To suggest otherwise is neither morally correct nor rational. Profiling is neither “good” nor “bad,” it is simply policing. It is an essential tool of the trade for law enforcement and counterterrorism, and it should be made legal again.

Fourth, terminate security clearances for Muslims. Islamic faith is incompatible with the personal commitment, patriotic loyalty, and unquestionable reliability essential in military, law enforcement, intelligence services, and all other related branches of federal government. As long as practicing Muslims are able to get security clearances, extremist groups will continue trying to insert their cadres into the hiring pools of U.S. security agencies. The presence of practicing Muslims in any national security service is an inherent risk to its integrity and operational effectiveness. 

In removing Muslims from all positions requiring security clearance, it will be necessary to use religious and cultural profiling in recruiting replacements. Middle Eastern Christians should be relied upon to provide a substantial pool of qualified candidates with excellent linguistic skills.

Fifth, enact anti-jihadist immigration laws. No counterterrorist strategy is possible without complete physical control of the borders. Illegal immigration in general, and from Islamic nations in particular, is a security threat that can and should be eliminated. Cooperation of state and local law enforcement agencies at all levels in apprehending illegal immigrants and assisting in their deportation, focusing on those from nations at risk for Islamic terrorism, should be made mandatory. Refusing cooperation should be criminalized. Islamic activism should be the grounds for the exclusion or deportation of any alien, regardless of his status or ties in the U.S.

An Islamic outlook or affiliation should make any migrant excludable on strictly political rather than “religious” grounds. The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 which expanded the power of the federal government to exclude, deport, and detain aliens deemed subversive or seen as holding subversive views, provides the model. Over three decades earlier, after the Bolshevik revolution, foreign communists were singled out for deportation. On a single night in January 1920, more than 2,500 “alien radicals” were taken into custody in 33 cities all over the U.S. and deported to their countries of origin. Those who preach jihad and Shari’a should be treated in exactly the same manner 105 years later, albeit on a much grander scale.

Earnest assurances by individuals thus affected should not be taken at face value. Islam not only allows but mandates lying to “infidels” in order to gain some advantage: this is taqiyya, the aforementioned concealment of a Muslim’s true beliefs from non-Muslims. The problem is well known to INS officials: attitudes of Muslims who apply for U.S. visas or asylum often change once their status in America is secure. In addition, even “lapsed” Muslims are at risk of going back to their roots, as many Western-born terrorists of Muslim origin have done over the years.

Mr. President, these proposals are not only pragmatic, they are legally and morally justified. They will elicit the accusation of “discrimination” from the usual quarters, even though no such label is applicable. Targeting people for screening, supervision, and exclusion on the basis of their genes would be discriminatory indeed, but doing so because of their beliefs, ideas, actions, and intentions is justified and necessary. Islamic beliefs, ideas, and intentions as such pose a threat to our civilization and our way of life and not some allegedly aberrant variety of Muhammad’s faith. Among reasonable Americans, the debate about Islam’s “true nature” is over. 

With each fresh occurrence of the “sudden Jihad syndrome,” the left-liberal claim repeated by George W. Bush that “true Islam” is a “religion of peace”—  that it is indeed as American as apple pie—rings increasingly hollow. Most ordinary Americans, even those who did not vote for you, no longer take such drivel seriously. Please consider adopting the measures I’ve suggested. If you decide to apply them in practice, do so in perfect disregard of the predictable chorus of disapproval from those who hate you as much as they hate America.

May God give you, Mr. President, a spirit of wisdom and courage in this and all other endeavors in the next four years.   ◆