Islamic renewal needs US backing

In the days, months and years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United States has found itself in a war against an enemy it had very little intelligence on -- Islamist extremists.

Now, five years later, "The United States still lacks an integrated and sustainable strategy to confront religious extremism in the Muslim world," writes Abdeslam M. Maghraoui, director of the Muslim World Initiative at the U.S. Institute of Peace.