Blind Faith

How reliable is the president's Islam adviser?

BY: Franklin Foer

Brought to you by The New Republic Online

Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Professor David Forte might seem an unorthodox choice for the role of presidential adviser on Islam. For one thing, he's not Muslim. For another, he doesn't speak Arabic. His academic specialty is U.S. constitutional law, and he readily admits that he "dabble[s]" in Islamic jurisprudence. "That's why I call myself a student and not an expert," he told me.

But thanks to the aggressive promotion of his work by two influential conservative think tanks, the Hudson Institute and the Heritage Foundation, Forte's writings on Islam have found their way onto the reading lists of Defense Undersecretary Douglas Feith and the National Security Council's Elliot Abrams. U.N. Ambassador John Negroponte has requested his oeuvre; State Department officials have quizzed him on his views. And when President Bush addressed Congress last month, he seemed to pluck whole phrases from Forte's writings. Or, as one official told The Washington Post: The president's speech was "Forte-ed."

In particular Bush has embraced Forte's argument that Al Qaeda are theological heretics. They practice, Forte contends, an esoteric strain of Islam that traces to a seventh-century sect. "[The terrorists] are not religious," Forte told the Post. "They are a new form of fascist tyranny."

But Forte is a less than reliable source. The problem isn't just his weak background in modern Islamic politics; it's his ulterior ideological motive. Forte doesn't just want to redeem Islam from its critics. As a Catholic conservative who serves on a Vatican task force on strengthening family, he wants to redeem religious orthodoxy itself--or, at least, cleanse it of the extremist stain. "Nothing this evil could be religious," he is fond of saying. It's a bromide that jibes perfectly with Bush's own unabashed fondness for religiosity of all stripes. Unfortunately, it may be wrong.

Until last month Forte's primary claim to fame was his writing on Catholic legal theory. Along with a growing band of conservative scholars--Princeton's Robert P. George, Tulsa University's Russell Hitinger--Forte promoted Thomas Aquinas's theology of natural law. America, they argue, was founded by men who agreed with Aquinas on the primacy of transcendent divine law.

But secular politicians have junked up the founders' system, adding gratuitous and wicked laws. "Faith is an outlaw in the public square," Forte lectured in 1996 at the Heritage Foundation. In the Cleveland State Law Review in 1990, he compared government regulation to the Pharisees, the rabbis who challenged Jesus. And when the laws of God conflict with the laws of man, there's no question which side Forte takes. He has proposed a doctrine called "justified non-compliance," which allows citizens to "refuse to abide by" laws they consider onerous or morally reprehensible.

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