The United States is entering a critical phase in its encounter with political Islam. For decades, Washington viewed Islamism primarily through the prism of counterterrorism, assuming that the absence of violence signaled the absence of threat. Europe learned too late that nonviolent Islamism can be far more enduring because it works within democratic systems rather than against them. The same adaptive strategy is now visible in the United States, and the patterns are unmistakably similar.

Islamism in its modern form does not attempt to replace the state through force. It attempts to reorient institutions from within by converting religious identity into political authority. The movement relies on the protections of liberal democracy, using civic participation and cultural legitimacy to a

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