September 11, 2004
War on Terror: Situation Report
Juan Cole provides us with a situation report on the War on Terror. Although Al Qaeda has not yet again struck successfully inside the United States, we have lost more ground to those Richard Clarke calls "Jihadists" than I would have thought possible three years ago.
Posted by DeLong at September 11, 2004 06:40 AM | TrackBackInformed Comment : 09/01/2004 - 09/30/2004: September 11 and Its Aftermath
In order to evaluate the aftermath of September 11, we first must understand that event. What did al-Qaeda intend to achieve? Only if we understand that can we gauge their success or failure.
From the point of view of al-Qaeda, the Muslim world can and should be united into a single country. They believe that it once had this political unity, under the early caliphs. Even as late as the outbreak of World War I, the Ottoman state ruled much of the Middle East, and the Ottoman sultans had begun making claims to be caliphs (Muslim popes) from about 1880. In the below map, blue indicates heavy Muslim populations, green means medium, and yellow means the Muslims are a significant minority.
From al-Qaeda's point of view, the political unity of the Muslim world was deliberately destroyed by a one-two punch. First, Western colonial powers invaded Muslim lands and detached them from the Ottoman Empire or other Muslim states. They ruled them brutally as colonies, reducing the people to little more than slaves serving the economic and political interests of the British, French, Russians, etc. France invaded Algeria in 1830. Great Britain took Egypt in 1882 and Iraq in 1917. Russia took the Emirate of Bukhara and other Central Asian territories in the 1860s and forward. Second, they formed these colonies into Western-style nation-states, often small and weak ones, so that the divisive effects of the colonial conquests have lasted. (Look at the British Empire and its imposition on much of the Muslim world, e.g.:)
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was not an unprecedented event from the point of view of Bin Laden and his followers. Far from it. It was only the latest in a long series of Western predations in Muslim lands. The British had conquered Palestine, Jordan and Iraq, and had unilaterally opened Palestine to Jewish immigration, with the colonized Palestinians unable to object. The Russians had taken the Caucasus and Chechnya in the early nineteenth century, and had so brutally repressed the Muslims under their rule that they probably killed hundreds of thousands and expelled even more to the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey).
From al-Qaeda's point of view, the Soviet attempt to absorb Afghanistan was the beginning of the end of the colonial venture. They demonstrated that even a superpower can be forced to withdraw from a Muslim land if sufficient guerrilla pressure is put on it.
Bin Laden sees the Muslim world as continually invaded, divided and weakened by outside forces. Among these is the Americans in Saudi Arabia and the Israelis in geographical Palestine. He repeatedly complained about the occupation of the three holy cities, i.e., Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.
For al-Qaeda to succeed, it must overthrow the individual nation-states in the Middle East, most of them colonial creations, and unite them into a single, pan-Islamic state. But Ayman al-Zawahiri's organization, al-Jihad al-Islami, had tried very hard to overthrow the Egyptian state, and was always checked. Al-Zawahiri thought it was because of US backing for Egypt. They believed that the US also keeps Israel dominant in the Levant, and backs Saudi Arabia's royal family.
Al-Zawahiri then hit upon the idea of attacking the "far enemy" first. That is, since the United States was propping up the governments of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc., all of which al-Qaeda wanted to overthrow so as to meld them into a single, Islamic super-state, then it would hit the United States first.
The attack on the World Trade Center was exactly analogous to Pearl Harbor. The Japanese generals had to neutralize the US fleet so that they could sweep into Southeast Asia and appropriate Indonesian petroleum. The US was going to cut off imperial Japan from petroleum, and without fuel the Japanese could not maintain their empire in China and Korea. So they pushed the US out of the way and took an alternative source of petroleum away from the Dutch (which then ruled what later became Indonesia).
Likewise, al-Qaeda was attempting to push the United States out of the Middle East so that Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia would become more vulnerable to overthrow, lacking a superpower patron. Secondarily, the attack was conceived as revenge on the United States and American Jews for supporting Israel and the severe oppression of the Palestinians. Bin Laden wanted to move the timing of the operation up to spring of 2001 so as to "punish" the Israelis for their actions against the Palestinians in the second Intifadah. Khalid Shaikh Muhammad was mainly driven in planning the attack by his rage at Israel over the Palestinian issue. Another goal is to destroy the US economy, so weakening it that it cannot prevent the emergence of the Islamic superpower.
Al-Qaeda wanted to build enthusiasm for the Islamic superstate among the Muslim populace, to convince ordinary Muslims that the US could be defeated and they did not have to accept the small, largely secular, and powerless Middle Eastern states erected in the wake of colonialism. Jordan's population, e.g. is 5.6 million. Tunisia, a former French colony, is 10 million, less than Michigan. Most Muslims have been convinced of the naturalness of the nation-state model and are proud of their new nations, however small and weak. Bin Laden had to do a big demonstration project to convince them that another model is possible.
Bin Laden hoped the US would timidly withdraw from the Middle East. But he appears to have been aware that an aggressive US response to 9/11 was entirely possible. In that case, he had a Plan B: al-Qaeda hoped to draw the US into a debilitating guerrilla war in Afghanistan and do to the US military what they had earlier done to the Soviets. Al-Zawahiri's recent message shows that he still has faith in that strategy.
The US cleverly outfoxed al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, using air power and local Afghan allies (the Northern Alliance) to destroy the Taliban without many American boots on the ground.
Ironically, however, the Bush administration then went on to invade Iraq for no good reason, where Americans faced the kind of wearing guerrilla war they had avoided in Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda has succeeded in several of its main goals. It had been trying to convince Muslims that the United States wanted to invade Muslim lands, humiliate Muslim men, and rape Muslim women. Most Muslims found this charge hard to accept. The Bush administration's Iraq invasion, along with the Abu Ghuraib prison torture scandal, was perceived by many Muslims to validate Bin Laden's wisdom and foresightedness.
After the Iraq War, Bin Laden is more popular than George W. Bush even in a significantly secular Muslim country such as Turkey. This is a bizarre finding, a weird turn of events. Turks didn't start out with such an attitude. It grew up in reaction against US policies.
It remains to be seen whether the US will be forced out of Iraq the way it was forced out of Iran in 1979. If so, as al-Zawahiri says, that will be a huge victory. A recent opinion poll did find that over 80 percent of Iraqis want an Islamic state. If Iraq goes Islamist, that will be the biggest victory the movement has had since the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. An Islamist Iraq might well be able ultimately to form a joint state with Syria, starting the process of the formation of the Islamic superstate of which Bin Laden dreams.
If the Muslim world can find a way to combine the sophisticated intellectuals and engineers of Damascus and Cairo with the oil wealth of the Persian Gulf, it could well emerge as a 21st century superpower.
Bin Laden's dream of a united Muslim state under a revived caliphate may well be impossible to accomplish. But with the secular Baath gone, it could be one step closer to reality. If you add to the equation the generalized hatred for US policies (both against the Palestinians and in Iraq) among Muslims, that is a major step forward for al-Qaeda. In Saudi Arabia, al-Qaeda has emerged as a dissident political party. Before it had just been a small group of Bin Laden's personal acolytes in Afghanistan and a handful of other countries.
Although the United States and its Pakistani ally have captured significant numbers of al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a whole new generation of angry young Muslim men has been produced. Al-Qaeda has moved from being a concrete cell-based terrorist organization to being an ideal and a model, for small local groups in Casablanca, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and elsewhere.
The US is not winning the war on terror. Al-Qaeda also has by no means won. But across a whole range of objectives, al-Qaeda has accomplished more of its than the US has of its.
Never forget:
http://www.avatara.com/operationignore0.html
Juan puts it very well. I think he has it exactly right.
Posted by: David Lloyd-Jones at September 11, 2004 10:59 AMI know that Cole knows much more than what he makes to be the osama's opinion. Regarding the supposed unity of the muslims I can think of the Shia Sunny division. Yes there was an Ottoman caliphate but there was also a Safawid Persia. There was a Baghdad caliphate but a mamluk kingdom in Egypt and we have to take into account the Caliphate of Cordoba and the kingdoms of the Almohads and the Almoravids and the Marinids and the kingdom of Mali and the Tatar Khanate and the MUghal empire. THis is a small list but it simply indicates that the diversity among Muslims is richer than one might think.
Posted by: jlcg at September 11, 2004 11:02 AMBut somehow it's Kerry who can't be trusted with national security.
The mind boggles.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at September 11, 2004 11:03 AM“If the Muslim world can find a way to combine the sophisticated intellectuals and engineers of Damascus and Cairo with the oil wealth of the Persian Gulf, it could well emerge as a 21st century superpower.”
The total GDP of the Arab nation states (including oil revenues) is less than the GDP of Spain. Is this the basis for a 21st century superpower? To join the world economy the Muslim Arab world must learn to “play by the rules” of the global economy of the 21st century. So far they don’t seem willing and able to do that. And these rules don’t allow for rigid theocratic states. They can’t even make peace with Israel much less the rest of the world.
This analysis makes the common mistake of treating "Muslims" as a single monolithic group.
They are not.
Muslims who want to live in modern societies that support individual freedom, buttressed by liberal democracy and free-market economics, look for progress to Bush, not Bin Laden, (and certainly not their own "ruling elites").
Other muslims are unfortunately subject to the continuous daily distortions of the anti-American European and "Arab" media -- and naturally tend to believe the propaganda they continuously hear.
But that's what "other Americans" also do.
Freedom ain't free just because your parents made the last payment for you. Now it's your turn to make the payment for your kids -- and maybe a few hundred million muslims who could really use a proper start towards it.
Tom Paine
Posted by: Tom Paine at September 11, 2004 11:53 AMI agree with Zarkov. I can see that Bin Laden might think the Muslim world might become a superpower. I'm even sure he thinks it should. That a professor should overlook the general economic misery, violence, illiteracy, antiquated laws, and bondage of women to agree with him is, however, puzzling. When I think of sophisticated engineers I think Europe, Russia, China, India. Not Damascus or Cairo.
Posted by: walons at September 11, 2004 12:23 PMJuan Cole's discussion is the most coherent account on this issue I have ever read. Why do we have people as clueless as Condi Rice advising the President when such wise people as Professor Cole only get to teach and blog? Besides - can't Condi bother to read his blog like many of the rest of us do?
Posted by: Harold McClure at September 11, 2004 12:24 PMIn my opinion, Cole is wrong. Al Qaeda wanted western infidels out of the Muslim world and now the US and its allies are more firmly entrenched in Afghanistan and Iraq. Before 9/11, Pakistan was off the radar screen and al Qaeda sympathizers in the government, which has nuclear weapons, were slowly taking over. Now there's no chance of that happening. As bad as the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are, post-9/11 they are confronting the fundamentalists within much more effectively and with much more resolve.
It's been just a decace or so since the end of the Cold War and Bush and company realize we don't need to prop up anti-Communist authoritarian governments in the third world any more. Look at East Asia and South America. Both have democratized over the past decade and now it's the Middle East's turn, however long it takes.
Turkey shed it's military government and has turned Islamicist democratically. Mostly it's concerned with the Kurds, a new democratic ally of the West whose flourishing under US and British protection during the Saddam years demonstrates would could happen in the wider Middle East. All of this talk about how we "lost" Turkey, conveniently forgets that it desperately wants to join the European Union. It has been improving its human rights and civil liberty standards regarding the Kurds in order to do so.
Many al Qaeda leaders and operatives have been rounded up and killed in the past three years. The fact there hasn't been another attack on US soil in three years says something too. The US needs to push the two state solution in Palestine in order to show it's for democracy and justice in the Middle East, but not just for that reason. I believe both a Kerry or Bush administraion will push for that in the coming years which is partly why Sharon is leaving Gaza. Turkey, once a good ally, is turning against Israel and a more democratic Muslim world would push harder for a solution, in a peaceful manner too, rather than use the conflict as a red herring and distraction as the current autocratic leaders of Saudi Arabia and Egypt do.
Recent evidence shows Lebanon is improving despite the fact it's still under the heel of Syria. Iraq will improve too after elections and after successive government are seen as more legitimate by the Iraqis. It won't always be dominated by the US and will use it's oil wealth more and more to help its citizens - look at Venezuela - and to undermine the Saudi dominance in the oil market.
A final thought on Iraq: Fareed Zakaria has written:
"By the late 1990s, American policy on Iraq was becoming untenable. The U.N. sanctions had turned into a farce. Saddam was able to siphon off billions for himself, while the sanctions threw tens of thousands of ordinary Iraqis into poverty every year. Their misery was broadcast daily across the Arab world, inflaming public opinion. America and Britain were bombing Iraqi military installations weekly and maintaining a large garrison in Saudi Arabia, which was also breeding trouble. Osama bin Laden's biggest charges against the United States were that it was occupying Saudi Arabia and starving the Iraqi people.
Given these realities, the United States had a choice. It could either drop all sanctions and the containment of Iraq and welcome Saddam back into the world community. Or it had to hold him to account."
Now the sanctions are lifted and our troops are out of Saudi Arabia.
Turkey is a member of NATO and should soon be a member of the European Union. The country is secular, and surely America has not "lost" Turkey. Public opinion in Turkey regrets the war in Iraq, much of the world's public opinion regrets the war, but Turkey is our ally.
Turkey aside, however, the war in Iraq was not justified or necessary and has been terribly costly in lives and material, with little to be shown in gain. The reason given for the war in Iraq, was self-defense. The was then no need for war.
Posted by: Ari at September 11, 2004 01:40 PMThe current memes ("play by the rules"/"rewire the arabs"/"the fundamentalists cannot administrate, look at the misery and repression in their countries") are not useful unless shutting down and/or distorting the debate are primary purposes for introducing them.
The jihadists have no intention other than support for anti-imperialist ethnic and nationalist resistance forces. Al-Qaeda is in this sense a brand of resistance that is global in anti-imperialist actions yet it has very little to do with Islam or governance. It is not an alternative political device, it is a method of attacking the ruling structure in local struggles.
To identify Al-Qaeda as a political movement destined to fail because of its fundamentalist foundation is an empty argument. Emphasis on GDP comparisons or the ability to make peace on Israel's terms are clever but vacant remarks.
There is indeed a great deal of diversity among muslim followers. However, characterization of these resistances as monolithically driven by an amalgam of fundamentalist beliefs and theocratic politics is misguided at best. The continual failure to observe the muslims' discontent with what they receive under the present structure of rules is precisely what motivates moderates to become sympathetic to radical forms of resistance.
Do you get it yet ?
Posted by: self at September 11, 2004 02:07 PMPeter K. is suffering from some astigmatism. The US is still supporting authoritarian regimes in Central and South America. US involvement in the attempted overthrow of the repeatedly-elected Chavez government? Hello? Continued support of the right-wing Colombian government, which is using American aid to suppress not only (selected) narcotraffickers, but also landless peasants and rentiers?
The Bush administration has failed utterly to present a coherent policy, react in an effective manner to terrorism at home and abroad, or to pursue reasonable policies for democratization of any nation, particularly the United States, ironically. The economic policies pursued by this government reward oligarchs no less effectively than the Russian government of Yeltsin. When too much wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, resentment will build among the underclass, internecine struggles between power bases will follow, and the failures of even a few hubris infused oligarchs will cause catastrophic economic failures with worldwide cascade effects. Conrad Black on crack, basically.
Their ability to utterly alienate our former allies and sometime-friends insures that America will not be the recipient of any friendly assistance any time soon, and we are now merely a political whipping boy and economic rival. When Boeing and Lockheed are symbols of a hated opponent, the stock of Airbus and whatever is left of the Russian aerospace industry will rise. As our oligarchs sell out our nation, what kind of future will we have?
Militant Islam is resurgent, and the Bush administration has done nothing but fan the flames. Pakistan is the example that utterly disproves PK's assertion about democratization. Like the Republican party in the US, militant Islam is for now committed to a unifying model much like the Baathist party in the 60s. Under pressure, however, the coalition will crack and fail, as there are too many points of contention among the member constituencies. Sunni, Shiite, Wahhabi? The Kurds? Trenchant nationalism? Racism as seen in the Sudan between lighter Arabs and dark skinned Africans? Decadent, pampered Saudis (homologous to Bush) as opposed to the hardened Shiites of the swamps who fought Saddam and now the US after the betrayal of Bush 40? Afghans as well will not blend into a system.
I agree with Juan Cole that the dream of the Wahhabi is a utopian Islamic theocratic state; I do not believe that such a goal is achievable. I do not believe the Bush administration, rooting its rhetoric in neo-Millenialist Christian blather, will do anything to foster democratic ideals, but will instead seek conflicts that escalate into an excuse fora white supremacist Christian theocracy in the west and an all or nothing conflict with Islam.
Going by the mission statement PNAC posted in 1998, they've accomplished a lot of their goals, including the "Pearl Harbor" scenario necessary to start it all. Patriot Act, a war of choice in Iraq as a precursor to moving onward - the fact that they've been incompetent at carrying out their goals because ideology blinded them to situations on the ground is a different problem - fortunately for us, or we'd be trying to hold down Damascus right now, too.
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There are several mistakes in Cole's map; by any interpretation under which Libya and Syria qualify as "heavily Muslim", so do Mali, Niger, Chad and Nigeria (which actually has more Muslims than any single Arab country).
Furthermore, there are also mistakes in Cole's analysis; if there was one thing British rule over Muslims in Nigeria was *not*, it was "brutal." Lord Lugard's "indirect rule" was honed to perfection in Nigeria, so much so that the North was essentially untouched by Western civilization under British rule, and woefully unprepared for independence when it came in 1960, setting up the tensions that would lead to the Biafran War.
In light of the inaccuracy of his "facts" and poor quality of his historical grasp of the Muslim experience in West Africa, I don't know why this guy is taken so uncritically as if he knew what he was talking about.
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Juan Cole never mentions West Africa. Cole does mention the British colonial rule in the Middle East, and that makes all sorts of sense to me.
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"Juan Cole never mentions West Africa."
Oh, you mean to say there's a hole in the map where West Africa's supposed to be? And if West Africa isn't traditionally part of the Muslim world, where exactly qualifies? What about Eastern African states like Tanzania then? Are they excluded from Cole's thesis about heavy-handed colonial rule as the cause of Muslim anger? I heard something about some guy called Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani hailing from those parts, but I guess it's safe to leave them ones out if you say so ...
As for British colonial rule in the Middle East proper - guess what? - that was indirect too, and we wouldn't have had the Hashemite monarchy ruling Jordan or the al-Sauds running the Hejaz if it weren't so. As for Egypt, had the British been more hands-on in running that country, instead of merely appointing "advisers" to lazy fools like King Faroukh, the place would probably have been in far better shape than it is today.
Finally, for those who are so willing to swallow Cole's "British broke up the beloved Ottoman empire against its subjects' will" story whole, ever heard of a film called "Lawrence of Arabia?" Based on a true story, by the way; it seems those Arabs were more than eager to see the back of the Ottomans, so much so that they were willing to join the British in fighting to bring it about!
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Abiola Lapite,
So where does Juan Cole say the Arabs loved the Ottoman Empire?
Abiola Lapite:
I think you are mistaking Juan Cole's presentation of Al-Qaeda's views with his own views. I doubt he believes that that all western colonization reduced Muslims to slavery. But he has his own blog, so you can ask him. Though, I do admit by the end of some paragraphs it is unclear when he is still trying to relate what he thinks is the Al-Qaeda view of the world, and when he is adding in his own opinion or known history to give the reader some background regarding where Al-Qaeda's views come from. But is it unreasonable to say the history of Russia in Chechnya has been brutal? I don't see Cole saying anywhere that the "British broke up the beloved Ottoman empire against its subjects' will"
As for Nigeria, my understanding that the north can definitely be called "heavily" Muslim, but what about the south? Same for Ghana. Isn't the characterization of those whole countries a judgement call? Certainly West Africans whom I have known from Ghana and Nigeria are not all in agreement on the degree to which Islam can be said to be a dominant force in their own culture. I don't think that they would agree that Nigeria is heavily Muslim in the sense that Islam is the dominant cultural force in all regions (though I'll ask one of them exactly that the next time I see him). A person from southern versus northern Ghana or Nigeria would have different viewpoints on that. That is certainly different from persons from different parts of the Middle East -there is no doubt among any I have met that the dominant culture is Islamic.
I don't know about Nigeria, but in Ghana, to some extent British rule was indirect out of necessity, they couldn't control large chunks of the countryside through direct rule and had to rely on locals to do it for them. That is precisely why they treated some people quite well -Britain had no choice if they wanted to control it at all.
Many West African I have met -Christian or secular (certainly not Muslim) view Islam as another invading force, only one that came through a few centuries before the first European powers. And they are quite thankful it did not penetrate into their home regions.
>There are several mistakes in Cole's map; by any interpretation under which Libya and Syria qualify as "heavily Muslim", so do Mali, Niger, Chad and Nigeria (which actually has more Muslims than any single Arab country).
According to the numbers from the CIA world factbook on Muslim share of population
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2122.html
Cole's coloring scheme seems to follow these criteria:
"heavy muslim populations" >90%
"medium" 50-90%
"significant" 30%
Mali and Syria are both very close to 90%, so slight differences between Cole's and the CIA's (rounded) data may be responsible for differences in the classification of these two countries. My reading of Cole's comment is that the size of Muslim populations is not the only relevant criterion for being part of the fundamentalists' concept of the "Muslim world", but probably also the boundaries of the caliphate of Baghdad and Arab ethnicity, which would exclude Subsaharan Africa, Iran, Southern and South Eastern Asia, but may include parts of Spain.
Posted by: Konrad at September 11, 2004 05:09 PMCorrection: "significant" should be 10-50%
Posted by: Konrad at September 11, 2004 05:34 PMIt is possible to quibble about lots of things in Professor Coles posting but I agree with the conclusion. It is all in the last two paragraphs.
Is there a soundbite solution? No.
When will we know what should have done? Come back in 2031. We are certainly living in interesting times.
Posted by: Eunoia23 at September 11, 2004 06:18 PMAbiola Lapite: "Finally, for those who are so willing to swallow Cole's 'British broke up the beloved Ottoman empire against its subjects' will' story whole, ever heard of a film called 'Lawrence of Arabia'" Based on a true story, by the way; it seems those Arabs were more than eager to see the back of the Ottomans, so much so that they were willing to join the British in fighting to bring it about!"
Isn't that the film where the kid drowns in the dry quicksand?
Apparently most historians regard this film as being about as accurate in its other aspects. Noted British political historian George Lichtheim in "From the Ruins of Empire" ("Commentary", Dec. 1969): Lawrence was "apparently destined for a career among Mosley's Blackshirts had Lawrence not been killed in a road accident in 1935. His latest biographers [Phillip Knightley and Colin Simpson, "The Secret Lives of lawrence of Arabia"] are duly shocked becaue it turns out that he never had any use for the Arabs either; all he wanted was to turn the Middle East into another British protectorate. But who, except, for his foolish admirers, ever doubted this? Of course Lawrence was a fraud. What else could a man be whose professional life wa spent in betraying people to each other, intriguing behind the scenes, and posing as the hero of a 'desert rebellion' which never occurred anywhere but in the fevered imagination of some newspaper readers?"
Lichtheim's review also quotes a fascinating excerpt from one of Lawrence's 1919 notes, in which he expresses the hope that Feisal would "cut the throats" of all the Jews in the Middle East, "or better, pull all their teeth out" (a line he turns out to have taken from Thomas Carlyle).
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at September 11, 2004 08:02 PMTerror attacks are meant to radicalize a situation, and if the Middle East is not more radicalized than it was in 2001, I'm a monkey's uncle.
Posted by: sm at September 11, 2004 08:50 PMHard not to agree with sm.
Hard also not to take Cole's reputation as a Middle East expert seriously.
But some are, claiming that his attacks on the AIPAC best illustrate an intolerance for any Israeli interest. I found the remarks here engaging:
http://ragout.blogspot.com/
where Cole: The Conspiracy Theorist and other posts by 'the Chef' were worth the read.
OBL also speaks of returning Islamic rule to Spain. I don't see any mention of this proposition in Juan Cole's piece. How much of a clash of civilizations might an attempt to subject Spain to Islamic rule produce?
I would predict an all out war. And let's not forget which side has the power to inflict the most massive casualities in total war. U.S. ire is slow to arouse, but once aroused it has shown to be capable of approving destruction on a considerable scale: e.g., Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki.
The Islamic Jihadists shouldn't rule out a return to the past on the part of the West if sufficiently provoked.
Posted by: Lawrence at September 12, 2004 12:57 PM
Lawrence: Any such really massive, near-genocidal attack on the Islamic world would, of course, have an excellent chance of triggering the use against the West of Pakistani A-bombs (or A-bombs bought from North Korea or stolen from Russia) smuggled into Western cities. Which -- as Matt Yglesias points out, and as should be obvious -- is why we don't want to resort to any such massive retaliation UNLESS we ourselves have actually undergone such a nuclear attack.
The problem of how to otherwise use deterrant force against a stateless enemy whose culture includes a lot of suicidal religious nuttery is, obviously, a horrendous one. Threatening to kill, say, two Moslems (or two Saudis) picked out at random for every American killed is likely to be counterproductive. I wonder whether the best solution might be to simply threaten to permanently seize and occupy, say, one Saudi oil well for every small X number of Americans killed by Moslem terrorists from now on -- but even that one has obvious potential pitfalls. A pity that neither of the two strategic dimwits who have now been nominated for president are discussing any of this at all.
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at September 12, 2004 01:55 PMLawrence, I am Spanish and I don't remember that OBL said such thing, what I do remember is that he called on Muslims to fight to avoid a re-edition of the losing of Al Andalus, that is to make sure no other country now populated by Muslims pass to be under "infidels" ruling.
DSW
Posted by: Antoni Jaume at September 12, 2004 02:26 PMLawrence and Bruce M.
I have wondered if the muslim world has contemplated the reaction of the west to a mass casulty attack. Anyone have any comment on this? There seems to be some blowback on the school attack in russia. Anyone seen any thoughtful comment along this line?
Does the world expect the west to always respond in a civilized manner? History should disprove that thesis.
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The following story ought to make for interesting reading for those who cling to the "Big Bad Americans upsetting the poor little Muslims" storyline: I especially love the bit where the interviewed "Minuteman" says "To have Negroes occupying us is a particular humiliation ... Sometimes we aborted a mission because there were no Negroes."
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1302639,00.html
Asking why Middle Eastern lunatics hate us and worrying overmuch about their oh-so-precious sensibilities makes as much sense as worrying about the Nazi "street", i.e, not at all.
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Let's try again.
Anyone disagree with this statement from post on Clarke's talk below?
"1.3 billion Muslims 200 million of whom believe now (much fewer on 9/12) they support Al Qaeda and its ilk 100,000 Jihadists."
Do these numbers suggest anything about the best approach to fighting terrorism?
Do you think that masses of poor people around the world will quite believing semi-myths about how all their troubles come from colonialism simply because some Western types march in with their version of history?
Posted by: jml at September 12, 2004 10:20 PMThe risk of a so-called “suitcase” or even larger nuclear bomb scenario is somewhat exaggerated. If the Russians have an ounce of sense (and I believe they do) their nuclear weapons would have various safeguards to prevent unauthorized use, or even use in certain geographical areas. Besides the DT gas in boosted fission devices must be recharged, these things need maintenance. The reason national states use missiles to deliver nuclear weapons and not FedEx is control. Governments generally don’t give these things out to even their own field agents because of the danger of blowback. Iran or North Korea might be crazy enough to use nuclear weapons under some extreme conditions, but I doubt they would give or sell them to Al- Qaeda. It’s too dangerous to them. Pakistan must also watch itself. The Hindus hate the Muslims more than anyone else. Loose nukes from Pakistan might find their way to India and guess which country India would nuke first? If the government of Pakistan should look like it is about to fall into the hands of radical Muslims, I’m sure they would disable their weapons just like the South Africans did. But coup d’etat in Pakistan is another story. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
Posted by: A. Zarkov at September 13, 2004 12:36 AM"If the Muslim world can find a way to combine the sophisticated intellectuals and engineers of Damascus and Cairo with the oil wealth of the Persian Gulf, it could well emerge as a 21st century superpower."
Sophisticated intellectuals in Damascus were all executed a while ago by Assad father, the few survivors were quickly rounded up by Assad son (as in the US, power in Syria goes from father to son) and disposed off.
Other than this phrase, the whole analysis seems very very simplistic to me. a)the muslim world is far from monolithic as presented, just think about shia vs sunni. In Iraq, for instance, a majority of people may favour an islamic state (I also doubt this statement, especially if we include Kurds in the count) but I suspect that sunni's do not want a Shia islamic state and viceversa. b)it's true that the US has made huge strategic and tactical mistakes in Iraq but I don't think even a small majority of muslims would rather live in an islamic state Bin-laden style or go back to the good old days of Saddam.
The problem is that the US is creating a unified target for a lot of groups that would rather be killing each other (shia, sunni and kurds; al-qaeda and the baathists; Iran and Syria).
The real problem now is that in Iraq the US still does not have an exit strategy that make sense; as long as US troops are there it will be difficult to pacify the country but as soon as they leave Iraq risks descending into anarchy or, even worse, it will transform itself into a regional war when the Kurds decide to break free of the rest of country, prompting a response from Iran and Turkey.
I keep on thinking that the only possibile future Iraq will be one divided into three states (how loosely associated I don't know but it will be a fine balancing act) as I don't see any of the three communities accepting to obey laws voted by the others.
Professor Cole is expressing the OBL/al Qaeda view of the world and history as a means of understanding their objectives. You can argue about whether or not OBL/al Qaeda are accurate in their reading of history (judging by most comments, it appears that it's an imagined history), but it's their version of it, not Prof Cole's.
Whether or not they're right or wrong about history is beside the point. It's the perception of reality, and not reality itself, that is important. OBL/al Qaeda have provided a filter through which many Muslims perceive events. (It's very similar to a political campaign in that regard.) When Bush invaded Iraq, many folks in the ME were bound to view this act through OBL/al Qaeda's filter.
Does it really matter? I think it does. The worst thing in the world we can do is underestimate the power of the rhetorical framework that al Qaeda has erected. Unless they're carefully considered, our actions will only drive more people to al Qaeda and make our job that much harder.
Posted by: Jon at September 13, 2004 09:36 AMA. Zarkov wrote, "Iran or North Korea might be crazy enough to use nuclear weapons under some extreme conditions, but I doubt they would give or sell them to Al- Qaeda. It’s too dangerous to them."
Perhaps, but it's far more likely than them directly launching one at the US via a ballistic missile, which is the rationale for the silly US anti-ballistic missile system.
Posted by: liberal at September 13, 2004 01:08 PMLiberal:
North Korea wants tactical nuclear weapons (more than strategic) so it can repel an invasion. The Soviet Union deployed its FROG tactical nuclear missile system in Cuba and this system prevented a US invasion of Cuba in 1962. North Korea is not rich enough to deploy many strategic nuclear missiles; any token deployment would be of mostly for psychological purposes. They could never risk using a small and inaccurate strategic force. It would bring immediate annihilation from the US and they know it. A US missile defense system could be an effective psychological deterrent even if it was of questionable reliability. It would be better to do that than have either Japan or the Republic of China have it’s own force. Iran is another and more complicated story.