August 14, 2013
The
revived discussion about the resurgent strengths of Al-Qaeda and its associates
continues to be wrongly framed around two narratives: Is Al-Qaeda becoming
stronger and posing serious new threats around the world, and, has the
American-led “global war on terror” achieved its aims or not? These are useless
frames because:
a) They mistakenly view Al-Qaeda as an
organization that, like a corporation or a country, has its strong and weak
moments in interacting with the world; and,
b) They stress the secondary issue of
Al-Qaeda’s threat to the United States and the West, when the most important
thing about the al-Qaeda phenomenon is what it tells us about the slow
unraveling of once coherent societies, mostly in the Middle East and South
Asia.
As
the United States shuts over a dozen embassies, evacuates others, tells its
nationals not to travel anywhere for a while, and launches a series of drone
assassinations against targets in Yemen, what should we conclude about the
dramatic American reaction to alleged Al-Qaeda threats in the past week? And is
there a better way to analyze and respond to the threats that Al-Qaeda does
represent?
On
the first issue, I would say that American officials continue to over-react
hysterically to the surface manifestations of Al-Qaeda, both by using
extra-legal military force to kill suspected terrorists and shutting down
operations when they suspect an operation is at hand. This repeats the same
mistake that others made in the wars against crime or drugs—locking up
criminals and drug dealers and users as a failed means to deter others in these
realms. These approaches consistently fail because they ignore both the huge
incentives for those who deal in crime and drugs, as well as the enormously
powerful motivating forces that drive lost individuals into these activities.
The
United States and other governments must fight back against Al-Qaeda and other
terrorists, but current trends suggest that the approach now being used is a
massive flop. Trillions of dollars have been spent and wasted in wars,
armaments, training and other actions since Sept. 11, 2001, not to mention the
hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded and the millions of refugees that can
be attributed to the consequences of anti-terror strategies spearheaded by the
United States and allies. So as we enter August 2013, Al-Qaeda still frightens
governments, and many associated groups that mirror its worldview and tactics
continue to spring up in Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Mali, Niger, Libya,
Pakistan, Afghanistan and other shattered lands. So who shattered these lands?
We
can answer that by analyzing how and why Al-Qaeda’s message, alliances,
associates and tactics continue to spread in isolated places around the world,
and to do that we should disaggregate the relevant elements or actors and
address each one appropriately. The key elements/actors are the mother group
Al-Qaeda itself; its many associates and affiliates around the world, in their
local enabling environments; the thousands of individuals who join such groups,
mostly unanchored losers and nutcases who desperately need a militant cause to
give meaning to their lives (similar to equally small numbers of Christian and
Jewish nutcases who gravitate to extremist groups that deal in other sorts of
crime in other societies); the conduct of governments in Arab-Asian-African
countries where these terror groups come to life; and, foreign governments
(such as the United States, Israel, UK, USSR-Russia) whose policies generate
powerful ammunition that Al-Qaeda recruiters use to attract an apparently
endless stream of new recruits who are prepared to kill and to die for their
causes.
The
really shocking recent development is not Al-Qaeda’s alleged plans to attack
foreign missions this week—this is old news—but rather the very steady
expansion of Al-Qaeda-inspired or -linked local groups in the past decade all
across the Arab-Asian region. This robust global growth in such deviant and
criminal behavior primarily reflects the last two reasons I mentioned above:
corrupt, dictatorial, inequitable and dehumanizing policies by indigenous
Arab-Asian governments, combined with aggressive and deadly policies by foreign
governments that mostly treat the peoples of these regions with disdain.
The
motivating forces for the continued expansion of local Al-Qaeda-like groups
have changed radically since the seminal Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in
1979, followed by American troops in Saudi Arabia, Israeli aggressions against
Arabs, corrupt and uncaring Arab regimes, and others. The reasons why wacko
young men join such movements evolve and expand every few years, and now
include virulent anti-Shiite and anti-Iranian racism—but the young men keep
coming, in bigger and bigger numbers, and the Arab and foreign governments keep
up their violence and thuggery.
Closing
embassies, supporting Arab-Asian autocrats, invading foreign countries, and
using more drones are among the core reasons why we find ourselves in this situation
today. Arabs, Americans, Asians, Israelis, Europeans and others who wonder how
we will defeat the Al-Qaeda threat should stop asking questions about a bunch
of bearded lunatics in perpetual hiding in Asian trans-border mountains, and
start asking questions about how their own policies in Washington, Tel Aviv,
London, Cairo, Riyadh, Damascus and other capitals have contributed to this
colossal collective failure of policies.
Al-Qaeda
really is a problem, but so are most of the rest of us who helped bring it to
life.
Rami
G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares
Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American
University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. You can follow him @ramikhouri.
Copyright © 2013 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by
Agence Global