Foreign wars and terrorism
To The Guardian
Jeremy Corbyn’s attempt to draw a link between Britain’s foreign policy and terror is disingenuous. Islamist terrorism preceded, not followed, the West’s “war on terror”. Sayyid Qutb and Sayyid Abu al-ala Mawdudi produced Islamism long before the Iranian Revolution. But, despite all its influence on the young Muslims, Islamism remained a marginal heterodoxy.
Qutb and Mawdudi were theological dabblers, whom Sunni scholars had already refuted and dismissed. It was Ayatollah Khomeini who revived the concept and gave modern Islamists religious respectability they had previously lacked. Khomeini promised a constant struggle against the satanic West in 1979. The first instalment of that struggle was delivered in the form of an attack on US marines in Beirut in 1983, killing 241 of them. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to see how Jeremy Corbyn can possibly blame the West for the rise of Islamist terrorism in Europe. Randhir Singh Bains, Gants Hill, Essex
To The Guardian
It is wrong to claim that the blowback theory is irrelevant in the case of the Manchester attack. Islamic State germinated in the scorched earth left behind when we removed the regime of Saddam Hussein. If we had not invaded Iraq, the organisation that is now attacking us would not exist. That is blowback.
The plan proclaimed to stabilise Libya, after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, was never going to work. There were realistic alternatives, put forward at the time, to bombing on the side of the rebels – such as setting up UN safe areas – but they were ignored. Nato turned a blind eye to shipments of weapons bound for Misrata, with the result that one big Gaddafi turned into lots of little Gaddafis. That is what has brought about the ungovernable space in Libya which Isis has exploited. That is blowback. Now Trump has loosened the rules of engagement for US bombing, with the result that 50 civilians in Syria were killed in the week before the attack on Westminster, and 200 in Iraq the week before that – both in raids targeting Isis, with UK support. Unlike in Manchester, the Westminster attacker apparently had no organisational links with Isis – but that does not mean there is not an indirect connection. That, too, is blowback. Violence begets violence. Jeremy Corbyn is right, we need to find alternatives. Associate Professor Jake Lynch, chair, Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney