The same old strategies will never defeat jihad
Seemingly out of nowhere, Islamic extremism manifested in terror attacks of mass scale has thrust itself back into the center of world consciousness. Hamas’ devastating rampage into Israel on Oct. 7 has provoked a brutal retaliatory war in Gaza and a reverberating regional crisis whose multiple interacting dimensions open ever more dangerousscenarios.
Iran’s recent aerial attack on Israel constitutes an unprecedented escalation for the Middle East. ISIS-K’s Moscow massacre on March 22 has all Europe on heightened terror alert, and has again raised the specter of a major attack on the American homeland.
The impression too many have that this threat has re-emerged “out of nowhere,” only illuminates the extreme folly of having declared radical Islam a threat which had essentially died out, as we entered a new era of great power rivalry against Russia and China.
Inevitable reassertion
We’ve experienced more than twenty years after 9/11 and the ensuing brutal retaliatory wars fought in numerous significant somewheres, from the Hindu Kush to the Sahara, places that are epicenters of intense jihadist activity.
With Afghanistan restored to Taliban rule and again a safe haven for Al Qaeda and other terror groups, Iranian proxies roiling the Fertile Crescent, and the entire Sahel region of Africa under siege by Islamist insurgencies, it was inevitable that this undefeated and resilient global force would powerfully re-assert itself — and sooner rather than later.
A phenomenon that gave Americans their darkest day since Pearl Harbor, and has now given the Jews their darkest day since the Holocaust, must never be underestimated in terms of its vast capacity to inflict suffering to a degree that has profound psychological, cultural, and historical impact.
Still, despite this recurringly demonstrated potency, America and the West have yet to go beyond fervent denunciations of “evil,” calls for aggressive military campaigns, tougher intelligence gathering, and high-level diplomacy. These have failed to bring deliverance over the last two decades.
In a recent opinion piece in The New York Times, counterterrorism experts Christopher Costa and Colin Clarke even called for “marriages of convenience” with the
Taliban and other malign actors, simply because they happen to also be enemies of ISIS.
It is an approach that dramatizes the myopia that is preventing a definitive resolution of this tragedy, for such marriages gave rise to this plague in the first place.
A century ago T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) captured what the Muslim world needs in his brilliant metaphor of a “return pilgrimage” towards liberal values that would reconcile Islam with modernity.
Yet during the Cold War, America pursued anti-communist marriages of convenience with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan that allowed these reactionary states to oppose modernization with fundamentalism in order to preserve the absolute socio-economic power of their ruling elites.
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was a Shi’ite answer to the Sunni political Islam they promoted at home and abroad. This subversion reached the point of metastasis during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s and the ensuing rise of the Taliban in the 1990s with their help, which transformed this once-moderate land into a terrorist safe haven.
Feeding the narrative
When all of this culminated in 9/11, Washington needed to recognize what had come of having such allies, and thatnarrow counter-terror campaigns were not a substitute for affecting socio-economic transformations that would create inspiring examples of what a Muslim nation can be. Instead, it waged misdirected and prolonged wars that only fed a jihadist narrative that “Islam is in danger.”
In Afghanistan this was carried to the point of retaining Pakistan as a purported ally even as it continued to back the Taliban, resulting in the eventual loss of the war. In Iraq the main yield was to give rise to ISIS and allow Iran to project its power there.
Even at this late and rapidly darkening hour, our leaders continue to demonstrate that they have learned nothing from the continued failure of ossified national security dogmas. The agony of Gaza bodes to be the biggest inspiration for jihadist recruitment since the Soviet-Afghan War.
But the Biden administration has no more creative approach to a highly dangerous international crisis than trying to restrain the Israelis’ behavior while placating despotic Arab regimes. These became our allies only in marriages of convenience, and the most powerful of them have long histories of exerting malign fundamentalist influences.
The fury over the suffering of the Palestinians that is rising to the point of critical mass across the Muslim world can have two basic outcomes: it can manifest itself in worldwide jihadist violence against Jews and those Westerners considered to be their allies, or it can assume the character of anti-regime movements in Islamic lands, especially in Arab countries which are perceived to be complicit in the dying by their inability or unwillingness to stop it.
These movements can be violent and jihadist, or relatively peaceful and democratic. And it is up to Washington to determine which form prevails.
The grass and the jungle
“Mowing the grass” is the plain but apt metaphor often used to describe the narrow counterterrorism approach since 9/11. It has only raised a thickening and more treacherous jungle.
It is therefore high time we plant and cultivate a better and more lifenurturing crop.
Washington must stop limiting its strategy to the use of force, which has not brought victory in any sense of the word, and high-level diplomacy, which has failed to deliver a ceasefire in Gaza, free the Israeli hostages, or deter the Iranian attack on Israel. It has left the general populace of the Middle East feeling that they don’t exist in the eyes of the United States.
Sophisticated intelligence work and drones will never master the fertile fields of radicalization that are the vast human misery of Palestine, Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan and the Sahel.
Instead, America should offer a vision for the Muslim world as a whole that expresses its own values, countering jihadist propaganda with concrete deeds that directly benefit Muslims. While continuing to urge Israel to moderate its war effort, and vowing to take the lead in the post-war reconstruction of Gaza, the Biden administration must stop limiting its diplomatic outreach to unelected governments and appeal to their peoples over the heads of the rulers.
Top officials should meet with responsible opposition figures, civil society leaders, religious moderates, feminists, and dissident journalists. Washington must announce that it favors a far more equitable distribution of political and economic power in Muslim lands, beginning with political democratization and extending to
how the wealth derived from oil and other natural resources is used.
Continued American support for dubious allies should not be primarily contingent on their normalizing relations with Israel, but on reforming their own societies. Regimes that accept this program should receive the economic and technical support to implement it.
If they do not, Washington should announce that it is on the side of their democratic opponents. And in the case of openly hostile regimes such as Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria, diplomatic and military support should be extended to the democratic forces there.
Failed marriages
In the domestic world, marriages of convenience have never produced a healthy family or thriving children. Neither have marriages based solely on the often fickle emotion of love.
Partnerships that endure and bear fruit are founded upon shared values, loyalty, and a commitment to building a better future. It is the same with international security.
Contrary to the prevailing pessimism, it is never too late to pivot decisively behind liberal forces in Muslim lands. The only way to permanently defend the homeland is to help build other homelands from which mortal threats cannot come.