“Al Qaeda is in no hurry and sees very clearly that the US actions are advancing its interests”. Do you think Mr Haider is assessing the situation correctly?
The Protean Al Qaeda](http://www.thefridaytimes.com/_news7.shtml)
By: Ejaz Haider
When Al Qaeda struck in the United States on September 11th 2001, most western, especially American, analysts opined that the attacks were not underscored by a strategy and the group’s sole motivation was hatred towards the West.
This analysis was grounded in conventional wisdom on unconventional warfare: a ‘terrorist’ group resorts to violence as part of a political strategy, just enough of it to highlight its cause and raise the cost for the adversary of not negotiating. The objective is to force the adversary to the table as the less costly option. The violence is not gratuitous, it’s a tool. This is also the way states behave, using conflict to press a point when all other options have either been exhausted or the adversary simply refuses to negotiate.
Implied in this reasoning is the fact that a spectacular ‘terrorist’ attack cannot get any political objectives. By eliciting from the adversary a response based on the full range of its military capability, such an attack reduces the space for negotiations, even closing down that option.
Another strand in this reasoning has been that Al Qaeda is a ‘fringe’ organisation. It may be able to network with cells across the world but it has neither mass political support nor ideological affinity. It is like the Russian nihilists “committed to political violence for its own sake”.
Is this correct? No. In an article titled “Bin Laden wants last laugh” (TFT, Nov 2-8, 2001), I wrote: "Bin Laden’s strategy is essentially political He does not aim to negotiate with the West; he wants to exploit the fault-line within the Islamic world. And his political weapon is the people and the political parties within the Islamic world who are expected to rise up for his cause and topple the corrupt governments in the Islamic world.
“His military strategy - draw the West into a conflict through spectacular attacks on its interests - is essentially political in nature. This is why it is not geared towards controlled violence. He is addressing us; not the Americans. He wants the West to attack with all the viciousness at its disposal. The greater the destruction, the better for forcing people in the Islamic world to rise and decide which side they are on. This can only be achieved through a sharpening of the internal conflict, the reasons for which transcend bin Laden but the existence of which he has employed brilliantly to his own ends.”
This is happening. The fault-line is deepening both because of internal, structural problems within the Muslim states as well as the United States with whom governments in the Muslim states are allied. Pakistan is a very good example of this trend, though it is not the only one. Ideologically, Al Qaeda’s core is linked to the outer ring of groups across the Islamic world to which it can outsource operations as well as with the outmost ring of those who are religiously motivated, angry with US policies or angry with governments that are allied with the US. This is a very large pool of human resource.
This gives Al Qaeda a protean character which translates into remarkable adaptability. It has been outsourcing operations, indulging in psy-ops and has been fairly successful in plugging into local grievances or other conditions that help it survive and strike. This gives it a high degree of operational flexibility. Given the nature of its operations, its apparent disadvantage of not having a physical base has become its advantage. Also, it realises, as do the Afghans and the Iraqis, that the US loses its edge when it reaches what Barry R Posen described as “contested zones” (Posen, “Command of the Commons: The Military Foundation of U.S. Hegemony”; International Security; Summer 2003). Posen argues that: “The interrelations hip between U.S. command of the commons and the persistence of the contested zones suggests that the United States can probably pursue a policy of selective engagement but not one of primacy”.
This suits Al Qaeda. It is in no hurry and sees very clearly that the US actions are advancing its interests. Its primary strategy is to increase the direct and indirect costs for the United States. The attack on Iraq and President Bush’s recent turn on the Israel-Palestine peace process fit the Al Qaeda hand like a glove. Al Qaeda also understands the psychological damage it can do and which is disproportionate to the physical damage it has done so far. The Muslim world not only has more “males of fighting age” (courtesy the youth bulge) but they comprise those who have upended the traditional security paradigm based on self-preservation.
Bin Laden’s recent offer of truce to the European countries if they do not send troops to Muslim nations or “interfere in their [Muslim countries’] affairs” is a smart strategy from his point of view on three broad counts: it seeks to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe in the wake of the worst ebb in trans-Atlantic relations since the end of the cold war; it attempts to deepen the fault-line within Europe between the governments and civil society; and it is an indication that Al Qaeda is now attempting to wed its operations to a more pro-active political strategy. The last factor is important because it brings to the fore the fact that it is not devoid of a political strategy. Again, it is aimed at isolating the US and increasing the costs of conflict for it.
It is not a coincidence that the move has come after the Madrid bombings. In Spain, Al Qaeda tested the waters. Now, the message does not say: We will kill unless you do this but rather: We offer peace failing which…
European governments have dismissed the truce offer, but from Al Qaeda’s viewpoint it is directed more at European civil society than the capitals of Europe. Al Qaeda will utilise the democratic structures and the peoples’ power to get rid of the more hawkish governments. British and Spanish governments acted in the teeth of opposition from the public. One of them has already paid the price for it by losing the elections. The resentment against the policy was already there; the Madrid bombings gave a fillip to the situation. Questions are already being raised about how many dead bodies or attacks would it take for Al Qaeda to gain the same impact in Britain, for instance.
There is now an interactive dynamics between what the combatants can do on the ground in Iraq and what Al Qaeda or any group to which it might outsource an operation can do in Europe or elsewhere. Of course, there is always a possibility that a state may act differently under pressure. It may, like Britain on the eve of Dunkirk, resolve to fight to the bitter end; but, equally, it could lose the will to fight like France even with its army largely intact. The pendulum can swing both ways but that’s a risk inherent in all policies. In any case, it makes for a good psy-ops technique. In Iraq, the combatants have already signalled that they would not attack the departing Spanish troops. If Spain is spared the horrors of another attack, civil societies across Europe would be less amenable to become embroiled in
a war that is already highly unpopular.
This, in fact, is in line with conventional wisdom: wedding the use of violence to a political purpose.
The irony here is that Al Qaeda has so far not been able to upstage the governments in the Islamic world. This is owed in no small measure to the oppressive and undemocratic nature of these regimes. Al Qaeda, or Islamists of any hue, could not make inroads into Iraq until Saddam Hussain was in the driver’s seat. It is the United States that has given them their chance by creating chaos in that country. It is a safe wager that, were it to attack any other Muslim state, the ensuing turmoil will result in more conducive conditions for a rightwing takeover. This problem flies in the face of the neo-con agenda of reconstructing the Islamic world and introducing democracy here.