by Eric Martin
Given the ongoing debate about US policy in Afghanistan, and the interplay of al-Qaeda in that decision making process, some background on al-Qaeda's origins and goals would be worthwhile to examine.
al-Qaeda's ideology and outlook are rooted in an Egyptian, not Saudi or Afghan, tradition (drawing heavily on Qutbism and similar doctrine). Many of al-Qaeda's founding members are veterans of the struggle between groups of militant Salafists and the secular regimes of Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak. One of al-Qaeda's central figures, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was a member of a group (Egyptian Islamic Jihad) that was implicated in, amongst other activitites, assassination attempts on Sadat.
After being imprisoned and tortured for one such assassination plot, an even more radicalized Zawahiri left Egypt for Saudi Arabia and then Pakistan - where he lead a splinter group of Egyptian Islamic Jihad members who were disillusioned with the organization's unwillingness to embrace the takfirist doctrine (or the practice of declaring other Muslims apostates, thus circumventing Koranic prohibitions on the killing of Muslims).
Osama bin Laden, for his part, was one of the 54 children of Muhammed bin Laden - a self made construction mogul of Yemeni nationality (though he relocated to Saudi Arabia at a young age). His mother was a relatively poor Syrian villager, who was married off to the elder bin Laden at young age, giving birth to Osama at the age of 15. Ironically, one of the world's most recognizable Saudis is the son of a Yemeni and Syrian.
His path to radicalization began with the tutelage of members of the Muslim Brotherhood (an organization of Egyptian origins) in Saudi Arabia, which teachings were later augmented by al-Zawahiri while both were in Pakistan during the conflict in Afghanistan. As bin Laden and Zawihiri became close, a nascent, though still formless, precursor to al-Qaeda began to coalesce around a worldview rooted in expansive Salafist/Qutbist thought.
Soon thereafter, the formerly unwieldy mass of likeminded radicals was whittled down to "the base" or "al-Qaeda." Two events led to the self selection of al-Qaeda within this context. Initially, when the Afghan campaign ended, many jihadists went back to their nations of origin leaving behind only the most die-hard and those incapable of returning home (often one and the same). Then, this core group (headed by bin Laden himself) migrated to Sudan. bin Laden's group was expelled from that safe-haven in the mid-1990s, and, while some members scattered, bin Laden and his core opted to return to Afghanistan, which again caused a winnowing of the ranks until only the most committed and, increasingly, the most anti-American were left behind to form the vanguard of the Salafist jihadist movement.
The primary raison d'etre of this group, animated by the belief that secular regimes in the Muslim world are quislings of the United States, apostate in character and "against Islam," became to overthrow the corrupt leaders and replace them with proper Islamic rulers and Sharia law (such process to be replicated across the region until there is the contiguous, quasi-mythical, caliphate). By restoring this form of pure Islam, it is believed, the Muslim world will be rewarded by Allah and returned to glory.
Initial attempts to spark revolutions and usher in pure Islamic rule in places like Sudan, Chechnya and the Balkans were unsuccessful, and attacks in places like Egypt were not well received by the locals. At this point, there was a shift in strategy for the demoralized group. Zawahiri counseled in favor of targeting the "far enemy" (read: the United States) as a means of expediting the toppling of local leaders (the "near enemy"). According to Zawahiri, al-Qaeda could not unseat the target regimes because they were being propped up by the U.S. If al-Qaeda could cause the US to withdraw its support, however, the regimes would then be vulnerable to usurpation.
In addition, while targeting fellow Muslims (the representatives of the governments being attacked) was alienating potential recruits, striking the US would galvanize support and create a mass movement that would be primed to topple the regimes once the US was chased from the region. Osama bought into this shift in focus, and began issuing calls for action against the U.S. interests everywhere.
The linchpin to this strategy was to provoke the US into invading a Muslim country (Afghanistan) and thus tie it down for several years of futile - and excessively costly - warfare, while Muslims from throughout the world poured in to join the cause. Then, with the US weakened, bankrupt, fatigued and unable/unwilling to project power and provide resources to its Middle Eastern allies, a reinvigorated al-Qaeda would launch its "near" campaign anew, with its army of new recruits already mobilized.
Osama has made no secret of these designs. The following is from Steve Coll's book, The Bin Ladens:
Osama seemed to regard [his son] Mohamed's wedding as an opportunity to create a video postcard that could be enjoyed by relatives unable to attend, and at the same time, as a chance to contribute a new propaganda piece for the Arab television audiences. His aides telephoned the Al-Jazeera bureau chief in Pakistan, Ahmad Zaidan, and invited him to Kandahar. When he arrived, they promised him a copy of the wedding video, so he could arrange for its broadcast by satellite...
Osama was in an expansive mood. Three months earlier, Al Qaeda suicide bombers in Yemen had piloted an explosive-laden skiff into the hull of the USS Cole, an American guided-missile destroyer; when the two attackers blew themselves up, they killed seventeen sailors and wounded more than thirty others.
"I will tell you one thing," Osama told Zaidan afterward, as the latter recalled it. "We did the Cole and we wanted the United States to react. And if they reacted, they are going to invade Afghanistan and that's what we want...Then we will start holy war against the Americans, exactly like the Soviets."
[Zaidan recalled this meeting, and Osama's statements, to Peter Bergen who included the recounting in his book, The Osama bin Laden I Know]
These excerpts are from a New York Times review of Lawrence Wright's, The Looming Tower:
Mr. bin Laden�s goal in striking the American embassies and bombing the American destroyer Cole in 2000, says Mr. Wright, was to �lure America into the same trap the Soviets had fallen into: Afghanistan�: �His strategy was to continually attack until the U.S. forces invaded; then the mujahideen would swarm upon them and bleed them until the entire American empire fell from its wounds. It had happened to Great Britain and to the Soviet Union. He was certain it would happen to America.� When neither the embassy bombings nor the Cole bombing was enough to �provoke a massive retaliation,� Mr. Wright suggests, Mr. bin Laden decided �he would have to create an irresistible outrage.�
That outrage, of course, was 9/11. Though American forces would not become bogged down in Afghanistan � at least not immediately in the fall of 2001 � another, longer war was on the horizon. On March 19, 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the start of the war against Iraq; more than three years and more than 2,500 American deaths later, the United States is still there, fighting just the sort of asymmetrical war Mr. bin Laden so fervently desired.
Radley Balko discussing Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower:
Wright explains that Bin Laden's goal was to goad the United States into a long, drawn-out war with Isalmic mujahadeen, the same way he did with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The Soviets left a decade-long war battered, dejected, and demoralized, and though the real victors were the Afghan resistance fighters themselves, Bin Laden was able to claim credit for helping to stave off a world super-power, despite being outmanned and outgunned.
He had hoped to lure the United States into the same sort of protracted quagmire, where U.S. troops would have no choice but to occupy a tattered, dangerous country, while�as in the Soviet-Afghan war�radical Muslims would come from all over the world to help humiliate another world power.
The thing is, Bin Laden thought this second war would also be in Afghanistan. He hoped first to lure the U.S. through the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. When President Clinton didn't react, Bin Laden went about planning the Sept. 11 attacks. The U.S. had to act after Sept. 11. And we initially thwarted Bin Laden's plan with a decisive, overwhelming victory in Afghanistan.
Wright writes that Bin Laden was dejected at the ease with which U.S. military power dispatched with the Taliban, which then sent him into hiding. But instead of seeing that operation through to its logical conclusion�the capture of Bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri and the rest of the Al-Qaeda leadership�we turned our attention to Iraq.
We have created in Iraq the exact type of scenario Bin Laden was hoping (but failed) to lure us into in Afghanistan�an unwinnable war where we're isolated from the world, our troops are walking targets for guerilla terrorists, and our only options are bad (pull out and hope for minimal carnage) and worse (stay in, where our troops will continue to die, and where there's no prospect for stability in the near future).
Osama himself has detailed this strategy in video and audio tapes:
The Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera released a full transcript Monday of [a 2004]videotape from Osama bin Laden in which the head of al Qaeda said his group's goal is to force America into bankruptcy.
Al-Jazeera aired portions of the videotape Friday but released the full transcript of the entire tape on its Web site Monday.
"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript.
He said the mujahedeen fighters did the same thing to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, "using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers."
"We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat," bin Laden said.
He also said al Qaeda has found it "easy for us to provoke and bait this administration."
"All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations," bin Laden said. [...]
As part of the "bleed-until-bankruptcy plan," bin Laden cited a British estimate that it cost al Qaeda about $500,000 to carry out the attacks of September 11, 2001, an amount that he said paled in comparison with the costs incurred by the United States.
"Every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars, by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs," he said. "As for the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars. [...]
As for President Bush's Iraq policy, Bin Laden said, "the darkness of black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.
"So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future," bin Laden said.
At the time of that videotape, Osama was focusing on Iraq and the great setback that campaign was proving for the US. Now we are debating the probity of greatly increasing our commitment to Afghanistan - with discussions of 20-30 year extensions of our mission, and massive increases in expenditures in terms of troops allotted to theater, resources devoted and other aid disbursed (all at a shockingly sizable price-tag which comes at a time of severe economic contraction at home).
While there are indications that the US is beginning to unwind its commitments in Iraq, the meter for that endeavor is still running at its staggering pace. Regardless of the party in power in Washington, some long term involvement in Iraq is inevitable according to the consensus of the strategic class.
With the debate on Afghanistan reaching a crucial juncture, we must ask whether bogging down the US army, and tying up the US economy, in a series of conflicts on the other side of the globe is in our long term strategic interests - even if such engagements are unlikely to bring about the doomsday scenario envisioned by bin Laden and his ilk?
Further, if - miraculously - all goes well in Afghanistan, what should we do if al-Qaeda or an offshoot regroups in another territory? Will we be "forced" to engage in a series of mutli-decades nation building exercises each time al-Qaeda pops up in a new locale - whack-a-mole, transnational style? If so, then certain elements of Osama's far-fetched plan might just get a bit more plausible.
No comments:
Post a Comment