Pulling Out of Terrorism

Robert Pape reaches the same understanding about the terrorists motivations as I have:

Most important, the figures show that Al Qaeda is today less a product of Islamic fundamentalism than of a simple strategic goal: to compel the United States and its Western allies to withdraw combat forces from the Arabian Peninsula and other Muslim countries

However his conclusions are utterly wrong:

The bottom line, then, is that the terrorists have not been fundamentally weakened but have changed course and achieved significant success. The London attacks will only encourage Osama bin Laden and other Qaeda leaders in the belief that they will succeed in their ultimate aim: causing America and its allies to withdraw forces from the Muslim world.

First the attacks are causing Muslims around the world to rethink the terrorists motivations and lose mind share.

Second the 'assault' of the West upon these territories is ideological not military. The terrorists are attempting to stem the flow of Western thought and they can only do that by isolating their territories the same way that North Korea has. They will only be satisfied by the erection of another iron curtain - certainly something we can not and should not tolerate.

John Robb posts as does Adam Shostack and Hat Tip to Don Boudreaux.

Comments

[Adam Allouba]

I'm afraid your analysis of the situation doesn't make much sense to me. To the extent that Arabs and Muslims are taking a tougher line on al-Qaeda style attacks, it's because of their brutality and targeting of innocents, not because they're impressed by the US invasion of Iraq.

As for the West leading an ideological and not military assault on these places, well, I'm not sure how you would call the invasion of Iraq non-military. In any case, anti-Americanism is not fueled by hostility to foreign ideas. Very few people are going to volunteer to blow themselves up because they don't like John Locke. There's an element of fear of globalization, I suppose, but no different from France or Japan.

It's US policy that Arabs and Muslims are angry with, whether justifiedly or not. As long as the US backs Israel (again, whether it should or not is another story) and occupies Arab soil, it will be the target of a great deal of hatred, some of which will lead people to sign up for terrorist groups. If it pulls out, no Arab will harbor any negative emotions towards it. Just as importantly, it will infuse ideas associated with the western, like democracy and limited government, with far more legitimacy if they're not seen as coming from 'the enemy.'

- Adam

[Stuart Berman]

Sorry about that - my posts are a bit rushed now and I can see that I am not being very clear.

1) My comments are centered around the prospects for 'winning' or 'losing' the greater fight. So although the terrorists might be encouraged by the results they are getting they are losing the support of the Muslim world (not as you noted because of the situation in Iraq). Pulling out of Iraq doesn't alter *that* equation one bit - so that is a poor reason to pull out.

2) Again the focus on my comments was not Iraq in this case - it was on the flow of ideas from the 'West' into terrorist 'claimed' territory. Exiting Iraq will not alter the idealogical threat these groups face from us. For a thorough analysis see Barnett's links or books. Just as bin Laden saw us as an obstacle to his aims in Saudi Arabia (albeit military) our ideas pose a great risk to any despot that wants to deprive the local population of forming its own ideas based on the merits of the arguments.

3) The US is facing a host of falsehoods about our intentions and motivations in the middle east. One such false idea was that the US 'invaded' Iraq to 'steal' Iraqi oil. This is nonsense, but will only be eventually disproven after we leave and the lie is put to rest. We have little credibility in the middle east - so we can't depend upon faith - we just have to prove our actions. Granted there is a lot of animosity to our presence but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be there. Many West Germans thought that the West was 'as bad or worse' than the Soviet Union. That didn't mean we should have pulled out of West Germany - we just need to tread softly when possible. I find the reasoning of Bernard Lewis and Dr. Raymond Tanter more compelling from a policy perspective. We had to topple the 'rogue regime' of Sadam Hussein and we should not just pull out to leave a power vacuum. Several Iraqi acquaintences have stated that the US betrayed the Iraqi dissidents after the '1st gulf war' when they suffered terribly at the hand of Sadam Hussein - we can't allow this to happen again. As Barnett says, we need to get better at winning the peace. Sure we haven't handled the situtation as well as it could have been - I hope we will learn to not repeat the same mistakes. My sincerest desire is for Iraqis to find peace in their own land, create stability so that we are no longer 'occupiers' but allies, and that their land will once again be a wellspring of beauty and knowledge.

Frankly no matter what we do people will hate us. We do not take these actions to become popular - we do it because it is in our best interest and hopefully in the best interests of our friends.

[Daniel Slate]

Again the focus on my comments was not Iraq in this case - it was on the flow of ideas from the 'West' into terrorist 'claimed' territory. Exiting Iraq will not alter the idealogical threat these groups face from us.

I agree. Philip Allott, professor of international law at Cambridge, has written (in his book The Health of Nations) about a concept he calls "Istopia." It essentially refers to how we as humans perceive reality through a constellation of "is" sentences that define how the world operates.

What we are doing in Iraq is, fundamentally, trying to change the prevailing Istopia there and in the Muslim world. That's why I agree that we can't pull out yet. We need to finish laying the Istopian seeds.

And we can't leave Iraq to fall into civil war. We at least owe them that much, not to mention the national security implications of leaving such a font of instability in the center of the Gulf.

[deb]

If the United States is so interested in democracy in the middle east, why not start with Saudi Arabia (absurdly malecentric) or Israel (absurdly judeocentric)?

[Freeman]

I think the time for Saudi Arabia comes very soon. It started with the worst (Taliban) then Iraq. I guess we all agree that US does not have the resources to go after all bad guys at the same time. The next will be Iran that is actively pursuing the nuclear program. As for the democracy in Israel goes, although it is not perfect, but it is way much better than any other Middle Eastern countries. As a person who knows the Middle East up close and personal, I have to agree with an Israeli friend of mine that the Arabs living in Israel enjoy the human rights more than their fellow Arabs living in most Arab countries do.

[Stuart Berman]

The reason we shouldn't start a war against Saudia Arabia (using your definition) is because the US is not at war with men or (Israel) Jews.

We are at war with those people that hate us and have attacked us or allies(USS Cole, WTC, London, Kuwait, etc) or are actively engaged in trying to destroy us.

Afghanistan was the logical starting place followed by Iraq. I see the order of correct 'targets' as being those super-empowered individuals like bin Laden inciting such action, then rogue regimes that harbor these types of individuals or create a climate of global instability. A factor that must be taken into account when toppling a government is how 'ready' the people are to accept change (even if they don't really want us to be that change agent).

[Stuart Berman]

Adam,

I feel like I owe you a little more discussion - your view is welcome here.

I would like to respond a bit more to your comments:
"In any case, anti-Americanism is not fueled by hostility to foreign ideas. Very few people are going to volunteer to blow themselves up because they don't like John Locke. There's an element of fear of globalization, I suppose, but no different from France or Japan.

It's US policy that Arabs and Muslims are angry with"

I think your are exactly right on these ideas - but I suspect they are applied to the wrong context.

Anti-Americanism is a sentiment that is stirred up among the people by leaders with their own motives and eventually is fueled on its own by frustration.

A variety of leaders fear globalization and fight it depending upon how threatening it is to them.

I understand that people in Iraq are rioting because of lack of livelihood and it is easy to target Americans as the source of that problem. In the US we hear a lot of different people looking for someone to blame for our troubles but these rarely get to the critical mass where it reaches a flashpoint. (IT staff losing jobs to India, unions deriding globalization & CAFTA, rascists blaming Muslims or hispanics, and so on). These 'bread and butter' issues get marshalled by leaders who are trying to accomplish something.

Today's Wall Street Journal has a series on Islam and Europe describing the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1920's to re-Islamicize society and how Muslims defected from the Soviet army to fight alongside the Nazis and were eventually influenced by the Brotherhood. These forces, too, try to firewall themselves off from the influence of the West.

I have heard Israeli Jews talk about the early days when Arabs and Jews got along well. Then in the 1930's it seems that the Grand Mufti in Jerusalem sowed dissension for his own purposes. The repercussions are felt to this day. I imagine that had noble leaders stood up (and had the Mufti been one) and tried to find peace and calm tempers down that the region would be very different today. The Jews did not want to harm the Arabs but it is easy to see how the Arabs were very uncomfortable with this change in culture (really globalization) and were at a tipping point that made them vulnerable to evil tales.

Today every community around the world is still vulnerable to evil tales - we must be smarter to realize what is of substance and what is a ploy. Our neighbors are not our enemies, treat them as humans and respect them, as children of the same God don't allow someone to strip them of that - yet seek justice, if someone in your family wrongs your neighbor - see that the offended is satisfied.

To this end, Islam must reform itself, accept that Muslims are of no greater value than others (as must Christians and Jews) and repudiate the despicable acts being done in its name.

I remember even Israeli soldiers were welcomed into Lebanon as liberators - but the many expectations were not lived up to and quickly people allowed themselves to blame.

[Ed]

I agree with you... And actually find your opinion kind of surprising... Since it seems most tech people believe everything the republicans do is evil and wrong regardless of why...

I always tell people this when they say they don't believe in this war... Would you rather us fight on our own soil? Or would you like to fight in Iraq... That is the option... We tried this on 9/11 and I would rather fight the war somewhere else...

You are very correct in that these terrorists want to kill us regardless of what we do... I am deeply saddened that most of the islamic community sits on there hands and don't stand up to their extremist counterparts... They are only outraged when they believe their rights are violated from racial profiling... Or then again... It could just be the media spin... Maybe the islamic community would like to speak out against the terrorists and newsweek would rather post another story that causes more hatred to the US...

Just my 2 cents... Nice write up...

ed

[Stuart Berman]

Ed,

Thanks for your comments.

I hadn't really noticed the bias in the tech community - perhaps because many of my peers are older than the average or because I live in a more conservative area of the country...

I imagine the bias is more pronounced on the West Coast and among the younger crowd. I have lived in Seattle, LA and San Francisco/Berkley - so I know that residents get a daily dose of left wing bias that swaddles itself in rather reasonable verbiage. The younger crowd has to deal with several factors - lack of life experience, lack of exposure to quality information and a predisposition to prejudge. Being well rounded is a challenge for many aspiring techies and often a complaint for those being asked to grow and change with the environment we live in.