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The End of the War on Terror?
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| Lebezniatnikov |
In the wake of Mumbai this may seem unlikely, but there's a growing sentiment among national security folks that the jihadist movement is fading in popularity in the Muslim world. Obviously India's reaction to this week's devastating attack could change this in Pakistan, where arguably fundamentalist jihad groups are still strongest, but this interview with a Middle East scholar in Foreign Policy was pretty intriguing:
| quote: | Seven Questions: Gilles Kepel
Posted November 2008
A terrorism analyst and Middle East expert tells Foreign Policy why al Qaeda’s racist attack on Barack Obama signals the death of jihad.
Desperation time? Gilles Kepel thinks al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri is becoming divorced from reality.Last week, al Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released a provocative video commenting on the election of Barack Obama. “You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims,” Zawahiri tells the U.S. president-elect. Referring to Obama as abid al-beit, the Arabic term for “house slave,” the tape condemned Obama as a “typical” American politician in the pocket of the Zionist lobby.
To decode Zawahiri’s words, Foreign Policy’s Blake Hounshell spoke with French scholar Gilles Kepel, chair of Middle East studies at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. Kepel has followed Zawahiri’s statements closely for several years. In his most recent book, Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: The Future of the Middle East, Kepel identifies two sweeping but opposing narratives—the neoconservative war on terror and the jihadist myth of martyrdom. According to Kepel, both have failed miserably.
Foreign Policy: Do you think the tape Zawahiri released last week is significant?
Gilles Kepel: The tape is extremely important, because [al Qaeda believed] that 9/11 would be a means to mobilize the Muslim masses against the West and to topple the [Middle Eastern] regimes. But they were totally unable to do it.
I’ve monitored Zawahiri’s statements between the fifth and the seventh anniversary of 9/11 to try to decipher his whole system of thought, to understand how it works. The more [strident] Zawahiri’s discourse was, the less it was in tune with reality.
Within the ranks of radical Islamism, Zawahiri has been very, very violently criticized. There is a widespread feeling now that al Qaeda’s strategy has failed, because [critics] say Zawahiri has spilled Muslim blood. The Jews and Christians he may have killed were OK—halal—but the Muslim blood was not halal.
FP: Do you think Zawahiri hoped that with this tape, he would tap into a kind of Arab antiblack racism?
GK: In a way. But I think he tried not to look like a racist because he quoted Malcolm X, who was a good black man because he [converted to Islam and] became [al-Hajj] Malik al-Shabazz. But you could almost feel in his speech the aristocratic background of Zawahiri, who looks down on “******s” with the utmost contempt.
Abid al-beit, [the name by which Zawahiri referred to Obama], is something much more [potent] than “house Negro.” It is loaded with a very, very strong racist connotation, and I’m not sure that Zawahiri made himself very popular with this sort of discourse. In my view, this is a sign that al Qaeda is in dire straits.
FP: Do you think Obama—with his ethnic identity and his rhetoric about regaining America’s respect in the world—is going to help reverse widespread international cynicism toward the United States?
GK: I think even outside the Beltway, everybody still believes that America is necessary. But no one is sure that it’s sufficient anymore. And America needs allies, [because] what is a foreign-policy agenda for the United States in the Middle East is—to a large extent—a domestic policy for us and for people in what we call our “Near East.”
FP: Over the last eight years, you’ve been a frequent critic of the Bush administration. What would you say was the biggest analytical error that George W. Bush made?
GK: The administration mistook the Middle East for the former Soviet Empire. They thought that from the Evil Empire to the Axis of Evil there was a continuity, which was not the case.
The “war on terror” was supposed to mobilize public opinion behind the Bush administration. Everybody was with them after 9/11, but then the agenda was changed and the war on terror was a means to implement another plan—downing the Saddam regime and creating a U.S.-friendly Iraq.
FP: Are you using “war on terror” in the past tense?
GK: I think that now, with Obama, [the war on terror] is something that has been wiped away. He’s [going] to pull out from Iraq.
The big game in 2009 will be how they deal with Iran. And from the Iranian point of view, they are having a presidential election in 2009. My belief is that the Ahmadinejad hard-liners will be defeated. They were in power because you had the neoconservative hard-liners in Washington, D.C.
You know what Hussein Obama means in Farsi? “Hussein is with us.” I don’t think this is just a joke; Ahmadinejad doesn’t stand a chance even in terms of Shiite credentials in front of someone called “Hussein is with us,” right?
[What] I mean more seriously is that engaging Iran doesn’t mean going to Iran in a position of weakness. It means seeing to what extent there [will be] people in the post-Ahmadinejad Iran who consider it better to be part of the security system of the Gulf than to be the bad guys.
FP: What would you tell Obama if you had a meeting with him?
GK: [I would advise him on] the need to conceive of a Middle East policy that would be in close cooperation with allies. And [he needs] to understand that there is a new era being shaped in the Middle East. From the North Sea to the [Persian] Gulf, you find know-how, academic strength, and secure and legal space. Couple the strong European Union, the wealth and the energy of the Gulf, and [the United States, and you can] triangulate a relationship that will allow for growth in the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Without that growth, we will not find any solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
FP: Isn’t that a lot like French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s initiative of building a Union for the Mediterranean, which didn’t really work politically?
GK: They are in the same direction, but I think that the Union for the Mediterranean was mistaken in that it did not explicitly include the Gulf. We don’t have to see the Gulf as a gas station with an ATM. Those people want to talk about politics. They have tremendous problems of security, and they want to be reassured. Until now, they benefited from the American military umbrella. But after the catastrophe in Iraq, this military umbrella is becoming questionable. It is still a necessity, but it is not sufficient.
Gilles Kepel is chair of Middle East studies at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris and the author of Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: The Future of the Middle East (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008).
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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/...p?story_id=4561
I had never heard about Obama's name translated into Farsi, but it is interesting that it would have such resonance to Shiites... and it's a good point that even Ahmedinejad would have a hard time using religious credentials to stir up hate against President Obama. Iran is the most pro-US population in the Middle East, and this could be the breakthrough we need to end the disconnect between Iranian culture and politics. |
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| diesel_tron3000 |
you know i was thinking about this the other day as well. until mumbai i would have said otherwise but...
mumbai opens up a new "front" on the war on terror. somalia has no working government and is full of radical elements. if iraq and afghanitan are improving, what happens in somalia and india, not to mention pakistan which could have serious questions to answer for mumbai.
no, this war ain't going anywhere anytime soon |
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| Magnetonium |
Al Qaeda is no more real than the war on terror or the war on drugs. I cant believe you guys are just taking in that . Its like every time there's an attack somewhere, its all Al Qaeda. 9/11 and its aftermath only showed what its all about, with American military machine in places where it could have only dreamed of just 20 or so years ago. |
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| Fir3start3r |
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
Al Qaeda is no more real than the war on terror or the war on drugs. I cant believe you guys are just taking in that . Its like every time there's an attack somewhere, its all Al Qaeda. 9/11 and its aftermath only showed what its all about, with American military machine in places where it could have only dreamed of just 20 or so years ago. |
Whatever you want to call them, one would have be pretty delusional not to believe that such groups don't exist considering what's going down in India... |
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| Krypton |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fir3start3r
Whatever you want to call them, one would have be pretty delusional not to believe that such groups don't exist considering what's going down in India... |
Such groups operate independently of any so-called "Al-Qaeda network" which is a total myth. If Al-Qaeda is this cohesive "network" with a centralized chain of command ending with OBL and all this bull, we should've knocked them out years ago. Any tard can slap on the name Al-Qaeda to suit their own selfish interests and Western media is all too quick to attribute every ing event in the world to Al-Qaeda. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
Such groups operate independently of any so-called "Al-Qaeda network" which is a total myth. |
whatever you think Al Queera is now, thats what it has been reduced to.
they were real in Afghanistan. they were real in Iraq, as well as inhuman, but what has been demonstrated is they can be marginalized.
marginalization to Al Queera is a fate worse than death and eventually, hopefully, that will follow in time. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
I have to disagree on all counts.
First, al-Qaeda is hardly even the issue in Mumbai, so I'm not sure why the usual response "how come al-Qaeda is a scapegoat for everything?" is being dropped again.
Second, the neoconservative foreign policy that led to Iraq didn't marginalize al-Qaeda in the least - if anything, those policies gave fundamentalist Islam a platform for recruiting and practice.
Marginalization comes not through hard power, but the use of soft power - something the incoming Obama administration is well situated to use effectively. |
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| Fir3start3r |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Marginalization comes not through hard power, but the use of soft power - something the incoming Obama administration is well situated to use effectively. |
A matter of opinion of course - he has yet to be put in any type of tough position of that kind...
We can only hope he won't go hug them ;) |
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| Krypton |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
whatever you think Al Queera is now, thats what it has been reduced to.
they were real in Afghanistan. they were real in Iraq, as well as inhuman, but what has been demonstrated is they can be marginalized.
marginalization to Al Queera is a fate worse than death and eventually, hopefully, that will follow in time. |
Islamic revolution has not be marginalized. Have you been watching Afghanistan? |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fir3start3r
A matter of opinion of course - he has yet to be put in any type of tough position of that kind...
We can only hope he won't go hug them ;) |
What? It's hardly a matter of opinion at all. Did you even read the article, or are you just making up? |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
I have to disagree on all counts.
First, al-Qaeda is hardly even the issue in Mumbai, so I'm not sure why the usual response "how come al-Qaeda is a scapegoat for everything?" is being dropped again. |
i wasnt refering to what happened in Mumbai as Al Queera related. i was responding to Krypton's implication that Al Queera is a myth.
as far as i know no intel agency has continued to brand this act of terror as Al Queera related. only the media has fed that line, which imo isn't their fault necessarily just more a social condition more less.
| quote: | | Second, the neoconservative foreign policy that led to Iraq didn't marginalize al-Qaeda in the least - if anything, those policies gave fundamentalist Islam a platform for recruiting and practice. |
of course it didn't immediately, but where is Al Queera in Iraq today? where are they anywhere they were 2 years ago, 10 years ago?
nothing is over, however there are only three countries willing to do whatever it takes, however long it will take, to continue to marginalize and humiliate Al Queera. the US, Iraq and Afghanistan.
| quote: | | Marginalization comes not through hard power, but the use of soft power |
DUMBEST ING THING I'VE EVER HEARD!
i'll prove it to you. did you and do you still support Operation Enduring Freedom?
| quote: | | - something the incoming Obama administration is well situated to use effectively. |
thats great! and he didn't have to fire a single shot did he?:rolleyes:
yeah, there's a reason he's situated so well. hard power. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
Have you been watching Afghanistan? |
yeah, so? |
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