I read that the U.S. military academy at West Point is in the middle of an ‘existential debate' over counterterrorism, between the old school which maintains that counterterrorism or counterinsurgency must be accompanied with efforts to build roads, schools and state institutions, and those who purport that this approach has failed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and therefore military efforts alone must be the priority. The report in The New York Times was written by Elisabeth Bumiller, and I quote the following paragraph from it: The debate at West Point mirrors one under way in the armed forces as a whole, as the United States withdraws without clear victory from Afghanistan and as the results in Iraq remain ambiguous at best... First, the correction of the above is that the United States was defeated in Afghanistan, with a strong presence all over the country by the Taliban, who are surely set to return to power. Meanwhile, the outcome in Iraq is crystal-clear. There too, the United States has been defeated, having handed the country over to a segment in the Shiite community that owes its allegiance to Iran. Iraq has thus become an Iranian colony, even if Nuri al-Maliki denies it. If Saddam Hussein were still in Iraq, the Syrian regime today would have been under siege from the sea and the land, and would therefore not have been able to continue its military-based approach, or the killing of people every day. Of course, it was the administration of George W. Bush that waged these wars and lost as well the war on terror, which ended spawning more terrorism all across the region. The United States has paid the price for this and will continue to do so in the decades to come. To be sure, with the death of thousands of America's youths in Bush's wars, America lost more than a trillion dollars directly, and it will cost the U.S. between two and three trillion dollars to care for the disabled and the mentally ill, and in interest on the debt it incurred while waging losing wars. The Americans are apparently split between the carrot and the stick when it comes to dealing with terrorism. The Christian Science Monitor mentioned that the Pentagon offered 4.5 million dollars to a group of psychologists based at the University of Maryland “to conduct a five-year study on how to deradicalize militants", and to find ways to “intervene with potential terrorists before they sign up" with radical groups. The newspaper piece is tipped in favour of the carrot approach, and speaks of the success of the Saudi program to rehabilitate extremists, and similar programs in Sri Lanka, Singapore and the Philippines. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times ran an article entitled “Defeating Jihad", written by Dilip Hiro, a man of many talents including expertise in terrorism. Hiro said that the Taliban movement has toned down its rhetoric, and blamed the regime of Zia ul-Haq, between 1977 and 1988, for the Islamization of Pakistani society. Dilip Hiro also spoke about the Pakistani Taliban, and called for Pakistan to adopt an unequivocal position against violent jihadists, with a vigorous campaign of education, information and propaganda led by moderate clerics. I will not go into a comparison between the carrot and the stick approaches, and will not propose some kind of combination of both. Instead, I just want to say that the American press continues to insist on ignoring the first and foremost foundation of Islamic radicalism, namely Israel. Israel was omitted in all three articles I mentioned above. The CSM piece even mentioned al-Jama'a al-Islamiyah and the assassination of Anwar Sadat, without any reference to the peace treaty with Israel and the Islamists' categorical rejection thereof. Moreover, the Islamist parties from the Atlantic to the Gulf, including the Muslim Brotherhood, refuse to recognize Israel. While these parties may say ‘any odd thing' to the Americans to reach power, they will ultimately never recognize Israel. I dare say that Israeli terrorism is what has unleashed all other forms of terrorism in response. While Osama bin Laden had set out with the goal of expelling U.S. troops from Land of the Two Mosques, his position evolved after Ayman al-Zawahiri joined forces with him, and his goal became war against Jews and Crusaders. And each time the enthusiasm of the radicals falters, someone carries out acts that remind them of Israel, of the fact that the United States supports the latter against the Arabs and Muslims or of the fact that al-Aqsa Mosque is under occupation. The carrot and the stick mean nothing if the issue of the U.S. absolute support for a fascist occupation state is not raised. As long as the Israel lobby runs U.S. policy in the Middle East, radicalism will persist, and so will terrorism. Ignoring the Israeli factor therefore means that the problem will continue to exist, and that we will pay a steep price for this along with the United States. [email protected]
