Three Years On
September 11, 2004 6:51 AM   Subscribe

Three Years On A sobering analysis by Juan Cole of the strategic motivation behind 9/11.
posted by rdone (17 comments total)
 
Informed comment indeed.
posted by Busithoth at 7:14 AM on September 11, 2004


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posted by kirkaracha at 7:40 AM on September 11, 2004


No, no, no. It's much simpler than that: "they hate freedom and want to destroy our way of life!" [/sarcasm]

An excellent, reasoned analysis. Great post.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 8:25 AM on September 11, 2004


This analysis, thoug biased and pretty much built to support a political conclusion does raise some interresting points.

If you accept the premises you see that there is a drive to unit the Middle East into a "superstate" - one that would be openly hostile to the existence of the US and one that would be led by the same peopel who run the and/or support the terrorist networks. Palastine is their excuse, but it certainly isn't their only driving force clearly.

"The attack on the World Trade Center was exactly analogous to Pearl Harbor. [...] Likewise, al-Qaeda was attempting to push the United States out of the Middle East so that Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia would become more vulnerable to overthrow, lacking a superpower patron." - quote in context

That is not going to happen. The primary goal then of using terror to intimidate us into turning tail and leaving the Middle East under the control of those who actively seek to do us harm isn't working out for them. Instead we have smashed one of the most vocal and powerful opponents in the area and now have a strong strategic and ongoing presence to use for any future responses we need.

As Japan found out, it doesn't always make sense to kick the US thinking you will scare us into hiding.

"Bin Laden hoped the US would timidly withdraw from the Middle East. But he appears to have been aware that an aggressive US response to 9/11 was entirely possible. In that case, he had a Plan B: al-Qaeda hoped to draw the US into a debilitating guerrilla war in Afghanistan and do to the US military what they had earlier done to the Soviets. Al-Zawahiri's recent message shows that he still has faith in that strategy." - quote in context

I am sure he does... but it isn't going to fly. The war in Iraq is far from "debilitating" and as more and more vicious terrorist attacks happen it is becoming more common for Muslims to question the motives and morality of their terrorist brethren. Of course a US withdrawal at this point would be disastrous, as would going to the UN "hat in hand".

The strategy the author clearly favors (air strikes and only a small ground force) would not have solved the problem.. and it would have allowed for a vocal and vicious opponent to look up from the smoke and declare his defiance (Saddam). It is not nearly as much of an issue to have Bin Laden elude us. He has nothing... no country, no army, no wealth to protect and no state to rule. He can survive our wrath only by running, digging and hiding like a hunted animal. This is hardly as much of a PR problem as Saddam living in luxury, torturing his citizens and appearing on the news every day declaring that we have failed to defeat him. Much liek he did after the first Iraq war was stopped short.

So the news flash is - no matter what we did the terrorist spin doctors (they have them, and PR guys too I am sure) coudl make it seem like they are winning and apologists for them will find a way to wring their hands and proclaim we brought it all on ourselves. Not a shock.
posted by soulhuntre at 9:34 AM on September 11, 2004


Oops. Dammit. I make typose all the time but this one I actually feel is worth a specfic correction.

It's Palestine, not Palastine. My apologies.
posted by soulhuntre at 9:36 AM on September 11, 2004


The situation today can only be judged accurately in retrospect. What Cole presents seems to me more a worst-case-scenario appraisal - something to be aware of but not something to panic about, yet.
posted by Krrrlson at 10:00 AM on September 11, 2004


The strategy the author clearly favors (air strikes and only a small ground force) would not have solved the problem..

What problem?

and it would have allowed for a vocal and vicious opponent to look up from the smoke and declare his defiance (Saddam).

And you know, we can't have that. That would wound us.

It is not nearly as much of an issue to have Bin Laden elude us. He has nothing... no country, no army, no wealth to protect and no state to rule.

He didn't have those things on 11 Sep 2001 either, and yet...

He can survive our wrath only by running, digging and hiding like a hunted animal.

So we don't need to catch him, because he's such a luser? It's worth attacking a country that wasn't a credible threat to us, but it's not worth catching a guy who actually killed some of us, is that about right?

This is hardly as much of a PR problem as Saddam living in luxury, torturing his citizens and appearing on the news every day declaring that we have failed to defeat him.

This is the third sentence in a single paragraph that suggests it's about PR and pride to you ather than national defense, you know. While appearances are important, I doubt the terrorists were ever much heartened by Saddam's survival -- his was not exactly their ideal Islamic state. Whereas we ourselves are doing a great deal to inflame terrorism where none could flourish before.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:08 AM on September 11, 2004


A Realist view of Iraq -- that is, from a MeFite perspective, a deeply cynical one -- is that terrorism which threatens the US, on the scale of 9/11, can only flourish where a defiant, rogue state can successfully sponsor major operations. The US as occupier of Iraq is certainly in the thick of a guerrilla war with terrorist overtones, somewhere on the far side of the median range of outcomes (definitely promised outcomes), and arguably the lack of the promised ideal democratic government has engendered resentment and terrorism. The winning money is that Iraq will not become a unified Islamic state, because the ethnic groups and religious sects of which it consists have too much mutual antipathy. Thus Iraq could easily descend into civil war, even drawing in other regimes which the US distrusts such as Iran, Syria, and even (truthfully, and no doubt monetarily) Saudi Arabia. Whether localized or regional, this could be considered as a way to soak up the energy of any bin Ladenist movement. Even if an Islamist state is eventually created, it will be so compromised politically by the blood of other Muslims that it won't be the threat that the Hussein regime arguably potentially posed (if sanctions were lifted and it were allowed to regain its economic independence).

I'm not saying I agree with this, because I believe Realism has significant limitations as a worldview. But I do suggest that this interpretation is a strong reason why the administration doesn't hold the view that the war and occupation of Iraq have increased the danger to the US. At some level, they may have even directly supposed that Iraq going badly could be strategically useful.

I suppose the most cynical interpretation of all is that this sets the stage for a future struggle which could continue indefinitely. Cole's column intriguingly implies -- probably unintentionally -- that a better strategy would have been to engender this civil war by bringing al Qaeda and Ba'athist Iraq into conflict.

The one thing that supposedly drove most of this strategy remains missing. (Neoconservatives frequently fail to listen to the neoliberals.) The US and its regional allies have failed, to date, to create the conditions for a rejection of bin Ladenism. Though the repulsion many felt at the Beslan school mass murder is a start, it doesn't clearly provide a path forward for an Islamic world standing on its own politically and economically while avoiding conflict with other world communities. In that respect, Cole is clearly correct that our position now is weaker than before.
posted by dhartung at 12:58 PM on September 11, 2004


It is bitterly ironic that the threat of invasion was the most potent tool that Bush had in March 2003 for securing regime change in Iraq. It is highly likely, in my judgment, that Saddam would have abdicated to avoid an invasion that he clearly knew could not be resisted. Had Saddam gone off to exile, Iraq would have retained a functioning civil government--albeit one under US tutelage-- and much of the present security nightmare would probably never have arisen.

By invading Iraq in order to create a neocon Erewhon instead of merely to oust Saddam, Team Bush applied more force than was needed to "win" but less than was necessary to subdue utterly an utterly fractious Iraq. The result of this inexplicable blunder has been the destruction of the most successful--relatively speaking, of course--secular Arab state and the unleashing of the very centrifugal forces that Osama could not release himself. I am quite sure that those killed or injured in the ensuing chaos would find their present condition "debilitating."

As to the "superstate" issue, the concept of the umma, or community of all observant Muslims, is fundamental to Islam and Islamic political thought. This notion is at the heart of all pan-Arab movements, including the Ba'ath, Muslim Brotherhood--and al-Qaida. It also figures inextricably in the Arab support of the Palestinians. To Osama and his ilk, utopia would be the establishment of a pan-Arab state headed by a "right-guided" caliph who enforced Sharia law from Stamboul to Kashmir.
posted by rdone at 2:20 PM on September 11, 2004


Whenever Cole writes something, I play a game: how many paragraphs before he launches an attack upon Israel and/or the Jewsa.He never lets me down and I don't have much to read before discovering his focus. In passing: he can talk all he wants about Al Qaeda's aims in the Arab world but muslim terrorists do not confine themselves to that region of the globe, as Russian as recently discovered.
posted by Postroad at 2:40 PM on September 11, 2004


Chechnya was a part of the Islamic[1] world. Or did you think that the terrorists hated Russia for it's freedoms?

[1] Not Arab - see also: Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Sudan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Thailand, Bangladesh, Albania, Bosnia, Uzbekistan, Brunei

80% of the Islamic world is non-Arab
posted by bashos_frog at 3:18 PM on September 11, 2004


It is highly likely, in my judgment, that Saddam would have abdicated to avoid an invasion that he clearly knew could not be resisted.

This is absurd. Have you read anything about Saddam? The man is obsessed by power and holding onto it; he was no more likely to "abdicate" than is, say, Yassir Arafat (someone else who could do his people a world of good by stepping down). He would rather have gone down in glory and pulled his people with him, like many other dictators I could name. I dislike Bush and his war as much as anyone, but let's try to stay focused on reality, shall we?

bashos_frog: Though your point is a good one, Thailand is not in any sense an Islamic country.
posted by languagehat at 3:56 PM on September 11, 2004


Whenever Cole writes something, I play a game: how many paragraphs before he launches an attack upon Israel and/or the Jews

I get the feeling it's not just Cole that you play this game with. Perhaps if you took off your blinders, you would be able to see that Israel is like every other state in the region and indeed the world, a complex place with national interests that do not necessarily coincide with what is considered 'good' or 'moral'.
posted by cell divide at 4:41 PM on September 11, 2004


Nyet, comrade chapeau de langue, c'est ne pas absurd.

There are creditable reports of back channel communications from Saddam in March 2003 proposing his own ouster to avoid the invasion; these were ignored because Team Bush wanted to invade, not deal. Had Saddam been offered a deal he could not refuse, why wouldn't he take it? He was without any other options for survival, and he knew it.

Saddam and Arafat were and are not similarly situated. Arafat, for good or ill, is the living symbol of the hapless-but-just Palestinian cause, armored against attack by world opinion, the man no one is willing to risk martyring; Saddam, in contrast, a man with no friends, a symbol of megalomania. Saddam did not, however, lead a suicide charge of al-Tikriti horsemen into the guns of the onrushing M1A2s--he grabbed hat and headed for that famous spider hole. He hardly is the "madman" Bush likes to invoke so frequently. Had he shown any post-invasion willingness to go out like Butch Cassidy/Sundance Kid, I would not have judged
posted by rdone at 8:35 PM on September 11, 2004


I would like to see evidence of Saddam's abdication offers if there are any. I do believe he could have been forced to abdicate by other forces in Iraq had the US maintained the threat of force, instead of actually using it. Other Ba'athist leaders, perhaps? But then, what kind of man would have emerged as the new strongman? I also suspect that Saddam's regime would not have lasted another decade had the world continued the economic pressure. Weren't there rumors that he has cancer? Can anyone verify that?

Soulhuntre I disagree with your analysis, almost completely, but I wanted to thank you for making a coherent post to illustrate your point of view. If more Mefis on the right would do that in this forum, I think we would have much more interesting political posts instead of incessent back patting and obnoxious trolling.

The war in Iraq is far from "debilitating" and as more and more vicious terrorist attacks happen it is becoming more common for Muslims to question the motives and morality of their terrorist brethren. Of course a US withdrawal at this point would be disastrous, as would going to the UN "hat in hand".

Well the economic costs to the United States keeps climbing and it has already become evident that the US needs more troops on the ground to be able to control the country. Escalation could make this a debilitating situation for the country both economically and psychologically (as the death toll mounts a la Vietnam). But where will tose troops come from? The US is already spread very thin around the globe. Can you imagine if a second-term Bush administration reinstates the draft?

If terrorist attacks become more and more extreme I fear that the responses by Western powers will become more and more extreme. This situation will not convince ALL mainstream Muslims to reject terrorism and appreciate Western retaliation, although surely those with vested economic interests probably would. Others, the poorer Muslims, would just as likely throw in with the cause. I think there are more poor Muslims than rich Muslims. Perhaps the key to world peace is to ensure that more and more Muslims and others lead dignified lives out of poverty and suffering, thus giving them no reason to turn to extremism?

I sincerely can't see how the US can extricate itself from this mess. Perhaps you should reconsider your stance on the UN. A multinational MUSLIM peacekeeping force under command of the UN may be a solution.
posted by sic at 3:07 AM on September 12, 2004


Others, the poorer Muslims, would just as likely throw in with the terrorist cause.
posted by sic at 3:14 AM on September 12, 2004


Thailand is not in any sense an Islamic country.
Maybe not in the sense of some of the others, as the country is only 4% Islamic, but Thailand's 5 southern provinces are 85% Islamic, and terrorist/seperatist groups are an official problem. Read more about the Thailand Islamic Insurgency. Or from a more right-biased source.
In short, Thailand has it's own Chechnya.
posted by bashos_frog at 8:36 AM on September 12, 2004


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