Like They Planned It

Why is it that the best analysis of the Middle East I can find routinely comes from a Hong Kong News website? Aside from the superb Juan Cole, that is.

The US's gift to al-Qaeda
By Pepe Escobar

"Al-Qaeda and all the other components of the Salafi-jihadi (or Islamist) front are on the verge of scoring a major double blow. Unlike September 11, now their fight not only is being recognized by top Islamic scholars as legitimate, but they have also managed to capitalize on major blunders in the "war on terror" to strengthen the anti-imperialist, anti-US impulse among global, moderate Muslims. How did that happen?

"At the time of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri made two crucial mistakes. First, because of their isolation, they didn't notice that most Afghans had had enough of the Taliban...

"Second, bin Laden and al-Zawahiri overestimated the reaction of the Arab street. They didn't understand that the average Arab living in the Middle East - or in Western Europe - may indeed express a lot of grievances toward US foreign policy, but this did not translate into solid, political mobilization...

"The "war on terror" - the American response to al-Qaeda - was a meaningless metaphor in the first place because al-Qaeda essentially poses a security problem. It is not a strategic threat. At least it was not until its recent mutation - after Guantanamo, the invasion of Iraq and the Abu Ghraib scandal.

"...When bin Laden and al-Zawahiri called for a worldwide jihad they failed. Movements of national liberation in Islam - like in Palestine and Chechnya - were the biggest losers. All over Islam there was heated discussion over al-Qaeda's strategy - if there was any. Should everyone revert to purveying dawah (propaganda, political proselytism) instead of jihad?

"But now Islamic scholars from Morocco to Malaysia are finally legitimizing al-Qaeda as a Muqadamul Jaish - a revolutionary vanguard. This Western concept was unheard of in Islam - well, at least until the symbolically-charged spring of 2003, when Baghdad was "liberated" by President George W Bush's Christian armies.

"As much as al-Qaeda is a Western concoction - once again, the concept of revolutionary vanguard simply does not exist in Islam - its internationalism is now merging with the only other global protest movement: the anti-globalization, anti-American imperialism brigade. Al-Qaeda and the Islamist front nevertheless still face a daunting task: if they want more Western allies, they have to abdicate from their Islamic platform. And if they want more allies in the Muslim world, they have to be much less radical. Even though al-Qaeda is configured as an heir to the extreme left and pro-Third World radical movements of the 1970s, al-Qaeda's latest success is undoubtedly in the Muslim world.

"Al-Qaeda's only strategic goal is trapping the US, but Washington helped al-Qaeda by trapping itself in Iraq, and in still another, dangerous form of hubris, Bush's Greater Middle East. Al-Qaeda's dream of mobilizing the ummah by way of jihad may have taken a backseat role, but who needs it when you have reports of Korans flushed down the toilet? The Newsweek controversy reveals to the fullest extent how al-Qaeda may be reaching its goal of politicizing the masses through other means. No wonder the White House, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice all reacted furiously - blaming the (media) messenger to obscure the evident message (Islamophobia).

"Al-Qaeda now also benefits from counter-propaganda. For example, this past weekend, al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers - supposed to be the denomination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group (if he is not just a cipher) - accused the Pentagon of fabricating the sectarian violence in Iraq. The document lists "dirty methods [the Americans] use for targeting jihad", like "attacking homes with mortar rounds to later put the blame on the mujahideen for such mindless attacks", or "setting up IEDs [improvised explosive devices] on the side of the road near a school or a hospital and then the American savior comes in shining armor to dismantle the device, witnessed by the people in the area as a hero risking himself for Muslims".

"As for the non-stop car bombings, the document says that "some [Americans] conceal a bomb in the trunk of a car while they search it in a check point and then detonate it at a distance in the right place and time, or they target certain cars by helicopter gunships so it would look like there was a person [bomber] who detonated a car bomb".

"Whether any of these claims are verifiable or true is beside the point. The point is that they are written and widely broadcast in Arabic, and they stick. Muslims, especially in the Sunni Arab world, but also all over Islam, tend to believe them in increasing numbers, considering the moral swamp the US put itself in after Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and the virtual leveling of Fallujah.

"So if al-Qaeda is winning Muslim hearts and minds, the Bush administration has only itself to blame. Considering all the "clash of civilizations" rhetoric and a "war on terror" bound to last indefinitely, as Vice President Dick Cheney himself said on the record, it may have been the original intent anyway."

People are starting to notice who profits from cashing the blank check for endless war.