Tracing roots of extremism

THERE is now fairly extensive literature on terrorism inspired by small groups of Islamic radicals in the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia. It is growing rapidly in both depth and coverage. That notwithstanding, we are dealing with a phenomenon still not well understood. We are living in a period that continues to surprise and confound us.

There is a debate raging in the West — not just in America and Britain but also in continental Europe — about the nature of this conflict, the people who are involved in it, policies that would contain it and how it is likely to develop in the future. There is also debate in some parts of the Muslim world, but unfortunately, the two have not been joined.

However, there is not much serious discussion of this phenomenon in Pakistan. I believe that this debate should begin also in Pakistan. It should have the active participation of policymakers as well as analysts in Pakistan for the simple reason that it appears that this country, for a variety of reasons, is at the centre of this evolving conflict.

It is with the purpose of understanding the way this conflict is proceeding and how Pakistan’s role is being understood by western analysts that I begin today this new series of articles. In presenting my views I will make references to a number of books, articles contained in journals and news magazines and the coverage in the daily press. It is my hope that this series will aid both Pakistan’s policymakers as well as analysts working in this area.

Perhaps the best place to start this discussion is to mention some of the underlying facts surrounding the two recent terrorist plots hatched in Britain. They point to the involvement of people of Pakistani origin living in Britain in actual or contemplated acts of terrorism. The first plot was successfully executed on July 7, 2005, when four suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 passengers in the London transport system. Three of the four bombers were young men of Pakistani origin. Two of the men had visited Pakistan. The second plot was thwarted by the British authorities on August 10, 2006. Its alleged aim was the bombing of 10 United States airliners over the Atlantic Ocean, on their way from London to various American destinations. Most of the arrested are also people of Pakistani origin.

Given what happened in this period spanning 13 months should raise a number of questions in the minds of policymakers in Islamabad. There are, in fact, four sets of different but related questions. Each of these deal with some aspect of the ongoing global war on terror. I will attempt to find answers to these questions in this series of articles. However, my purpose is not to write a treatise of the subject but to deal with it in a way that would increase its understanding in Pakistan.

There can be no doubt that the phenomenon of terrorism has deeply affected Pakistan. It has had a very negative impact on the country’s economy by virtually isolating it from the rest of the world. Pakistan desperately needs foreign investment to augment its pathetically low rate of domestic investment. But foreign investors are not willing to risk their capital for as long as the country continues to be seen as the epicentre of Islamic radicalism and global terrorism inspired by a few Muslims.

Pakistan’s involvement — both real and perceived — has also hurt its social development. As anger grows against the United States for the way it is dealing with the Muslim world, more and more young people are being attracted towards Islamic educational institutions — the ubiquitous madressahs — and towards Islamic social organisations that have shown the remarkable ability to cater to the basic needs of the people. These organisations have turned their attention in particular to the people who the state finds difficult to reach. This has created space within which Islamic organisations have developed and flourished.

The political cost of this development is the reorientation of the philosophies and programmes of political parties towards Islamic causes and less and less towards creating a Pakistani nation. This is a growing feature of political evolution in many parts of the Muslim world. It is especially the case in Pakistan.

The first of these four sets of questions are related to the way the West — in particular Britain and the United States — are handling the politics of the airliners’ plot. The signs are ominous. “This was a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists,” said President George W. Bush. He went on to describe the motives of those who were behind the alleged plot. They were against the social and political values of the West and wished to harm the western civilisation in order to destroy this system of values.

The second set concerns the rise of extremism among several Muslim communities and the reasons why some of these communities have decided to confront the West in a violent way. There are many grievances and grudges held by the members of these communities. What are these and why are they being expressed violently?

What is happening to the people of Pakistani origin living in Britain that they are resorting to acts of such desperation; to actually sacrifice themselves in order to register their point of view with the wider world? What is the point of view that a number of young men — thus far, no women — would like to register? Of the many Muslim expatriate communities in the West, why are people, whose parents and grandparents came from Pakistan, more attracted towards Islamic extremism? What is the connection between Pakistan and the members of the diasporas? In what way is one group — the members of the diaspora — influencing the other — the groups back in the homeland that have adopted extremism as their political philosophy?

The third set of questions relates to Pakistan. According to a recent news analysis in The New York Times, there was a tacit acknowledgement by western intelligence agencies that “Pakistan remains a nexus for would-be-terrorists, from halfway across the world. It is not the first time that Pakistan has proved to be fertile soil for the cultivation of a terrorist attack, either consummated or attempted over the last three years, to be linked to Pakistan in some fashion.” Why is that the case? The answer to this question has to go beyond the one usually provided by many analysts in Pakistan.

There is no doubt that the rise of extremism has roots that can be traced back to the CIA sponsored war in the 1980s in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation. Some of what is happening in the country can be treated as an unresolved outcome of that American-led war. But surely, there are deeper reasons for Pakistan’s role as an exporter of terrorism. These need to be explored in order to devise the right public policy response to a situation that has already done Pakistan a great deal of harm.

The fourth set of questions concerns the connection — the nexus — that exists between Pakistan and radical groups that operate outside the country. Al Qaeda has a recognised presence in the country, not just in the wild border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. As suggested by a number of arrests made by Pakistani authorities of senior level Al Qaeda operatives, the organisation has also established itself in the country’s teeming cities. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, was arrested from a house in Rawalpindi. Abu Zubayda was apprehended in Faisalabad, the heart of central Punjab’s industrial belt.

Let me begin this enquiry, which will spread over several weekly columns, by looking at official Washington’s response to what it calls the “global war on terror.” This is a good place to start since, under the leadership of President George W. Bush, the United States has made a number of serious mistakes. Most important, it has brought into focus and thus into prominence a small group of people who, but for the attention they have received, would have continued to exist on the margins of the various Muslim societies around the globe.

The president’s comment that his country is dealing with Islamic fascism was applauded by the West’s own extremists. “He is right, but in the first news report in Britain yesterday, the words ‘Islamic’ or ‘Muslim’ were hardly mentioned, let alone the dreaded word ‘fascist’,” wrote William Shawcross in an op-ed article published in The Wall Street Journal, a day after the existence of the alleged conspiracy was revealed by the authorities in Britain.

Shawcross is the author of an influential book, Allies: Why the West Had to Remove Saddam, published in 2005 when it was clear to most sober analysts that the American invasion of Iraq was a colossal mistake. “In Europe, the truth is so terrible that we are in denial. Perhaps it is understandable. We simply do not know how to deal with the fact that we really are threatened by a vast fifth column, that there are thousands of European-born people in Britain, in France, in Holland, in Denmark,” continued Shawcross.

There is great deal that is troubling about the official US response to a variety of terrorist attacks. This response has two aspects. One, to regard these acts as parts of a long war being waged relentlessly between radical Islam and the West. Two, to have decided that even the hint of something unpleasant brewing justifies a muscular — which means military — response. The fact that President Bush immediately labelled the London airliners’ conspiracy as a part of the “war with Islamic fascists” is a reflection of this approach. This way of looking at the variety of acts of terrorism is to further embolden those like Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri who have always sought to cast their campaign against the West in global and religious terms.

This approach has serious implications for world peace. In the current issue of The Atlantic, James Fellows argues that the imagery of the “long war” is self defeating. “An open-ended war is an open-ended invitation to defeat,” he wrote. “Sometimes there will be more bombings, shootings, poisoning and other disruptions in the United States.” Some will be the work of Islamic extremists, some not. “If they occur while the war is still on, they are enemy ‘victories’ not misfortunes of the sort that great nations suffer.”

The other serious problem with this approach — of treating all violence related to the expression of local grievances as part of a global war between two ideologies — is that it provides an opportunity to many countries around the globe to brush their own local problems under the carpet of the US declared war on Islamic extremism. This is exactly what India is doing in its long struggle against the aspirations of the Muslim community in the part of Kashmir that it has occupied for almost six decades. It is adopting the same stance in dealing with the genuine grievances of its large Muslim minority. I will continue with this theme in the article next week by exploring how the second element of the American approach has influenced the global war on terrorism.

Whose victory?

IN the wake of the war in southern Lebanon, claims of victory are legion. Hardly had the shooting stopped than Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah was asserting that Hezbollah had triumphed. Others see Syria or Iran or even Shia Islam as the big winner. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, seconded by President Bush, doggedly insists that Israel came out on top.

What are we to make of these competing claims? What is victory anyway?

Ardently pursued, victory in the modern era has been remarkably elusive. Genuine victory implies something more than military success; it must have a political dimension. Even then, results often prove other than expected. Understanding why requires that we appreciate the intimate relationship between war and politics.

“Victory” that defeats the enemy but leaves intact the issues giving rise to war in the first place is likely to prove hollow. The ensuing “peace” is false; after a brief interval, hostilities are likely to resume. World War I offers a classic illustration: At horrific cost, the Allies broke the German army, but did not break German ambition, which soon revived. Worse, World War I served as a petri dish for political dysfunction in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and, especially, the Middle East.

The victory that in November 1918 appeared conclusive instead provided the incubus for future violence.

The 1945 Allied victory finally solved the German problem, crushing the hegemonic ambitions that had roiled European politics since the middle of the 19th century. In this sense, victory produced something tangible. Henceforth, Germany would be of Europe but would not rule Europe.

Americans like to think that victory in 1945 also solved the problem posed by Japan. Did it? Even today, as the controversial Yasukuni Shrine reminds us, many Japanese cling to a different understanding of the Pacific war’s origins and justification. As far as China and South Korea are concerned, victory in 1945 did not solve their Japan problem; that problem persists and is growing. If East Asia becomes the locus of renewed great power competition between China and Japan, V-J Day will no longer look quite so decisive.

Military victory in 1945 — as clear-cut as any in history — emphatically did not produce peace. Instead, it created the conditions for a new conflict, the Cold War, which began almost immediately. Ambiguous shooting wars in places such as Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan ensued, as did a succession of conflicts in the Middle East.

In 1967, conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours yielded what appeared to be a decidedly unambiguous outcome. With the United States mired embarrassingly in Vietnam, here was plucky little Israel rolling up its enemies on three fronts. But what did this exemplary battlefield success produce?

Apart from preserving the Jewish state from destruction — a considerable achievement — the fruits of victory over Egypt, Jordan and Syria in the Six-Day War proved disappointing. Beaten in battle, the Arabs were far from defeated politically. A more dangerous conflict with Egypt ensued just six years later. More tragically, victory-induced dreams of a Greater Israel served only to enlarge and aggravate Israel’s Palestinian problem. Out of the ugly, debilitating conflict that ensued came Hamas and Hezbollah.

Since 1967, Israel has won a thousand little fights, but victory that actually settles something remains a chimera. The truth is that absent an Israeli willingness to engage in total war, as the Allies did against the Axis, the Palestinians will never submit — and even then the Arabs would be unlikely to make peace.

When the Cold War finally ended in 1989, many in the West proclaimed it the greatest victory since 1945. But it was a paradoxical victory: We did not defeat the enemy militarily, and yet the political issues underlying the Cold War had quietly vanished. The Soviets gave up their empire and gave up promoting revolution. We “won” without firing a shot.

Before Americans could contemplate the significance of this paradox, yet another shooting war intruded: Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990. The Persian Gulf War produced a seemingly stupendous military victory for the US-led coalition. But events soon showed this to be an illusion. Hussein survived, so the underlying political problem remained. Americans celebrated their glitzy “Hundred-Hour War,” but then somehow lost sight of the jousting that continued throughout the next decade as US forces conducted hundreds of air strikes against Iraq.

The United States invaded Iraq in March 2003 intent on correcting the “mistake” of 1991 by getting rid of Hussein.

Operation Iraqi Freedom also produced a slam-dunk victory. This time we had finished the job. Yet to our dismay, once again a military victory produced not peace but something akin to chaos, which continues to the present day.

How could this be? It turns out that the Bush administration, seeing war as a strictly military enterprise, had misread Iraqi politics. Instead of paving the way for democracy, using a US army to remove the hated Iraqi dictator (and then keeping that army on hand to supervise the aftermath) merely released pent-up forces bent on using violence to achieve their ambitions. In Iraq, as elsewhere in the Middle East, they do politics with guns.

Frustrated American hawks and some anxious Israelis now want to up the ante. Believing that big victories require big wars, some advocate attacking Iran. The appeal is clear: At least in its initial stages, a war with Iran would play to the U.S. or Israeli strong suit. It would be a war of “shock and awe” rather than of ambushes and roadside bombs. But even if a war against Iran were winnable militarily — a large assumption indeed — would victory solve our political problems? History says don’t count on it. —Dawn/Los Angeles Times Service

The writer is professor of history and international relations at Boston University, US.

Neo-realism, not neo-conservatism

US foreign policy is in a right mess. The neo-cons who have been spitting blood in recent weeks over the weakness of their president to confront both an intransigent Iran and an ever more belligerent North Korea, finally have something to cheer about with Israel’s pummelling of Lebanon.

But a majority of the international community remains deeply disturbed by the US policy of “might is right” whose failure has manifested itself most clearly in Iraq.

The fact that the US finds itself in this predicament is, in my view, primarily a result of the pursuit of a strategy in which aggression has triumphed over pragmatism. Whilst it would be wrong to argue that the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea began with the US invasion of Iraq, it is now clear to any leader of a “rogue state”, that the sensible thing to do to protect their nation’s security is to get a nuclear weapon and get one fast.

It is astonishing how the US has squandered the widespread international support it commanded in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Fighting a war against a country, whose leader, however despicable, did not present a direct threat to either the US and for that matter Britain was foolish and short-sighted.

The world is a difficult and dangerous place and even a lone hegemon with the economic and military strength of the US cannot achieve its ends at will.

Many are also suspicious of the commitment of the US to its ostensible policy of democratising the Middle East. Whilst this may be an attractive proposition, the US must be prepared to face the consequences when the likes of Hamas or Mahmoud Ahmedinejad achieve a popular mandate. Its support for autocratic regimes such as that in Saudi Arabia or pseudo-democracies of the type in Pakistan also leaves it open to the obvious charge of selective application of its principles. A policy of American support for democracy conditional upon the election of regimes that simply satisfy its own interests lacks credibility and will not work.

The approach of the US highlights the dangers of pursuing a foreign policy espoused by ideologues who share a uniquely one-dimensional worldview. The temptation to go it alone has exposed the harsh realities of imperial overstretch. Quite apart from this, the behaviour of certain US soldiers in Abu Ghraib and the ongoing farce of Guantanamo, indicates that the US has one set of rules for itself and another for the rest of the world.

This is compounded by the gulf between how Americans view themselves and how the rest of the world sees them. As a Pew survey of global attitudes in 2002 shows, whilst 70 per cent of Americans believe that US foreign policy takes account of the interests of other states, a majority of non-Americans disagree.

In addition, a recent Populous poll found that over half of British Muslims view the war on terror as a war on Islam. The battle for hearts and minds is clearly being lost. The refusal of the US to call for an immediate cessation of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel will simply reinforce this view with the former now hailed as “Champions of the Muslim world”.

So what should the US do? Francis Fukuyama, a former neo-con who has seen the light, suggests the pursuit of what he terms “realistic Wilsonianism”. Central to this thesis is the importance of what happens inside other states whilst accepting the critical role of international institutions as a tool of multilateralism.

But dabbling in the affairs of other states is a dangerous game. I would instead argue for the pursuit of a “neo-realist” foreign policy — grounded in practical realities as opposed to ideological certainties. This is, after all, an approach that has reaped rewards in the past. It took nearly half a century to defeat communism through a mixture of containment, deterrence and above all patience. It was not conflict that led to victory but the desire of people living under repressive regimes in Eastern Europe to change. Covert support for those who shared western ideals was a powerful tool but the fundamental force and commitment for change came from within.

Whilst there may be a number of Muslims who despair at the disunity in the Muslim world and yearn for a bygone age where Islam was a civilisation to be reckoned with, this is not, as Stephen Walt of Harvard University rightly points out, primarily a battle of ideas between the Muslim world and the West. Both Osama bin Laden and the London bombers who carried out the atrocities of 7/7 did so in response to specific US (which can be substituted for British) policies, be it support for Israel, the invasion of Iraq or the presence of American troops in “Muslim lands”.

The battle of ideas that needs to be fought and won is between Islamist zealots who wish to shove their particular literalist interpretations of the Quran down people’s throats and those Muslims who believe that Islam can be a force for good in the modern world. The US needs to support the latter and cease the superficial argument that what motivates terrorists is revulsion for “freedom”.

The US must recognise its limitations. An emphasis on “soft power” and the ability to form alliances with like-minded states is the most sensible course. It must lead by example and avoid the temptation in the future to reach so hastily for the gun. A failure to do so will no doubt encourage others to behave in a similar manner. With China and India well on the way to being the superpowers of the future, this is a path that the US for the sake of the world cannot afford to pursue.

The writer is a board member of the British Conservative Party Policy Commission on International and National Security.

It’s not cricket

NOT since the Grand National collapsed after a false start has a major sporting event in Britain fallen apart so shamefully. Sunday’s Test match between England and Pakistan began in good spirit, with the prospect of a justified Pakistani victory to balance out a series that has already seen two strong England performances.

A full house at The Oval enjoyed Test cricket at its best, skilled, intelligent and controlled — but nothing on the field was as extraordinary as the way the day ended off it.

When one umpire, Darrell Hair, awarded England five runs after deciding that the ball had been tampered with, an upset and angry Pakistan team played on until tea. But their failure to return to the field promptly after it triggered a chaotic close to the afternoon, in which first Pakistan and then the umpires appeared to go on strike. A game that prides itself on the spirit in which it is played was plunged into a sad and resentful disharmony. This may have bitter consequences for both cricket and community relations in this country.

Last night the black clouds gathering over The Oval mirrored the mood of the 20,000 fans and 22 players inside it. The bewildered faces were not sure whether there would be a match to return to today — only later was it confirmed that the match was over and had been awarded to England. Past bad blood between Mr Hair and the Pakistan side had boiled over to produce an inexplicable stand-off: no evidence seems to have been produced to support the suspicion of ball-tampering.

The International Cricket Council remained silent on the issue last night. Pakistan insist that their protest at tea was intended to be a brief and token one, but a dispute that began with the cricketers ended with Mr Hair and his colleague, Billy Doctrove, refusing to return to the field.

This turned an incident that could have been resolved into a childish and destructive stand-off. The dispute was not between England and Pakistan, which may allow the forthcoming one-day series to continue. But it can only fuel the alienation felt by some British Muslims at a time of great strain.

Today the match should have continued, with the lost time being made up — it is now clear that is not going to happen. In due course Mr Hair and his fellow officials should be asked to present their evidence to the ICC.

—The Guardian, London