With the promise of useful employment for all their fighters, and armed with a specific strategy and well-defined war aims, bin Laden’s forces will proceed in their usual professional and patient manner. The United States, however, has yet to understand bin Laden or the dimensions of the threat his forces pose, and has neither a clear strategy nor a recognizable set of war aims. Are we out to smash al Qaeda once and for all, bring democracy and secularism to Afghanistan and then to the rest of the Islamic world, and make friends in the Muslim world and avoid offending the Europeans? Or are we warming up militarily for the main event against Iraq or Iran, or simply trying to intimidate al Qaeda and the Afghans—fat chance—while trying to make sure no American soldier gets killed? Are we after a mix of these or some as yet unstated goal? Until we figure what we face and what we want, our fortunes are likely to be as barren as those of the forces of bin Laden will be flush.
AL QAEDA: This organization’s future course can be described with dispatch, because, as David Ignatius has written, bin Laden is “a distinctly modern man with a very clear strategy of attack.”35 Bin Laden’s intent has been to defeat the United States by steadily increasing the number of casualties and level of economic damage caused by his attacks on U.S. interests. Al Qaeda will now complement those attacks with insurgent operations against U.S. forces deployed overseas. How will it recognize victory? Easy, by forcing drastic changes in U.S. foreign policy. Al Qaeda will judge Islam victorious when U.S. and British forces evacuate Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arabian Peninsula, when the United States has terminated all aid to Israel, and when the U.S. and UN embargoes on Iraq are lifted. These attainments, bin Laden has believed, will lead inevitably to destruction of Israel and what bin Laden has called the regimes of “hypocrites” in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere.36 We in the United States and the West make a mistake when we argue, as has Thomas L. Friedman, that bin Laden’s attacks are “not aimed at reversing any specific U.S. policy,” or, as Steve Simon and Daniel Benjamin did in Survival in early 2002, that bin Laden has “no discrete set of negotiable political demands.”37 He clearly does have such demands and he has voiced them clearly and repeatedly. They are, in some ways, the same negotiating demands often used by the United States in its history; that is, unconditional surrender. We may not like them, we may not understand them, and we may not believe they are plausible or attainable, but there they are—and they are well understood and probably favored by most Muslims. On these three goals, bin Laden and his brethren worldwide pretty much have been unanimous; their differences have been over the means through which they are to be secured.
We can also expect bin Laden’s network to exploit a historic opportunity, or rather an opportunity made great by historical considerations. “In his pronouncements bin Laden makes frequent references to history,” Bernard Lewis reminded his readers in the New Yorker in November 2001.
In current American usage, the phrase “that’s history” is commonly used to dismiss something as unimportant, or no relevance to current concerns, and, despite immense investment in the teaching and writing of history, the general level of historical knowledge in our society is abysmally low. The Muslim peoples, like everyone else in the world, are shaped by their history, but, unlike some others, they are keenly aware of it…. Middle Easterners’ perceptions of history is nourished from the pulpit, and by the media, and, although it may be—indeed, often is—slanted and inaccurate, it is nevertheless vivid and powerfully resonant.38
Enter bin Laden, who always has been conscious of the content and rhythms of Islamic history, and who, as Reuel Marc Gerecht correctly noted, has been for most of a decade “tweaking the nerves of Islamic civilization, which has experienced 300 years of defeats by Western armies, but vividly remembers a millennium of triumphs over Christians and Jews.”39 Currently, the followers of bin Laden hold a stacked deck in terms of Islamic history. First, al Qaeda and its allies look like they are down and out. While it is crazy to think that al Qaeda welcomes every aspect of its current situation, it is one that can be turned to the organization’s advantage because it has been sketched out in scripture. “In the holy Koran,” senior al Qaeda member Mahfouz Ould Walid told Al-Jazirah television on 29 November 2001, “God Almighty has taught us that he always tries his prophets and puts them to the test…. We believe this group [al Qaeda] will be tried, will face harm, will lose fortunes and souls, and will face hunger and fear, but God will not abandon them.”40 In addition to the U.S.-led military attack on Afghanistan, Western demands for restricting the activities of Islamic charities and calls for “modernizing” the content of Islamic teaching also have the appearance of attacking two of the five pillars of Islam, charity and the word of God. Finally, the Muslim world’s sense that Islam is being attacked on all sides by infidel armies is growing, as Russia, India, and China use the cover of America’s Afghan war to beat the hell out of their Muslim minorities and Israel smashes the Palestinians.
Thus, the stage of Islamic history, if you will, is set for the forces of bin Laden. In addition, bin Laden has emerged for tens of millions of Muslims as the defender of Islam in the modern age, a man “with a clean record who can make a match for the Americans, can do them harm, and can inflict pain on them.”41 Again, the annals of Islamic history are replete with men of iron resolve and dauntless courage—heroic soldiers such as Nur-al-Din, Saladin, and, yes, the Prophet Muhammed—whose records are models to be honored and imitated. “It is worth remembering,” Michael Scott Doran wrote in a brilliant essay in Foreign Affairs in early 2002, “that the rise of Islam represents a miraculous case of the triumph of the human will. With little more than their beliefs to gird them, the Prophet Muhammed and a small number of devoted followers started a movement that brought the most powerful empires of the day crashing to the ground.”42 In this context, if al Qaeda comes off the ropes and hits the United States with a blow that matches or exceeds those of 11 September 2001—especially against the backdrop of Israel’s recent invasion of the West Bank—it will not only humiliate and damage America, but it also will evoke for most Muslims, with spectacular clarity, some of the legendary come-from-behind military victories of the Prophet Muhammed and his early successors, such as those at the Battle of Badr (624), the Battle of the Trench (627), and the Battle of Yarmuk (636).43
THE UNITED STATES: “The Americans had lost the war even before they started it,” Abd-al-Bari Atwan wrote in Al-Quds Al-Arabi on 29 October 2001, “because it is a preposterous, open-ended war of arrogance without specific goals.” The statement is too harsh and premature, but, as already noted, dead on the mark regarding vague and jumbled goals. What is the right set of goals for the United States, and in what order should they be pursued? Those questions need to be answered by others far more intelligent and knowledgeable than I am. That said, my view, in the words of some of those others, is laid out below and is meant to answer the following questions: What is the goal? Who is the enemy? What is the means to victory? What is the bottom line?
You ask: “What is our aim?” I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.
Winston Churchill, May, 194044
And this is definitely a fight to the bitter end, which means first and foremost that we must eliminate Osama bin Laden. As long as he lives, we have lost the war against Islamic terrorism. He will never stop bombing us. His magnetism within militant Islamic circles is undeniable. He will never stop recruiting others to his cause. He has made a rag-tag outfit of Islamic militants, his terrorist umbrella organization al Qaeda, in just a few years, the most celebrated holy warriors in modern Islamic history.
Reuel Marc Gerecht, September 200145
Westerners have learned, by harsh experience, that the proper response [when attacked by Islamic raiders] is not to take fright but to marshal their forces, to launch massive retaliation and to persist relentlessly u
ntil the raiders have either been eliminated or so cowed by the violence inflicted that they relapse into inactivity…. The world must learn again that the United States, when severely antagonized, is to be feared; that it grinds its mortal enemies to powder as it did sixty years ago, that the widespread view in extremist Islamic circles that it is cowardly, decadent, and easily intimidated by the thought of casualties is false.
Sir John Keegan, October 2001, and Conrad Black, January 200246
The range of American policy options in the [Middle East] region is reduced to two alternatives, both disagreeable: Get tough or get out.
Bernard Lewis, December 200147
Epilogue: “That They May Go in and Look Their Redeemer in the Face with Joy”
The boys take all after their father, and covet to tread in his steps. Yea, if they but see any place where the old Pilgrim has lain, or any print of his foot, it ministereith joy to their hearts, and they covet to lie or tread in the same.
The Pilgrim’s Progress, 1678
I believe that the ongoing confrontation between the forces led and inspired by Osama bin Laden and those led by the United States is fast moving toward the status of a clash of civilizations. And, increasingly, bin Laden’s religion-based indictment of U.S. foreign policy and call for a defensive jihad are fueling—bin Laden would use the word inciting—the completion of the Muslim world’s transit from moderation to militancy. I believe that the materials researched for this study and presented here suggest that violent clashes between the West and Islam will be a central feature of world affairs for the foreseeable future.
The pace and bloodiness of the conflict, while impossible to predict with precision, may be in large measure a function of future words and actions of bin Laden—or of whoever replaces him at the helm of the al Qaeda movement. If bin Laden soon dies or is killed, the acceleration and proliferation of Islamist militancy may moderate. If he lives and manages to reassemble and resettle the al Qaeda forces and if he has the great good fortune to have as his foil a relatively status quo U.S. policy toward the Muslim world, the pace, violence, and internationalization of the defensive jihad he calls for likely will grow. Even if bin Laden does not survive the U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan, the anti-Western activities and passions he has set loose most likely will continue as long as U.S. policy in the Muslim world is unchanged, al Qaeda’s extensive network survives and functions, and the United States continues to apply only a fraction of its military power, and even that almost daintily.
After two decades of bin Laden’s organizational and military activities, Americans are only just beginning to fully recognize what he is up to and the growing support his words and actions are garnering in the Muslim world. “Mr. Bin Laden has merely tapped into a powerful and growing wave of religiously motivated hatred of the West,” two senior U.S. National Security Council officials recently wrote. Bin Laden’s supporters—or “these terrorists,” as the officials glibly call them—“are highly motivated, not by a cult of personality, but by a worldview in which they are the vanguard of a divinely ordained battle to liberate Muslim lands…. The terrorists allied with Mr. Bin Laden do not want a place at the table; they want to shatter the table.”1
One can only hope Americans are beginning to understand that the concepts for which Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization have been fighting, like those of John Bunyan’s struggling pilgrim Christian, have stood and are standing the test of time. Like Christian, bin Laden has endured the wounds and losses of battle, the sorrow of leaving behind home and family, and the trials of difficult and dangerous travel. Also like Christian and Theodore Roosevelt, bin Laden and his al Qaeda movement have fallen, been bruised, bloodied, and battered in previous battles, and have stood up and returned to the fray, suffering for their faith in a calm and resolute manner, confident in winning that which they value most, God’s approval and a place in paradise. “Although we may disagree with Osama about his ideological and political views,” journalist Jamal Ismail has written in recognition of the esteem bin Laden has won among Muslims, “no member of our nation [the ummah] can ever place him among the enemies of the nation and its aspirations.”2
Let the last words be John Bunyan’s. In The Pilgrim’s Progress, Mr. Sagacity is asked whether he has ever heard “what happen’d to a man some time ago in this Town, (whose name was Christian) that went on Pilgrimage up towards the higher Regions?” In response, Mr. Sagacity recalls the man everyone ridiculed and harried and replies affirmatively, explaining that there is growing interest in and admiration for Christian’s efforts, and that the widening awareness of Christian’s pilgrimage is inspiring others to emulate him. While far from a perfect analogy, Mr. Sagacity’s remarks are a fair appraisal of the accumulating effect bin Laden is having in the Islamic world—especially among the young—since beginning his own still-unfinished pilgrimage to what Bunyan called the “Celestial City” more than two decades ago. “Hear of him!” Mr. Sagacity exclaimed,
Ay: and I also heard of the molestations, troubles, wars, captivities, cries, groans, frights and fears that he met with and had in his Journey; besides, I must tell you, all our country rings of him; there are but few houses that have heard of him and his doings, but have sought after, and got the Records of his Pilgrimage; yea, I think I may say, his hazardous Journey has got many well-wishers to his ways: For though when he was here, he was Fool in every man’s mouth, yet now he is gone, he is highly commended of all; for, ’tis said, he lives bravely where he is: Yea, many of them that are resolved never to run his hazards, yet have their mouths water at his gains.3
Epilogue to the Revised Edition
It is to be regretted, I confess, that democratical states must always feel before they can see, it is this that makes their government slow, but the people will be right at last.
George Washington, 1787
The great mass of our citizens require only to understand matters rightly, to form right decisions.
George Washington, 1789
On his way to Washington to be inaugurated in the secession winter of 1861, Abraham Lincoln spoke to an audience in Indianapolis, Indiana, on 11 February and stressed the central role all loyal American citizens must play in preserving the Union. “In all the trying positions in which I will be placed,” Lincoln said,
my reliance will be placed upon you and the people of the United States—and I wish you to remember now and forever, that it is your business and not mine; that if the union of these States and the liberties of this people, shall be lost, it is but little to any one man of fifty-two years of age, but a great deal to the thirty millions of people who inhabit these United States, and to their posterity in all coming time.1
It is well, I believe, to recall Lincoln’s words and the heavy burden of responsibility they properly placed on the shoulders of Americans. As I edit this manuscript for the final time on 24 July 2005, America and its allies have taken a three-week pasting from al Qaeda and its allies, and this after Bush administration officials and Democratic leaders repeatedly have assured Americans that al Qaeda’s “back is broken.” On 7 July 2005, four simultaneous suicide attacks hit four separate locations in London’s transportation system, killing 56 and wounding 700.2 On 21 July, an identical series of explosions hit four different targets in the system, but either because of ineptness or intent, the attacks wounded only one person, while shutting down the system and causing widespread panic. After the second attack, Western politicians, officials, and media commentators crowed a bit about the “botched” and “amateurish attacks,” but few noted that even after the 7 July attacks, which prompted an immense increase in deployed British security and police officers and the raising of the alert level to the highest, the attackers again completely surprised British authorities and put bombs precisely where they wanted to.3 That 21 July was not a repeat of 7 July was the result of either bad tradecraft by the attackers or a deliberate intent to show Britons that they, and not the security forces, held the whip hand.
Then, on 22 July 2005, another group claiming ties to al Qaeda detonated several car bombs at luxury hotels and tourist-oriented markets at Sharm al-Sheikh, an upscale resort on Egypt’s Red Sea coast and a longtime bête noire for bin Laden as the site of conferences in which Arab governments “sold out” the Palestinians to the United States and Israel. The attacks killed 88 and wounded more than 200. The casualties included Egyptian nationals and European tourists.4 The attacks also struck a telling blow against the Egyptian economy, which in 2004 derived nearly 5 percent of its GNP—about $6 billion—from tourism. The tourism industry also is Egypt’s primary earner of foreign exchange.5
Taken together, these three attacks, I think, again demonstrate the extraordinary focus of Osama bin Laden on the priorities he has set for al Qaeda, which—as I have explained in this book and Imperial Hubris— boil down to attacking the United States and its allies in ways that will increase the economic, human, and psychological costs to the point where America will disengage to the greatest extent possible from the Islamic world, and especially the Middle East. But how, one might ask, do three attacks outside America further al Qaeda’s cause of defeating the United States? Simple. At the economic level, the three attacks have produced a knee-jerk reaction in the U.S. government to raise the nationwide security level, thereby deploying extra legions of police and security officials, all being paid at overtime rates. Ground transportation of all kinds has been subjected to increased security scrutiny, which slows human and freight travel and produces a drag on the economy. In addition, the bombings sparked a mindless, sophomoric, and bipartisan frenzy in the Congress as the distinguished representatives bloviate and stuff extra billions into the federal budget for grand-transportation security in what, ultimately, will be a vain effort to convince citizens that they are doing something effective to protect them and not just their political sinecures. Score one for bin Laden.
Through Our Enemies' Eyes Page 42