Sunday, March 6, 2011

Fall of Middle Eastern Dictators Equals Victory for Al Qaeda?

That's the argument of former CIA man Michael Scheuer, who dismisses Western cheerleading and happy talk about the Middle Eastern revolutions as "self-defeating applause from the Facebook-obsessed, Twitter-addled West." He points out that along with the destroying Israel,
Since bin Laden declared war against the United States in 1996, al-Qaeda's main goals have included the destruction of the Arab world's tyrannies
The falls of these dictators, particularly in Egypt "amounts to an enormous strategic step forward for al-Qaeda," that comes with "virtually no investment of manpower or money by the terrorist network." As I've pointed out myself, the idea that these tyrannies are going to be replaced by liberal democracies is based primarily on wishful thinking.
the role of Islamist groups will become larger - and over time perhaps dominant - if only because the populations in play are almost entirely Muslim and because Islamist groups have the most effective nationwide infrastructures to replace the old guard. ... it will be easier for media-savvy Islamist groups - whether peaceful or militant - to proselytize, publish and foment without immediate threat of arrest and incarceration. ...
Scheuer also notes that large numbers of militant Islamists have now been released from prison.
In Egypt alone, the news media are reporting that at least 17,000 prisoners have been freed. Many of those released are not thieves and murderers, but Islamist firebrands that the regimes had jailed to protect their internal security ... al-Qaeda and like-minded groups are now being replenished by a steady flow of pious, veteran mujaheddin, each of whom will never forget that U.S. and other Western funds helped keep them jailed by Arab tyrants.
Scheuer's argument is much more convincing and grounded in reality than the naivete and wishful thinking that prevails across most of the political spectrum in the West. I largely agree with him particularly in the case of Egypt. He is correct that these tyrants were doing much of our dirty work for us, killing and imprisoning radical Islamists while keeing a lid tamped down on broad-based popular Islamism. Where his argument is weakest, in my opinion, is that he generalizes across multiple countries. Egypt, Libya and Tunisia are not the same, and sharply different conditions prevail. Ultimately though, his analysis is just another prediction that we will have to wait on events to confirm or falsify. Hopefully he's wrong. But I fear he will be more accurate than not.

2 comments:

  1. No, the fall of western oriented "dictators", pace the case of Libya, and their replacement by Islamic requiem, at the very least equally dictatorial, is an advance for AQ. We heard the same stupid moral equivalence when the Shah was deposed in Iran and look what that got us.

    One could pass this off as merely due to incompetence on the part of Obama and his wrecking crew, but I maintain it is all on purpose. While we are on the subject, whatever makes you think that those on the Western Left are guilty of "naivete?" Seem to me the only people who are guilty of this are those who take the Left's words at face value.

    Not only have they undone all the good of the WOT, they have pretty much undone all the good that ever came out of post-war policy in the ME and the Maghreb these last 65 years.

    Israel soon will be in a tough spot, which, I gather, is precisely the point.

    Obama and the Democrats have behaved shamefully here, but not as shamefully as did the electorate that chose to put them in power in the first place. Home and Change indeed.

    We may be witnessing the first germination of the seeds of the next World War.

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  2. " their replacement by Islamic requiem, at the very least equally dictatorial"

    That hasn't happened yet. It may, but it isn't inevitable.

    "One could pass this off as merely due to incompetence on the part of Obama and his wrecking crew, but I maintain it is all on purpose."

    Hanlon's Razor - Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity

    " While we are on the subject, whatever makes you think that those on the Western Left are guilty of "naivete?""

    There's plenty of evidence of liberal naivete in foreign policy. And I wasn't talking just about the left. Plenty of people on the right -- the whole "freedom agenda" crowd, is cheering the revolutions.

    "Not only have they undone all the good of the WOT, they have pretty much undone all the good that ever came out of post-war policy in the ME and the Maghreb these last 65 years."

    We don't control everything that happens in the Middle East. Apparently we failed to even anticipate the rapid fall of Mubarak.

    "Obama and the Democrats have behaved shamefully here"

    I'm no fan of Obama or Democrats but I'm not sure exactly what you think they were supposed to do in this particular situations. Strong support for Mubarak -- especially when it looks like he was on his last legs anyway -- was just not politically feasible. R

    "We may be witnessing the first germination of the seeds of the next World War."

    That's difficult to say at this point.

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