roughgghdrrdraftfirstthensecondA Book Review
Abdel Bari Atwan,
Al Qaeda. (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2006.)
"SHEIK" OSAMA BIN LADEN (OBL)
There was a time when calling Osama bin Laden "Sheik," a title of substantial religious significance, would nauseate me. Abdel Bari Atwan would do just that in his newspaper,
al-Quds al-Arabi.
Then came Iraq. A huge and vicious military-industrial complex, mechanical and systematic, lacking any humanity, presided over by an oil administration, unleashed a tsunami of racism, hate, and destruction against a defenseless Arab country. A Messianic Evangelical President and a cynical Vice, who’s adopted, and was adopted by a large swath of the American Jewish community, unleashed a high-tech killing machine against a foe of Israel. The President and his Vice returned the Arab and Muslim country to the stone age, pleasing other Israeli-anchored sadists to no end.
A relatively humane administration had preceded the sadistic one. But it ran scared of the poisonous American Right. To keep the right-wing beast at bay, the Clinton Administration had continued to champion sanctions to emaciate the Arab and Muslim country. Its secretary of State, living in the comfort of the nation’s capital, had said that the death of half a million Iraqi (Arab) children was a price worth paying to get rid of Saddam Hussein. So culturally and racially biased she was that she didn’t think for a moment about how she would react had these children been Jewish or European. For even the left-of-center Clinton Administration, headed by a smart President, was Israel-anchored--racist, at heart, though unaware of it-- anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim. It just didn’t spew the venom of the Jewish and Christian Right.
Abdel Bari Atwan, who continued to call Osam bin Laden "Sheik" in his newspaper, even after September 11, still referred to George W. Bush as "President," and to Condoleezza Rice as "
as-Sayyidah"–Madam (Secretary.) Equality for both sadists and the incopmpetent: Osama, George, and Condoleezza. As a result, I could no longer be angry with Mr. Atwan for his reference to OBL as "Sheik." If George Bush was President and C. Rice Madam Secretary, even after the sadistic annihilation of an Arab country and the creation of thousands of orphans, then certainly OBL was Sheik. They’re all heartless people–all lacking in empathy--sadistic psychopaths, mediocre human beings with titles.
MR ATWAN WRITES ABOUT AL QAEDA
I wasn’t into yet another book about al Qaeda. It interested me little. But I picked it up anyway. Why?
In part because Mr. Atwan is a superb analyst; in part because I’ve classified him as a Palestinian Arab nationalist, with Islamic leanings. So I should get an insider view, so to speak. In part, too, because I’ve done one Arab civil war and had done it thoroughly. So I was aware that parties to conflicts would set off sectarian massacres to achieve political ends. Or to stem the march of history against them.
Most of all, however, I needed an answer from Abdel Bari about the reasons behind al Qaeda’s tactic of massacring Shia wholesale.
I was aware that the Baath itself had every reason to ignite a civil war; and I believe it did. I thought it waited a tad too long. Why wait until the occupier had his way? Why not start the civil war even before he had entered the country?
In reality, however, it wasn’t the Baath that waited too long. It was me, impatient me, who expected parties and groups to be as efficient as I. I’ve been accused of efficiency way too many times. Being (allegedly) efficient--I still deny it-- I have a tendency to predict the next move by this or that party–not so much because of analytical acumen, but because of what I suspect is my common sense.
In Iraq, I figured the way for the Baath to defeat the harmful idiots would be to imitate Hizbollah in south Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s–suicide and car bombings, and the infamous IEDs. The better weapon, however, would be sectarian massacres if only to confuse the harmful idiots and turn their occupation into a management/policing nightmare.
The harmful idiots having been invited into Iraq by Shia proxies of Iran, the Baath figured it would ignite the civil war as a way of forcing Arab Sunni allies of the harmful idiots (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE...), who had colluded against the Iraqi Sunni, into taking sides. Their people fuming, these Uncle Toms, mediocre as their master, weren’t about to take Iran’s side, the side of the Shia. the Baath knew that.
Not to mention that the Baath likely had hopes which common-sense-me didn’t share. The Baath probably had thought that the harmful idiots would have some sense and would hug the Iraqi generals, give their children scholarships at SUNY-Buffalo, and keep them in power with the condition of not allowing Saddam back into politics and opening Iraqi oil fields to American oil companies, nearly exclusively. (They'd give Tony Blair some bits.) But I knew better. The occupier went into Iraq not only for oil, but to service Israel, too. The Bush Administration needed a solid popular base for the invasion and it found it in the relative cohesion of a swath of the American Jewish community, which forever is spinning its consensus around Israel and its needs. So the administration added Israel’s welfare to its oil and imperial hegemony agenda, if only to secure that base. (Right wing informants in that community proved to be easy recruits to spy on insignificant me--but no one who has anything to do with Israel is insignificant to this neurotic and sleazy bunch--See Chance Encounters.) The occupier therefore was blinded by its Israel bias, and wasn’t about to have common sense. It had internalized the Jewish Right’s agenda, a part of which was seeking revenge on behalf of Israel.
But, as things now stand, the greater majority of Iraqis has come to terms with the need for the harmful idiots to order the troops out of their country. Why is it then that "rational" al Qaeda continues on with its massacres of Shia? Can’t it see that the time has come to change strategy and tactics?
I could've cut to the chase and moved on to chapter 6 in the book, "Al Qaeda in Iraq," to seek answers. But I didn’t. There were other things Abdel Bari could teach me. So I read the entire book.
HOW DID IT ALL TURN ISLAMIC?
As a former Arab nationalist, when young, a participant-observer, without any particular affiliation, I really wanted to know how the heck the Arab Street had turned Islamic. I remember as President of the Arab Cultural Club in grad school, at my university, controlling a great budget of no more than $300.00 (!), that Arab students had started splitting off. After Camp David, the Egyptian students were first to quit the Arab Club. Then the Lebanese, who became even more fond of referring to themselves as "Christian" or "Muslim," then the others. The Baath had plenty of "students" at my university, mostly physicians and dentists. (If you had received your medical degree from Russia--then the Soviet Union--, the Baathist state made it a condition that you either re-enrolled at a Western medical/dental school, or you worked as a nurse in Iraq.) They too disappeared. I was fond of calling them fascists, but they had never staged a walkout because of my hostility. They were cool about it. Little did I know.
Until one day, I reported to a meeting of the club with my roommate, now a dean at an Arab university, and we were the only ones at the meeting. The club had lost the Egyptians and the Lebanese–and others. And now the Iraqis and their Arab allies had failed to appear. Was it because I had accused them of fascism? I thought they knew they were in fact fascists and had come to terms with it.
Lo and behold: I discovered later that the Baathists had decided to start their own Arab club, outside the university, letting go of the precious $300 the university had allotted to our cultural club. They had staged a coup against me and my roommate. I now was a president without a following. (This had not been the first coup they had staged. They were incredibly creative when it came to coups.)
I had thought that most people had gone parochial–Egyptian Copt v. Egyptian Muslim, Lebanese Christian v. Lebanese Muslim, and so on. Apparently, I was wrong. A smattering of Arabs had remained faithful to pan-Arabism–the ones who chose the Baath club over the university one.
Then, for years, I had lost interest. I woke up one day and all had turned Islamic–not Egyptian, not Lebanese, not Saudi–and what have you. Pan-Arab identity had been replaced with pan-Islamism. Could Abdel Bari shed light on that?
He did, in a way. Palestine, and then Iraq under sanctions, as expected, had figured highly in that transformation. Practically his entire book can be read as explaining that transformation. Not that he meant it as such. Men like Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) and Taqi al-Din ibn Taymiyyah (1262-1328) , names I was familiar with but never thought their Islamic writings would carry the day, had. Mr. Atwan does an excellent job in providing a succinct yet terrifically helpful expose on the rise of political Islam. To me, having stayed away from Arab politics for a couple of decades, Mr. Atwan’s expose was a needed refresher.
OF CYBER-JIHAD AND DNA FINGERTPRINTING
Mr. Atwan dedicates an entire chapter to cyber-Jihad. It’s a fascinating chapter, but I won’t pretend that I understood it. Having been a victim of tracking via computer by what I’m certain was a foreign intelligence service, I had a keen interest in understanding this stuff. And I was impressed that Mr. Atwan did really understand it. I would try to delve into the chapter, again and again, but I would lose interest fast. That’s not to say that others shouldn’t delve into that chapter. I’m a dinosaur when it comes to this stuff. But those who are less intimidated by tech subjects should appreciate this chapter.
Oddly, I can complement Mr. Atwan’s chapter in one area, not internet-related, but nonetheless of importance. I have been finger-printed without my knowledge, by the same foreign intelligence service that was tracking me via a Phishing/Trojan virus scheme. (Please refer to the series, "Chance Encounters.) Recently, after attending a forensic seminar, I’ve started to suspect that the man who took my fingerprints, a right-wing Jewish informant, using treachery as he was a colleague, has possibly obtained my DNA print, too. I’m waiting to consult with a DNA expert–lawyers have access to these–about whether the method used by the right- wing informant is capable of lifting off not only fingerprints but a DNA print, too The answer should add tons of knowledge to the world of espionage that cyber-jihad in part seems to be about. What uses can the foreign intelligence service make of my DNA print? I’ll wait to hear from the expert.
Still, I need to ask whether Mr. Atwan had hired a consultant to understand this cyber-Jihad stuff. If he didn’t, then I raise my (recently-purchased, Made in China, baseball) hat to him.
AL QAEDA IN IRAQOkay, this subject, chapter six in the book, was the real reason I picked up the book in the first place.
Mr. Atwan’s expose persuades one that the Al Qaeda leadership is logical, systematic, and rational in drafting its strategy. While OBL had not agreed early on with al- Zarqawi’s tactic of massacring the Arab Shia, aiming for a full-scale civil war, he later acquiesced to the Jordanian’s scheme. He may not have had a choice. Al Qaeda men had killed Saudis and other Muslims inside the Kingdom. As a consequence, he had lost popularity and was becoming marginal. The Saudi state had waited for him to make his mistakes, and he did. Iraq therefore became al Qaeda’s best and only venue to re-enter the kingdom in a grand style. And it did, thanks to the harmful idiots–but in large part thanks to Zarqawi.
While Mr. Atwan doesn’t give a straight answer to my query, he does nonetheless provide keys to the answer.
Using the keys he provides, I’ll venture my own answer:
WHY KILL ARAB SHIA MUSLIMS?
Al Qaeda’s ideology is all about the
umma–the Islamic nation. For now, the Shia are not perceived as part of this
umma,
for reasons that I suspect are in large part utilitarian. For now, the civil war is a necessary imperative to get the Americans to withdraw from Iraq. Killing American soldiers in-and-by-itself isn’t sufficient to force the Americans out. Too much oil is at stake, not to mention imperial hegemony over China, Russia, and Europe. Public opinion is not budging the current President. If anything, he’s escalated (the "surge"). There’s a perceived need therefore to supplant the war of resistance against the occupier with other steps that would increase his cost and bankrupt the American state. One of these steps is the civil war: to create a management nightmare for the harmful idiots. That management/policing nightmare should multiply the cost many-fold. Al Qaeda is after all rational.
Besides, without the civil war, the Americans can withdraw to bases away from population centers. These bases had been planned and their planning revealed in the Washington Post. (Atwan refers to the Post article.) If they do, U.S. troops should become difficult to reach, and that much more difficult to dislodge. By keeping the civil war going, under the eyes of the world, the American troops would have no choice but to intervene to stop it at times, and to fuel it at others–whatever the necessity of the day, to remain on top of the Iraqi oil fields. In short, the civil war prevents the occupiers from opting to withdraw to faraway and isolated bases. They’re stuck policing a civil war. If they withdraw to bases in the desert, they would leave their collaborators exposed and defenseless. (One Iraqi politician recently told an Arab paper–anonymously–that the Iraqi politicians don’t trust their own guards or any army or police, even inside the Green Zone.) . Al Qaeda therefore needs to keep the civil war at high pitch, if only to disallow the harmful idiots from ordering the troops into isolated bases and to keep the cost high for the occupier.
Put differently, keeping the civil war ablaze is al Qaeda’s way to define the battle with the Americans, not the other way around.
Not that the Americans themselves are not trying–to re-define the parameters of the war. With the help of Jordan , Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, they have succeeded in splitting the Sunni clans in and around Ramadi from the al Qaeda. (Al Qaeda just attacked in Ramadi, after I’ve written this.) They’ve created enough tension between the two as to risk an all-out intra-Sunni civil war. But the threat of an intra-Sunni civil war, to al-Qeda, makes the Sunni-Shia civil war that much more needed, as a means of keeping the Sunni together. Al Qaeda kills Shia; Shia death squads retaliate against all Sunni, including Ramadi clans and Islamic Party (a Saudi proxy, by now) sympathizers. These seek revenge against the Shia, putting themselves once again in the same camp as al Qaeda.
THE CIVIL WAR INTERSECTS WITH THE UMMAWhere Mr. Atwan is helpful is in reminding us that al Qaeda is dedicated to bringing the
umma back together, whatever the tactics. Pushing his logic along, in the Iraqi context, I would say that waging a civil war with the Arab Shia, a good part of whom are linked intimately to Iran--many by necessity--brings in the
umma into Iraq, re-defining the border of the latter. It’s no longer Iraq; it’s no longer a Shia majority against a Sunni minority. It’s a huge sea of a Sunni
umma, extending from Indonesia to Mali and Nigeria, facing off with a Shia "minority."
And the
umma has responded generously with "foreign" fighters. These have made their way from distant lands to blow themselves up to defend the
umma. It’s no longer about Iraq. It’s about the Islamic
umma, now defined as Sunni, without the Shia, for what seems to be utilitarian reasons–to increase the cost of the war to the harmful idiots and bankrupt us. Later, however, when the Americans are out, once and for all, the Shia could be welcomed back into the fold.
It’s too early to venture a guess about whether they’d accept the invitation.
