Terrorist
attacks on civilians, whether the downing over Sinai of a Russian aircraft
killing 224 civilian passengers, the horrific Paris massacre claiming 129
innocent lives, or the tragic bombing in Ankara that killed 102 peace
activists, are crimes against humanity. Their perpetrators – in this case, the
Islamic State (ISIS) – must be stopped. Success will require a clear
understanding of the roots of this ruthless network of jihadists.
Painful as it is to admit, the
West, especially the United States, bears significant responsibility for creating the
conditions in which ISIS has flourished. Only a change in US and European
foreign policy vis-à-vis the Middle East can reduce the risk of further
terrorism.
The recent attacks should be
understood as “blowback terrorism”: a dreadful unintended result of repeated US
and European covert and overt military actions throughout the Middle East,
North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and Central Asia that aimed to overthrow
governments and install regimes compliant with Western interests. These
operations have not only destabilized the targeted regions, causing great
suffering; they have also put populations in the US, the European Union,
Russia, and the Middle East at significant risk of terror.
The public has never really been
told the true history of Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, or the rise of ISIS in Iraq
and Syria. Starting in 1979, the CIA mobilized, recruited, trained, and armed
Sunni young men to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The CIA recruited
widely from Muslim populations (including in Europe) to form the Mujahideen, a
multinational Sunni fighting force mobilized to oust the Soviet infidel from
Afghanistan.
Bin Laden, from a wealthy Saudi
family, was brought in to help lead and co-finance the operation. This was
typical of CIA operations: relying on improvised funding through a wealthy
Saudi family and proceeds from local smuggling and the narcotics trade.
By promoting the core vision of a
jihad to defend the lands of Islam (Dar al-Islam) from outsiders, the
CIA produced a hardened fighting force of thousands of young men displaced from
their homes and stoked for battle. It is this initial fighting force – and the
ideology that motivated it – that today still forms the basis of the Sunni
jihadist insurgencies, including ISIS. While the jihadists’ original target was
the Soviet Union, today the “infidel” includes the US, Europe (notably France
and the United Kingdom), and Russia.
At the end of the 1980s, with the
Soviet retreat from Afghanistan, some elements of the Mujahideen morphed into
Al Qaeda, Arabic for “the base,” which referred to the military facilities and
training grounds in Afghanistan built for the Mujahideen by bin Laden and the
CIA. After the Soviet withdrawal, the term Al Qaeda shifted meaning from the
specific military base to the organizational base of jihadist activities.
Blowback against the US began in
1990 with the first Gulf War, when the US created and expanded its military
bases in the Dar al-Islam, most notably in Saudi Arabia, the home of
Islam’s founding and holiest sites. This expanded US military presence was
anathema to the core jihadist ideology that the CIA had done so much to foster.
America’s unprovoked war on Iraq
in 2003 unleashed the demons. Not only was the war itself launched on the basis
of CIA lies; it also aimed to create a Shia-led regime subservient to the US
and anathema to the Sunni jihadists and the many more Sunni Iraqis who were
ready to take up arms. More recently, the US, France, and the UK toppled
Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya, and the US worked with the Egyptian generals who
ousted the elected Muslim Brotherhood government. In Syria, following President
Bashar al-Assad’s violent suppression of peaceful public protests in 2011, the
US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and other regional allies helped to foment a military
insurgency that has pushed the country into a downward spiral of chaos and
violence.
Such operations have failed –
repeatedly and frequently disastrously – to produce legitimate governments or
even rudimentary stability. On the contrary, by upending established, albeit
authoritarian, governments in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and destabilizing Sudan
and other parts of Africa deemed hostile to the West, they have done much to
fuel chaos, bloodshed, and civil war. It is this turmoil that has enabled ISIS
to capture and defend territory in Syria, Iraq, and parts of North Africa.
Three steps are needed to defeat
ISIS and other violent jihadists. First, US President Barack Obama should pull
the plug on CIA covert operations. The use of the CIA as a secret army of
destabilization has a long, tragic history of failure, all hidden from public
view under the agency’s cloak of secrecy. Ending CIA-caused mayhem would go far
to staunch the instability, violence, and anti-Western hatred that fuels
today’s terrorism.
Second, the US, Russia, and the
other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council should
immediately stop their infighting and establish a framework for Syrian peace.
They have a shared and urgent stake in confronting ISIS; all are victims of the
terror. Moreover, military action against ISIS can succeed only with the
legitimacy and backing of the UN Security Council.
The UN framework should include
an immediate end to the insurgency against Assad that the US, Saudi Arabia, and
Turkey have pursued; a Syrian cease-fire; a UN-mandated military force to
confront ISIS; and a political transition in Syria dictated not by the US, but
by a UN consensus to support a non-violent political reconstruction.
Finally, the long-term solution
to regional instability lies in sustainable development. The entire Middle East
is beset not only by wars but also by deepening development failures:
intensifying fresh water stress, desertification, high youth unemployment, poor
educational systems, and other serious blockages.
More wars – especially
CIA-backed, Western-led wars – will solve nothing. By contrast, a surge of
investment in education, health, renewable energy, agriculture, and
infrastructure, financed both from within the region and globally, is the real
key to building a more stable future for the Middle East and the world.
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