Should we destroy Al Qaeda?

[Dayuhan]

AQ's may fight foreign militaries when they come into the region, but their fight is not "against foreign military intervention." It is your position on this point that is unsupported by evidence. Foreign militaries are a convenient target of opportunity to carry forward his larger agenda.

I'm not talking about bin Laden's aspirations or his agenda. That needn't concern us. What does concern us is what has actually worked for him, the tactics and narratives that have actually produced results.

As for evidence, AQ's dramatic decline after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan is well documented, as is AQ's failure to generate any significant traction in his calls for action against the Saudi government. AQ has only succeeded in drawing support when they fight foreign military intervention: regardless of their aspirations, that's what actually sustains them.

Conditions of insurgency have been sky high in most of the countries that bin Laden carries his message to for decades; but with the populaces held in check by the security forces of these despotic governments. This is what created the fertile fields of populaces for the seeds of bin Laden's message to take root in. If the people had been satisfied in their situation, then bin Laden's efforts would have had little effect. This is the nature of UW. You can't start a fire if the fuel is wet. A satisfied populace is like wet fuel, it just doesn't ignite very easy.

This makes superficial sense, but it does not explain the evident reality that bin Laden's message has not in fact taken root in these countries. To the contrary, bin Laden has never gained significant leverage in efforts to overthrow Arab governments. He gets support and admiration when he fights the noble jihad against the invading infidel somewhere far away, but when he brings the message home it falls flat. Bin Laden's efforts to raise rebellion in places like Saudi Arabia have had little effect, not because the populace is satisfied but because they don't see him offering a viable alternative. The conservative clergy may support his efforts abroad but they don't want him messing in their pond domestically, they see him as a loose cannon and as competition. Even in the oil glut years of the mid to late 90s, when circumstances seemed ideal for AQ, they were unable to draw enough support to even think about effective action against the government. It just didn't work for them, and it wasn't just because of repression: we saw in Iran and we've seen elsewhere that if the populace buys the message repression can be overwhelmed. The populaces involved just didn't buy AQ's message.

Ok, I would not call such events "accidents," but Galula wrote from the perspective of a man who had lived his entire life as a colonist or as a military officer dealing with insurgencies in his country's colonies. This colored his perceptions; but what he calls "existence of a revolutionary situation" in his example countries are what I call "conditions of insurgency." The fuel is stacked high and waiting for a spark. The "accident" is that event that suddenly ignites the fire of populace discontent without warning.

Agreed, but events in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya have little or nothing to do with AQ. AQ didn't inspire them and there's little to no evidence that AQ is drawing any leverage from them.

The fuel was and is tender dry and stacked high across the Middle East, and bin Laden has been conducting UW much like a state, but with the beneficial sanctuary that comes from being a non-state actor. With no state to be held at risk it allows a little guy to play on the big stage with the big guys.

AQ has tried to conduct UW against governments in the Middle East, but they've had very little success. Again, the only thing that's really worked for them is opposition to foreign military intervention their UW efforts against indigenous government have for the most part fallen pretty flat.

But to your point, if one waits until they have "evidence" in this social science of human dynamics and perceptions, one is likely to get burned, as the first evidence is often a bright flash not unlike a match landing in a gasoline soaked pile of brush.

If one acts on the basis of unsupported assumption, one is almost certain to be burned.

In any event we cannot disempower AQ by ending despotism in the Middle East and Africa. We don't even know that ending despotism would disempower AQ, and we don't have the power to end despotism in any event. We do have the ability to remove AQ's most effective narrative from play by reducing our tendency toward sustained occupation of places where we've thought it necessary to intervene. We might also do well to assess proposed interventions a bit more carefully, since they are as likely to help our enemies as to harm them.

[Bob's World]

"AQ's dramatic decline after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan is well documented, as is AQ's failure to generate any significant traction in his calls for action against the Saudi government. AQ has only succeeded in drawing support when they fight foreign military intervention: regardless of their aspirations, that's what actually sustains them."

The Soviets withdrew in Feb '89, which coincides with the birth, not the decline of AQ. You've posted this position before, it confused me then, it confuses me now. AQ grew out of the Soviet invasion, but did not exist because of it, but rather it came to exist I believe because men like bin Laden came to realize from the experience of facing down the Soviets that they were not hopeless in facing Western nations exerting their influence onto Muslim populaces.

What really gave AQ legs was the following year when bin Laden offered his services to the King of Saudi Arabia to defend against Saddam continuing his advance from Kuwait, and his rejection and the subsequent decision by the King to bring even greater Western influence into the region instead to perform that role.

As to "traction against the Saudi government" your position here is factually way off base as well. It is a matter of public record that average and elite Saudi citizens are the primary source of funding to AQ. it is a matter of public record that Saudi citizens made up the bulk of the 9/11 attackers as well as the bulk of the foreign fighters that form the core of every aspect of AQ's operations, from fighters to admin. It is also a matter of public record that the Saudi government has been aggressively suppressing every hint of subversion and insurgency at home, aggressively nipping in the bud any effort to organize at movement there; from last weeks "day of rage" to the 110 AQ members rolled up last March coming in from sanctuary in Yemen to wage attacks (there is little good terrain to hide in in Saudi Arabia, and the government eyes and ears are too good to hide among the people); 700 detained in 2008 as terrorists, with only 200 later released; and 6 cells totaling 200 in 2007. Plus countless, nameless others rolled up without warrant, held without charge, and treated without rights. Anyone who cannot see that AQ inspired insurgency is alive and well in the Saudi populace is blind to the realities of insurgency and the realities of what the indicators of high level conditions of insurgency look like in countries where the populaces are so rigorously monitored and controlled as they are in these Middle Eastern Kingdoms..

As to operations against foreign militaries? That has been no more than a target of opportunity that we offered up; not the central point of his campaign, but rather an opportunity to advance his campaign.

As to "bin Laden's message taking root" this statement misunderstands the role UW and the role of ideology by a UW actor. What the people what is liberty, respect and justice. Not as measured in the American Heartland, but as measured in their respective Muslim cultures. Ideology does not create insurgency or turn people into insurgents. Ideology does not "radicalize" people, it is government action that radicalizes people. Once so radicalized by government, they are then open to listen to the motivational message of such ideologies that encourage them to act. bin Laden is not causing any of this, he is just taking advantage of it. He is like an Adolf Hitler. A man of his times; and if not him it would be someone else filling this role. If he is killed, if Hitler had been killed, someone else would have stepped up eventually to leverage those same conditions.

The German people were "radicalized" by the Treaty of Versailles and its effects on their national Psyche. The Depression, and the rise of Nazism, and the personality of Hitler all merely piled onto that original base of radicalization. Similarly bin Laden, AQ and Islamism pile onto the base radicalization of the nature of governance in the Middle East and the nature of Western influence in the Middle East.

In other words, AQ and bin Laden are largely tactical symptoms of the much larger strategic problem. If "defeated" will be replaced in time so long as the larger strategic base of the problem persists. That is why these movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and across the region are so strategically important; as unlike anything the US has done in the GWOT to date, these events cut to the strategic core of the problem we confront.

[Dayuhan]

The Soviets withdrew in Feb '89, which coincides with the birth, not the decline of AQ. You've posted this position before, it confused me then, it confuses me now.

The organization may not have been called "Al Qaeda" until 1988/89, but it existed well before then. Everything that allowed AQ to function - the foreign fighter recruitment and transit networks, the funding networks, the contacts with groups around the world, OB's personal reputation as a jihadi, and more - grew out of the anti-Soviet jihad. "AQ" didn't appear out of a vacuum in '89, it was a new designation applied to an entity that had been in place and functioning for some time.

men like bin Laden came to realize from the experience of facing down the Soviets that they were not hopeless in facing Western nations exerting their influence onto Muslim populaces.

"Facing western nations exerting their influence onto Muslim populaces" is only half the picture, or less than half. AQ's struggle is not just to break western influence, but to impose their own influence in its place, and that's been the single largest factor preventing them from gaining support in their efforts to dislodge Muslim governments. Even populaces that don't care for their governments show little desire to be governed by AQ.

What really gave AQ legs was the following year when bin Laden offered his services to the King of Saudi Arabia to defend against Saddam continuing his advance from Kuwait, and his rejection and the subsequent decision by the King to bring even greater Western influence into the region instead to perform that role.

Certainly that was a major factor for bin Laden, who took it rather poorly. It was not a controversial or widely opposed decision in the Kingdom at the time: very few had any illusions about AQ's ability to defend the nation from Saddam. Resentment over the US presence did grow later: the Americans overstayed their welcome, and with Saddam no longer poised on the border and the nation suffering the effects of the oil glut there was a general sense that the force was an imposition, likely with dubious motives.

As to "traction against the Saudi government" your position here is factually way off base as well. It is a matter of public record that average and elite Saudi citizens are the primary source of funding to AQ. it is a matter of public record that Saudi citizens made up the bulk of the 9/11 attackers as well as the bulk of the foreign fighters that form the core of every aspect of AQ's operations, from fighters to admin.

Yes, Saudis have been very supportive of AQ's struggle against infidel intrusion in Muslim lands. Have they been supportive of his struggle against tne Saudi government? Look at what can be measured. From the Soviet withdrawal to the declaration of jihad against the US, inspiring a revolt against the Saudi government was AQ's #1 mission. How did that work for them? Per Leah Farrell in Foreign Affairs:

By mid-1996, al Qaeda was a shell of an organization, reduced to some 30 members. Facing irrelevance and fearing that a movement of Islamist militants was rising outside of his control, bin Laden decided a “blessed jihad” was necessary. He declared war on the United States

Obviously the anti-Saudi jihad didn't work very well.

Blaming this on repression is an evasion. Ayatollah Khomeini was able to inspire a revolution from exile, despite an equally active repressive apparatus, by mailing cassette tapes to supporters. His populace bought the message. AQ was able to sell the message to a relatively small core, but beyond that it just didn't fly. There are a lot of reasons for that, but two stand out. First, he was selling an Islamic jihad, but he was never able to win the support of the clergy, who may have had issues with the royals but saw AQ and bin Laden as dangerous upstarts with no real Islamic credentials. Second, he was trying to sell overthrow of the royals to a deeply conservative population, and strange though it may seem to an American, there's still a very deep reserve of respect for the royal institutions in the conservative side of the Saudi populace, and an equally deep fear that removing those institutions could create chaos. Again, it seems strange to Americans, but there are people out there who fear instability more than they fear tyranny.

Anyone who cannot see that AQ inspired insurgency is alive and well in the Saudi populace is blind to the realities of insurgency and the realities of what the indicators of high level conditions of insurgency look like in countries where the populaces are so rigorously monitored and controlled as they are in these Middle Eastern Kingdoms..

Is that based on current observation? The 1990s are long gone... or are we assuming that the all populaces everywhere want the same things that Americans want?

As to operations against foreign militaries? That has been no more than a target of opportunity that we offered up; not the central point of his campaign, but rather an opportunity to advance his campaign.

Agreed, but it's the only target that's given them any results. That matters. I also wouldn't say "we offered up" that target. We were deliberately baited into offering it up by a group that knew it could not survive without an invading infidel to justify their existence.

As to "bin Laden's message taking root" this statement misunderstands the role UW and the role of ideology by a UW actor. What the people what is liberty, respect and justice.

Possibly so, though I think you severely underestimate the populace's fear of sudden or radical change. The populace clearly knows, though that they are not ever going to get liberty, respect, and justice from AQ or bin Laden, so that's not something we need to worry about. If they thought he'd get them what they want, he wouldn't have been run down to a shell of a group and 30 members at the end of his efforts to overthrow the Saudi government.

Osama gets admiration, respect, and support when he's the Muslim who sticks it to the pinks. That's the narrative and the role that works for him. He's tried others, but they have failed, rather dramatically.

In other words, AQ and bin Laden are largely tactical symptoms of the much larger strategic problem. If "defeated" will be replaced in time so long as the larger strategic base of the problem persists. That is why these movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and across the region are so strategically important; as unlike anything the US has done in the GWOT to date, these events cut to the strategic core of the problem we confront.

Do you believe that a post-Mubarak Egypt will cease to provide support and recruits for AQ? Do you believe that a post-Saudi Saudi Arabia would cease to provide recruits and support? I personally tend to doubt it.

If we could somehow conjure up "good governance" throughout the Muslim world, that might cause problems for AQ... though what we call "good governance" would be utterly abhorrent to much of AQ's support base and might very well leave them with more support. The question in any event is abstract, because we can't change the way governments work in the Muslim world. We don't have that capacity. What we do have is the power to deny AQ their most successful narrative and simultaneously reduce our own expenses and commitments by not engaging in extended occupation of Muslim countries. It does us no good at all, and it helps AQ a great deal.

Certainly AQ gets fueled to some degree by bad governance in the Muslim world. That's not within our control, and we don't have the capacity to deny them that fuel. To an equal and likely greater extent, AQ draws support from from our long-term occupations of Muslim lands: and that we do have the power to control. Why should we not focus on causative factors that are within our power to influence?