Alone Again, Naturally

While the Western World has deep concerns over terrorist cells operating in its midst, threatening London as much as New York, the American perspective – still known as “America’s war on terror” despite efforts to change that name – appears to be a directive that the rest of the world is stepping away from. Europeans, who definitely have militant Islamists in their midst, are desperately reliant on oil shipments from the Middle East, notwithstanding oil reserves in the North Sea. They are happy that the United States is running around killing “terrorists,” alienating Arab neighbors, absorbing the blame, but they equally grateful that they can shrug their shoulders and say, “not me.”

Al Qaeda’s extreme views lost virtually all of its popular support in the Middle East with its seemingly indiscriminate murderous agenda. It killed a whole lot more Muslims than “Western foreign devils” in its determination to impose a global Sunni theocracy. The American focus on al Qaeda, killing off its leadership at every turn, has also helped pushed it out of most Middle Eastern countries, although they are hoping to reignite in places like Yemen and Nigeria.

Reacting to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recent statements at the U.N. on September 11^th that the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11 was part of a self-inflicted American plot to provide justification for its forays into Iraq and Afghanistan, al Qaeda – which takes pride in having orchestrated these attacks – responded in its English language magazine: “‘The Iranian government has professed on the tongue of its president Ahmadinejad that it does not believe that al-Qaida was behind 9/11 but rather, the US government,’ the article said, according to Iranian media. ‘So we may ask the question: why would Iran ascribe to such a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence?’” The Guardian, September 28^th. Sunni al Qaeda is indeed hostile to Shiite Iran. Al Qaeda struggles to sustain its identity in a world that increasingly has marginalized their existence.

When American drones attacked a Yemeni convoy and killed American born Muslim cleric and al Qaeda troublemaker/propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki on September 30^th, this local reaction was typical: “‘I don’t know why he was important, except that he was a terrorist,’ said Belal Masood, who works in a restaurant in Sana’s [Yemen’s capital] old city. ‘But maybe this will create a problem for us Yemenis, because when you strike Al Qaeda they normally strike back larger. Really, we wish they could have killed him in another country.’

“Another man, Walid Seneb, who was sitting on a street curb with three friends on Friday night, said, ‘We don’t like these terrorists who make problems for us. Mr. Seneb was the only one of the four men who had heard of the cleric’s death… ‘But right now there are worse problems,’ he said. ‘Our national crisis is the biggest problem. There is no water, electricity, everything from the government stopped.’” New York Times, September 30^th. With a war-torn civil war pitting a rebel commander against an unpopular dictator/ President Ali Abdulleh Saleh tearing the country apart, the fact that Saleh’s forces provided the relevant information to the CIA to enable the attack was perceived by many as America’s siding with this failing incumbent.

Al Qaeda’s festering unpopularity is particularly evident in a country with an estimated 150 million Muslims (out of 1.2 billion), India. Regionally surrounded by al Qaeda and Taliban forces in neighboring Pakistan and nearby Afghanistan, there has never been a single documented connection between any Indian Muslim and al Qaeda. Yet, notwithstanding a strong and very positive relationship with the United States, India also has good relations with Iran, and is not particularly sympathetic to American efforts to contain that nation’s nuclear program. India has been attacked by Muslim terrorists many times, but apparently entire at the behest of its traditional enemy to the north, Pakistan, and not from internal “al Qaeda” sources. Their “live and let live” philosophy is the driving force in their foreign policy, as opposed to the American “if you are not with us, you are against us” mentality.

Our obsession with the seemingly self-extinguishing flame known as al Qaeda is a sign of weakness to the rest of the world. We have to take our shoes off when we walk through airport checkpoints; almost no one else does. The ban on liquids is not uniformly imposed in all international venues outside the U.S. While we do have to be vigilant against rogue extremists who mean to do us harm, we have altered our way of life, restricted our own travel preferences, spent half a billion dollars on the Department of Homeland Security, spent a deficit-crushing $1.2 trillion plus military benefits that will be paid for decades on two wars that have inflicted massive collateral damage, suborned torture (e.g., water boarding, which we considered torture when we sentenced a Japanese guard for using the technique during WWII), altered our view of personal freedom under the Patriot Act (many provisions of which have been deemed to be unconstitutional), handed the effective political control of Iraq to an Iran-friendly Shiite majority government and alienated more people all over the world by appearing to be a bullying superpower.

Our over-zealous pursuit of al Qaeda, literally forcing many other nations in the world to lose aid or favored trading status unless they joined the effort, has deflated our ability to generate international policies that might help us. We have moved ourselves into a perception as a lone cowboy unable to work in true partnership with other nations to solve global problems. While we must protect ourselves from such attacks and respond accordingly, we have long since lost sufficient credibility to get the rest of the world to join in our efforts. We have forgotten how to motivate other nations to help us, believing somehow that American “righteousness” gives us the right to demand and require it. And as result, American foreign policy is literally at its lowest level of effectiveness since World War II. If we want to cut back on unsustainable military expenditures that are concomitant with going it alone (which could destroy our economic ability to survive as a nation), we need to learn how to work with other nations as a partner. Or we can simply let al Qaeda gloat that whatever happens to them, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams of forcing Americans to inflict vastly more damage on themselves that al Qaeda could ever have wished. They honestly believe that they tipped the first domino towards our total destruction and could not be more delighted with how we amplified their initial efforts towards our own purported demise.

I’m Peter Dekom, and each American really needs to ask him or herself if unilateral American action in this foreign policy excess has really generated the kind of national safety that makes us stronger and more successful.