Remembering 11 September
Is the terrorist threat receding or acquiring new dimensions? asks
Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
Two years ago today, the world was caught completely by surprise at the terrorist attacks against the twin towers of the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. It is the element of surprise, as much as the tragic loss of life, that has made the event stick in our memories. After all, it was by no means the first terrorist act to target innocent lives, albeit the first of such magnitude. But none gripped the imagination as strongly as 9/11, not only because it was the first time commercial airliners had been used as human bombs, with devastating effect, but because an act that must have taken months to prepare was sprung on a totally unprepared world. A new sense of vulnerability took hold, as the realisation set in that if such a complex operation proved feasible once, repeat performances would almost certainly follow. The implications of the 9/11 attacks went far beyond the destruction they wrought on their targets; indeed, they introduced a new element to the international political landscape.
Of the four planes used in the synchronised attack, only three reached their target. What if the fourth had succeeded in hitting what was widely supposed to be its target, namely, the White House? And what if the president of the United States was in his office at the time? The world suddenly realised that what was sometimes depicted in disaster movies as the worst-case scenario had become a very real possibility.
The second surprise was the scope of the operation. Not many people around the world had heard of Al-Qa'eda before 11 September. Suddenly we discovered that it was a vast terrorist network with tentacles stretching all over the world. Was Al-Qa'eda really as extensive as it has been made out to be, or was its influence and scope exaggerated to justify the otherwise inexplicable failure of intelligence services to predict the 11 September raids? Were a number of terrorist organisations being attributed to one central command under the leadership of one man, Osama Bin Laden? To this day, there is nothing to prove that the various militants attributed to Al-Qa'eda all belong to a single organisational network. If in fact the Al-Qa'eda connection has been blown up out of proportion as a face-saving device, this can only be counter- productive, adding as it does to the world's feelings of helplessness in the face of a seemingly omnipotent enemy.
The third surprise came from the ability of terrorism, which is usually regarded as an activity practiced in non-developed surroundings by backward people, to use state-of-the-art technology in a highly sophisticated manner. How to explain this duality between ultra-conservatism in mental and social habits on the one hand and ultra-modernism when it comes to the use of weapons to fight the opponents of these habits on the other?
To admit that surprise was the main characteristic of the operation is to tacitly admit a significant amount of ignorance, an inexcusable lack of information in the context of an Information Revolution unprecedented in history. In any case, a surprising effect of 9/11 is the huge interest it has generated in Islam in the West. Islam has coexisted with the Western world, with its cultures and value-systems for centuries, but it is only after the 11 September events that Islam has become an object of such intense interest. Not since the Crusades has Islam been depicted as a culture and value-system that is, by definition, violent and aggressive. Why this sudden change in perception? Is it that something basic has changed in the Islamic world, or is it in the Western world that elements of fundamental change have occurred?
One decade before 11 September, the world system which had been in place since the end of World War II ended with the breakdown of the Berlin Wall. The wall was arguably the most potent symbol of the Cold War, and its disappearance signaled the end of a world system based on bipolarity in which the overkill capability enjoyed by the two superpowers served to ensure that neither would resort to armed conflict. With the demise of the Soviet Union, and the end of mutual deterrence, the US was free to flex its military muscles when and where it pleased, against whoever it perceived as an enemy. This, of course, applied to the perpetrators of the 11 September events. It was difficult to convince the Bush administration that it was wiser to keep the solution of the crisis within the confines of the United Nations. Bush went to war without UN approval, thus dividing the Security Council and creating a situation where resolving the crisis became more complicated than ever.
It is becoming increasingly clear that terrorism is a phenomenon that cannot be fought by military means alone. Terrorism is a syndrome of a deeper malaise, a manifestation of an acute crisis in the world system itself. As long as the world is divided into haves and have-nots, there will always exist people deeply dissatisfied with the world order and ready to rebel against it. Uprooting terrorism cannot be resolved only by repressing and eliminating terrorists, but will also require the introduction of fundamental changes in the world system that will convince all parties concerned that terrorism is detrimental to all. However, instead of adopting a holistic approach to the problem, instead of investigating and addressing the deep-rooted causes of the modern scourge of international terrorism, Washington opted for the short-sighted decision to fight fire with fire, to exact revenge for the unacceptable challenge to its global supremacy. So far, the results of its enterprise have served only to confirm that terrorism has become a greater threat than ever.
The first step in its campaign against terrorism was the war in Afghanistan which, until today, cannot be regarded as a conclusive success. Then came the war on Iraq, which has continued to rage long after it was officially declared over. No direct link between the Saddam regime and Al- Qa'eda has ever been established. At any rate, the justification given for the war was not the pursuit of terrorists but the threat posed by Iraq's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Although the coalition forces have had the free run of the country for over four months now, no such weapons have been discovered. In other words, the war was launched and Iraq invaded and occupied without justification. Questions are now being raised in both the United States and the United Kingdom as to the truth of allegations made at the time that Iraq presented a clear and present danger to their security. The situation is particularly critical in Britain, where the judicial inquiry into the apparent suicide of weapons expert David Kelly, the source of a BBC report which accused the government of "sexing up" an intelligence dossier on Iraq with dubious information, is facing Tony Blair with the most serious challenge yet to his government.
Since the war 'ended', there have been more US casualties than during the period of all-out hostilities. More ominously, the attacks are no longer directed only at the occupation forces. There has been the suicide bus bombing of the United Nations Baghdad headquarters, which killed 17 people including UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, followed by the Al-Najaf bombing which killed more than 90 people, including Shi'ite leader Baqir Al-Hakim. These recent events are driving home the point that the war is far from over and that, if anything, violence is on the rise. It would be more accurate to say that a first round of the war is over and that we are now entering a second round with new characteristics.
In this second round, the situation could well degenerate into further chaos, into an all-out bloody civil war. It is clear that the remnants of the Saddam regime have launched a systematic campaign to sabotage Iraq's infrastructure and impede reconstruction efforts. It is also clear that a fierce battle is underway over the fate of the Interim Governing Council (IGC), which was appointed by the occupying power to guarantee that the occupation remain in place for as long as the Bush administration considers it necessary. The IGC has created an Iraqi government. Is this body going to consolidate the grip of the occupying power over Iraq or create conditions that would free Iraq from this grip? Will it deepen anti- American feelings or help dissipate them, restore legitimacy to Iraq or further violate it?
Both the raid against the UN headquarters in Iraq and the assassination of the moderate Shi'ite cleric Baqir Al-Hakim are signals that the civil war scenario is more likely than finding a way out of the mess through moderation and the consolidation of Iraq's legitimacy and sovereignty. That is the deep meaning behind an attack designed to deepen the rift between Sunnis and Shi'ites but also, and more specifically, behind the attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad. Without United Nations participation, there can be no return to Iraq's sovereignty, nor, for that matter, any possibility of solving the legitimacy crisis that stands as a major obstacle in the way of Iraq's return to normality.
It has become more crucial than ever to understand that the key to solving the problem of terrorism lies in eliminating the reasons why the phenomenon has acquired such dimensions, which are embedded in the world system itself, and not only in the physical elimination of the terrorists, whether individuals or organised networks.
