AMERICAN FOOTPRINTS= And Why Not? They Even Look the Same*

AMERICAN FOOTPRINTS

9/9/08

And Why Not? They Even Look the Same*

Eric Martin

This should be unremarkable news:

Al Qaeda has issued a video marking the September 11 attacks, in which deputy group leader Ayman al-Zawahri accuses Iran of taking part in a Western "Crusader" war against Islam, Al Jazeera television said on Monday. [...]

In a segment on the video aired by al Jazeera, Zawahri attacked Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, questioning the Islamic Republic's anti-Western stand.

"The (leader of Iran) collaborates with the Americans in occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and recognizes the puppet regimes in both countries, while he warns of death and destruction to anyone who touches an inch of Iranian soil," Zawahri said.

Al Qaeda, a militant Sunni Islamist group, often criticizes predominantly Shi'ite Iran, which has good relations with Afghanistan's anti-Taliban leaders and Iraq's Shi'ite-led government.

I say this should be unremarkable because al-Qaeda and Iran have visions of the world that are in direct conflict. al-Qaeda, for example, wants to incite the overthrow of regimes led by apostate leaders throughout the Muslim world (which, to them, includes portions of Spain and Asia that were previously under Muslim rule). al-Qaeda's definition of apostasy in this regard amounts to the failure to adhere to a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam (the Salafi interpretation). This made the relatively secular Saddam Hussein a prime target of al-Qaeda. Considering that Iran is a Shiite theocracy (not just insufficiently "pious" in the Sunni-Salafist sense, but not Sunni at all!), one can extrapolate the regard for which al-Qaeda holds Iran's leaders (and citizens).

But one doesn't need to extrapolate alone. The Taliban in Afghanistan was the closest modern day example of the al-Qaeda ideal of piety in terms of ruling regime. The Taliban were, predictably, hostile toward Iran and brutally repressive of the Shiite minority in Afghanistan. Iran, in turn, cooperated closely with the US during the early stages of the US-led Afghan campaign in order to aid in the ouster of the Taliban.

Despite this backstory, Thoreau at Unqualified Offerings caught one pundit treating the Reuters story linked above as some harbinger of a fragmentation within the ranks of a monolithic "Islamofascist" front (a splintering brought about by the US invasion of Iraq, naturally). As if al-Qaeda and Iran were longtime allies that had begun turning on each other due to the guile of the Bush administration.

At the risk of stating the obvious (it passes for wisdom these days), it is absolutely essential that we take the time to differentiate between factions, groups, nations, ethnicities and religious sects in our attempt to implement sound and effective counterterrorism policy. Enough to recognize that Iran and al-Qaeda, while perhaps willing to cooperate in some limited way in certain discrete contexts (possibly), are adversaries that should not be lumped together.

While it's understandable that some pundits might not be entirely familiar with the basic al-Qaeda/Iran animosity, it is much less forgivable that John McCain, the supposed foreign policy "master," can't seem to keep these two distinct groups separate. Repeatedly.


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