al-Qa’ida: is war the answer? from MEC Analytical Group

MEC Analytical Group

9 January 2010

al-Qa’ida: is war the answer?

Two articles: Patrick Seale for the first article below, which calls for a political rather than a military strategy to deal with the al-Qa’ida phenomenon in all the territories in which it is active; and second article by Bernard Haykel published in the Abu Dhabi newspaper the National, which concentrates on Yemen and suggests a role for the Gulf Arab states.


War on Four Fronts
By Patrick Seale
8 January 2010

President Barack Obama’s war on al-Qaeda is assuming awesome dimensions. From Afghanistan, the war first spread to the tribal regions of Pakistan, before returning more recently to Yemen nd Somalia, with further forays deep into the wastes of sub-Saharan Africa.

These territories, where wars are now being waged, have several features in common: they are Muslim, tribal and poor, and much of their home territory happens to be wild and inhospitable, with little modern infrastructure. Weighed down by cumbersome logistics, Western armies are at a disadvantage against tribal fighters, who tend to be fleet-of-foot, lightly armed and indistinguishable from civilians.

There is no doubt that al-Qaeda poses a security threat to the United States. The most recent demonstration was the Christmas Day attempt by a young Nigerian to ignite explosives on a U.S. ommercial aircraft. Fortunately, he was overpowered by other passengers, allowing the plane to land safely at Detroit.

Equally, there is no doubt that Barack Obama must make war on such militants, and seek to destroy them, with all the power at his command. American opinion – and his duty as commander-n-chief -- demands nothing less.

All is not plain sailing, however. Many experts believe that provoking the West into attacking Muslim countries is precisely al-Qaeda’s strategy – indeed that acts of terrorism like the one the young Nigerian attempted are intended to draw the U.S. and its allies into wars which are, by their very nature, unwinnable. If this view is correct then 9/11 was the biggest trap of all, since it triggered America’s war in Afghanistan and its invasion and occupation of Iraq. These catastrophic campaigns, with their fearsome cost in men and treasure, and their devastating impact on the civilian population of the countries concerned, have overstretched the U.S. armed forces and bankrupted America, morally and financially.

It would seem that far from weakening al-Qaeda, every missile strike by an American drone, every lethal raid on a village, every door kicked in and the privacy of a house violated, inflames anti-American sentiment and draws recruits into al-Qaida’s ranks – especially when there are civilian casualties, as there invariably are.

The question must, therefore, be posed whether military force alone is the best way to defeat a dangerous enemy. Should American hopes of victory lie in the further deployment of troops in fghanistan; in clandestine operations by Special Forces; in remote-controlled missile attacks, in pouring American money, training and equipment into Pakistan and Yemen to urge them to confront the militants? Or should priority be given to other means -- more political and economic -- to isolate and neutralise al-Qaeda’s fighters? According to most experts, al-Qaeda’s numbers are still small, counted in the hundreds, rather than the thousands, but they are increasing.

In wars of this sort, two powerful mobilising agents are at work, which draw men into militancy. The first is the perceived need to defend Islam against the aggression of infidels; although tribes are notorious for feuding, they will unite against a common enemy, especially if they are called to do so under the banner of Islam. The second is the all-pervasive tribal code which dictates that attacks from outside cannot be left unpunished. Retaliation is a central fact of tribal life. If a member of your tribe, clan or family is killed, his death must be avenged.

In Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, tribal traditions are still very powerful. They provide the basis for tribal solidarity. The tribe or clan is the ultimate focus of loyalty, rather than the nation. Seeking to impose a Western model of society on such countries by force of arms is to court defeat.

On Al-Jazeerah the other night, a plainly nervous Yemeni foreign minister, Abou Baker al-Qerbi, made clear that his country did not want foreign intervention. It needed economic aid and military equipment, but not American troops. Although he did not spell it out, his meaning was plain. American air strikes destabilise and discredit the Yemeni government by portraying it as a stooge of Washington. Exactly the same phenomenon can be observed in Pakistan’s tribal areas where the Pakistan army is seen as waging war against its own people on America’s behalf.

Gregory Johnsen is an expert on Yemen at Princeton University. His views are worth considering. Military strikes, he said in a discussion with salon.com, ‘need to come at the end of the process, when al-Qaeda has been isolated from the population, when its rhetoric has been discredited, not at the beginning of the process, when al-Qaeda members are still seen as pious individuals defending their faith.’

Johnsen warns against considering all hard-line Muslims as members of al-Qaeda. ‘If you want to broaden the war out, and target all of these people, or say that they’re all al-Qaeda, then you’re opening yourself up to a war that you can never end, because you’re just fighting way too many people in Yemen.’ Before America attacks, he recommends that it ‘narrow this point of who exactly is al-Qaeda to as small as it can possibly be.’

His basic point is that a military approach needs to be coupled with a development approach, because it is poverty, unemployment, a corrupt government and a general sense of hopelessness that cause young men to take up arms against America and its allies.

High-level international meetings are to be held in London on 28 January to examine the situation in both Afghanistan and Yemen. No doubt the emphasis will be on counter-terrorism. It might perhaps be wiser if priority were given to devising a political exit strategy from these conflict zones.

In Afghanistan and Yemen, mediation by influential neighbours or by respected individuals – such as the former Algerian foreign minister and veteran negotiator Lakhdar Brahimi – could help to bring about a ceasefire, so as to provide space in which differences can be aired, governments restructured and conflicts resolved.

It seems clear that President Obama’s expanding war against al-Qaeda is leading America deeper into a quagmire. I have long argued that he needs to apply political shock-therapy to the conflict in Afghanistan, rather than the shock of war. The same applies to Yemen, a country of mountains and powerful tribes, much like Pakistan. Obama urgently needs to change America’s image in the Muslim world from that of an enemy to that of a partner.

When he came to power a year ago, he tried to do just that. But like George W Bush before him – he has fallen into al-Qaeda’s trap.

Act locally: why the GCC needs to help save Yemen

January 07. 2010

The failed terrorist attack on an American aeroplane by a Nigerian man trained by al Qa’eda in Yemen has rapidly focused the world’s attention on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Apparently overnight, Yemen has been deemed al Qa’eda’s new headquarters – “a base for terrorist attacks far beyond the region”, in the words of Hillary Clinton.

Yemen’s problems, however, go well beyond the fact that it has become a refuge for a few hundred al Qa’eda fighters: the crumbling state poses a possible menace to the Gulf region – and it is in the Gulf rather than Washington that a durable solution must be forged.

Yemen is teetering on the verge of collapse – but not because of al Qa’eda’s long-standing presence. After three decades of bad governance, Yemen remains one of the poorest countries in the world. It suffers from all the ills of underdevelopment: an unrestrained demographic explosion, non-existent or poor social services, depletion of underground water and oil resources, rampant corruption, authoritarian and unaccountable government and, finally, the official promotion of an intolerant version of Sunni Islam not too dissimilar from that of al Qa’eda.

Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled the united country since 1990, and its northern portion since 1978, has obstructed the formation of proper governing institutions, preferring instead a highly personal style of rule defined by networks of patronage and clientelism. Oil revenues and funds from outside donors have lubricated this purposefully unstable political machine, but its gears are now grinding loudly as money dries up and the structural impediments of underdevelopment take their toll.

To make matters worse, an armed rebellion led by Zaydi Shiites, the Houthis, has been ongoing since 2004 and a secessionist movement is gathering force among the country’s southern citizens. There is even dissent within the ruling clique, with some of Saleh’s relatives unhappy about plans to have his son succeed him. Al Qa’eda is also present, and more organised of late, but the Yemeni government has had a complicated relationship with the jihadists since the early 1990s, and we should not automatically assume that they are the state’s enemy or even its first priority.

The regime in Sanaa, like those in Riyadh and Washington, was fully supportive of the effort to recruit Arab volunteers to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Yemenis joined in droves, and pulpits in the 1980s and 1990s pulsed to the drumbeat of the righteous jihad, first in Afghanistan and then in Bosnia, Chechnya and Kashmir.

As a result, a high percentage of al Qa’eda’s recruits hail from Yemen, including many of Osama bin Laden’s personal bodyguards. Al Qa’eda’s first-ever armed attack took place in Yemen in 1992, targeting US Marines passing through Aden on their way to Somalia; the culprits were never brought to justice.

In the early 1990s Saleh used the so-called Arab-Afghan jihadis as fighters and assassins against his socialist enemies, the erstwhile partners in the country’s unification in 1990. This strategy that culminated in the 1994 civil war, which Sanaa won with the active participation of Salafi-Jihadis. The state’s relationship with the militants did not cease with the close of the civil war: according to Nasir al Bahri, one of Bin Laden’s men now living in Yemen, Saleh approached the jihadists after 2004 to seek their assistance in the war against the Zaydis in the north.

The state’s break with al Qa’eda has only taken place in the past three to four years, after a younger and much more radical generation of fighters arrived in Yemen after fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These younger ideologues regard Saleh’s government as illegitimate and refer to it as an apostate regime that colludes with the so-called “Crusader-Zionist alliance” led by the United States.

But the renascent al Qa’eda in Yemen may be the least threatening of the many challenges facing the government. Saleh is now trumpeting the presence of al Qa’eda to garner financial and military support from the West, but the funds and arms now being sent from Washington may be deployed against more threatening enemies, like the Houthis, or used to maintain the patronage networks that keep Saleh in power.

American involvement in Yemen is not a new development: the US has been targeting al Qa’eda in Yemen since the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. One of the first al Qa’eda leaders to be targeted by an American drone strike, Abu Ali al-Harithi, was killed in Yemen in 2002, and the US has trained and armed a commando force under the leadership of Saleh’s son and presumed heir, Ahmad. Last month the US participated in two separate attacks against suspected al Qa’eda sites in Yemen, and in the aftermath of the Detroit incident Washington is abuzz with calls for increased funding and more direct military involvement. But this would be a grave mistake, and not only because armed intervention on behalf of the Yemeni government would appear to confirm al Qa’eda’s chosen narrative, in which the US is a vile anti-Muslim power that seeks to strengthen and maintain corrupt and illegitimate regimes at all costs, including the death of countless innocent civilians, while denying Muslims freedom and just governance. The United States and its western allies cannot defeat al Qa’eda in Yemen with military force; only Muslims, and their states, can win this war.

Indeed, it is for Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states that Yemen poses the most serious problem: a failed Yemen, with an active al Qa’eda presence and a radicalised and impoverished population is first and foremost a threat to its neighbours. An opportunity now exists for GCC states to take the lead in addressing the problems in Yemen, beginning with a major mediation effort to end military hostilities between the Houthis and the Yemeni army as well as the Houthis and Saudi forces. This should not be difficult to achieve: Qatar has already brokered an agreement in 2008 guaranteeing the Zaydis greater cultural and religious rights – which is all they seek – though Saleh has evaded and delayed its implementation.

The GCC, unlike the West, has the relationships and resources required to play a constructive role in Yemen, and the country’s neighbours, which have a serious long-term interest in solving Yemen’s problems, are not afflicted by the blinkered obsession with al Qa’eda that confines the American perspective.

The GCC states could be similarly engaged with the secessionist forces in the South, mediating in co-ordination with the existing Yemeni opposition parties and Saleh’s government. Ending these two sources of domestic tension will bring the much-needed stability that is required to deal effectively with al Qa’eda, and it may well have the ancillary benefit of reforming the regime’s broken political machine at the same time. It must be remembered that one of the main reasons for Al-Qaeda’s renewed strength in Yemen is that the movement was defeated in Saudi Arabia, through the use of a clever combination of intelligence, security and propaganda tactics. The same can be undertaken in Yemen, to similar effect. But it will require a radical shift in strategic thinking in the Gulf – and especially in Saudi Arabia – predicated on the realisation that Yemen’s woes and a weak Yemeni state pose a severe threat to the regional order. Defeating al Qa’eda may be the West’s priority, but it is the GCC alone that can help put Yemen on the path to stability and prosperity – and only this, in the end, will deprive al Qa’eda of its firm footing on the Arabian Peninsula.
Bernard Haykel is Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Director of the Transregional Institute at Princeton University, and Fellow of the Center on Law and Security, NYU.

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