In the New York Times, Robert Wright endorses the narrative that U.S. policies in the Middle East help radicalize jihadist sympathizers and “cause” them to commit terrorist attacks, such as the failed Times Square bombing, the Ford Hood shooting, and the would-be Christmas underwear bombing. This is in the context of Faisal Shahzad reportedly telling interrogators that he was upset over the use of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan.
Wright makes his grand caveat: “Obviously (I hope), to say that American policies may cause terrorism isn’t to say that America is to blame for terrorism.” I don’t think that’s so obvious. Let’s see.
Wright goes on to say that there are no doubt several ingredients that combine to create a terrorist bomber: “If you figure out what those ingredients are, and which of them you can control, maybe you can make bomb-planting behavior less common.” Ok, so which ingredients does Wright want to try and control? Well, hawkish U.S. policies:
These possibly counterproductive hawkish policies go beyond drone strikes — a fact that is unwittingly underscored by the hawks themselves. They’re the first to highlight the role played by that imam in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, in inspiring Shahzad and other terrorists. But look at the jihadist recruiting narrative al-Awlaki’s peddling. He says America is at war with Islam, and to make this case he recites the greatest hits of hawkish policy: the invasion of Iraq, the troop escalation in Afghanistan, drone strikes in Pakistan, etc.
All of these policies — not just the last of them — may have helped incite Shahzad.
Is Wright saying that we should take seriously the grievance list of a senior al-Qaeda associate and terrorist recruiter and propagandist? If Wright believes that addressing these grievances will lead to less terrorism, then isn’t he saying that a failure to address them will lead to more terrorism? Which is another way of saying that our failure to ameliorate Awlaki’s grievances would be to blame for the subsequent terrorism he inspires. This is a seriously mistaken view of things. First, is it too obvious to point out that none of Wright’s “greatest hits of hawkish policy” were in effect in September, 2001 when two of Awlaki’s spiritual devotees decided to help crash planes into the World Trade Center? Which hawkish U.S. policies “caused” that? How about the USS Cole bombing? Or the African embassy bombings? Not drone strikes in Pakistan. Not the Iraq War. Not the Afghanistan War.
As Jeffrey Goldberg notes, the intellectual foundation of modern jihadist ideology was crafted largely by Egyptian Islamist Sayyid Qutb in the middle of the 20th century. Qutb’s work directly underpins and inspires al-Qaeda and a host of other Islamic terrorist organizations. I have Qutb’s book, Milestones, on my shelf. It’s a fascinating, well-reasoned, well-written polemic that culminates in a call to all Muslims to wage perpetual offensive holy war against the great mass of unbelievers until the whole world accepts the warm totalitarian embrace of Sharia law. Charming. Does Wright have a theory as to which hawkish U.S. policies radicalized Qutb?
This is the problem when we start taking the grievance list of terrorists seriously: there is no end to the list. Go ahead, cancel all the drone strikes against the leaders of the Pakistani Taliban, strikes which Faisal Shahzad apparently found just too successful to abide. Withdraw our troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. Send Anwar al-Awlaki a note of apology for our hitherto “war on Islam.” Will that be the end of it you think? Think again. Cartoons in an obscure Danish newspaper or producing the wrong kind of film will still “cause” madmen to murder innocents in the name of religion and ideology. Ask Salman Rushdie or Ayaan Hirsi Ali about “root causes” and “blame”. It is simply nonsense to think that the main problem here is America’s refusal to adequately “control the ingredients” that create terrorists. The response to terrorism is not the ultimate cause of terrorism. Goldberg makes the point well:
So, a proposal: The next time a young Muslim male attempts to make mayhem in New York or elsewhere, and, once captured, tells the authorities that he was seeking revenge for some specific act of American aggression, we should do our best to avoid repeating his proximate-causality excuse-making and report that his act was undertaken on behalf of a larger movement that seeks the overthrow of moderate Muslim governments, the restoration of the caliphate, the eradication of Western influence in the Muslim world, the oppression of women, the annihilation of gays and Jews, and so on. This approach would have the benefit, at least, of accuracy.
Trying to align our foreign policy so as to appease these addled thugs is as impossible as it is undesirable.
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