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Washington Report, January/February 2006, page 73 Waging Peace Debating Insurgency Movements
THE Middle East Institute’s 59th Annual Conference, held Nov. 7-9 at the National Press Club, featured a panel including Robert Pape, author of Dying to Win; former CIA agent Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris; Zaki Chehab, who wrote Inside the Resistance; and Alberto Fernandez, of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Press and Public Diplomacy. As the four men discussed the motivations of insurgency movements worldwide, focusing on the war on Iraq and the current administration’s “War on Terror,” their examination of the causes of insurgency movements developed into a broader debate over American foreign policy in Iraq. Authors Pape and Scheuer argued that the all-encompassing nature of President George W. Bush’s “War on Terror” is destroying the American military and economy while simultaneously strengthening insurgency movements. Maintaining that such policies are playing into the hands of America’s enemies, Scheuer reminded the audience that “al-Qaeda has described how it intends to drive the United States out of the Middle East in two simple phases. First, lead the country to bankruptcy. Second, spread out American military and intelligence forces.” According to Scheuer, remaining in Iraq is increasing the number of Islamic insurgencies—which, combined with the already massive U.S. presence in the Middle East, only hinders America’s ability to defeat al-Qaeda. For his book, Dying to Win: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism (available from the AET Book Club), Pape compiled a complete database of suicide bombings from 1980 through early 2004. He found that the overwhelming goal of these 462 attacks has been “to compel a democratic state to withdraw combat forces—I don’t mean advisers, I mean tanks, fighter aircraft, APCs—from territory that the terrorists prize.” Individuals who undertook suicide bombings, Pape noted, were 10 times more likely to come from an area where foreign combat troops were entrenched. His conclusion echoed Scheuer’s: the growing American military presence worldwide is strengthening insurgency movements, particularly al-Qaeda, therefore adversely affecting American security. Chehab and Fernandez, on the other hand, argued that slow but true progress is being made in Iraq, and that staying the course will defeat the insurgency movements which have armed themselves against the American military presence. Chehab, a political editor for the London-based Al-Hayat and the Arabic TV channel LBC TV, saw progress as possible if Washington changes its policy toward constructing a new Iraqi government. The insurgency movement in Iraq, Chehab argued, is fueled by sentiment that the current regime is not the one that was promised by U.S. forces. Increasing Sunni involvement in the new government was of utmost importance, he argued, but government appointments should be based on merit instead of the confessional system—especially considering that the last Iraqi census was completed in the 1950s. He criticized de-Ba’athification, stressing that this policy increases unemployment, which in turn increases the number of Iraqis who turn to insurgency movements for monetary gains. Agreeing with Chehab that progress is possible in Iraq, Fernandez described the insurgency movements as self-defeating. “The fact that the thrust of the al-Qaeda argument is about what they are against, who they are fighting and not what they are for,” he stated, “limits them in the end among the greater populace.” They cannot really answer the “problem of malaise” in the region, he added. This lack of direction—combined with the “definite, definitive, public backlash, first in Iraq and now regionally, to the mass killing of Iraqi civilians, to the beheadings and wanton brutality of insurgents in Iraq”—will create animosity among the Iraqi people, he concluded, leading to the demise of insurgency movements. During the question-and-answer session, Scheuer observed that Iraq “is much more a cockpit of international rivalry now than it ever was under Saddam. So I think it’s a long road ahead.” For more information on this panel and the Middle East Institute conference, visit the MEI Web site at <www.mideasti.org>. —Emily Weedon |
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