[Peace-discuss] The symbiotic relationship between US neoconservatives and Islamist terrorists

[patton paul]

Terrorists and Engineers of War on Terror are Codependent
by Gwynne Dyer


The six-month anniversary of the fall of Baghdad on Oct. 8 was one of the
worst days yet for the occupation forces in Iraq. An attack on a U.S. road
convoy killed at least one American soldier, which is the sort of thing
that happens most days, but a Spanish diplomat was also assassinated in
Baghdad (the Spanish government backed the invasion of Iraq), and a
suicide bomber killed eight Iraqi policemen who are collaborating with the
occupiers in the courtyard of their own police station. Not Vietnam yet,
but getting warm.

Add the failure of thousands of inspectors to find Saddam Hussein's
alleged weapons of mass destruction, and the Bush administration's request
for another $87 billion to cover the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan, and
it's hardly surprising that President Bush's approval ratings with the
American public are falling steeply. It begins to look possible that the
entire neo-conservative project for imposing a unilateral "pax Americana"
on the world may be rejected by American voters in the November 2004
election. Iraq will remain a mess for a long time to come, but maybe we
will soon get back to the old world of multilateralism and the United
Nations.

That is the hope many people are starting to nourish, but it may not be
that simple. There is now a symbiotic relationship between the Islamist
terrorists and the neo-conservative directors of the "war on terror" that
promises a long political life to the players on both sides. They are, as
our Marxist friends used to put it, "objective allies": both seek to
undermine the existing global order in order to expand their own freedom
of action, and each group's actions justify the existence of the other
group, at least in the eyes of its own supporters.

Al-Qaida, for example, sees the overseas adventures of American
neo-conservatives as the best possible recruiting tool for its own cause
among Muslims worldwide. If Osama bin Laden could decide the outcome of
the next U.S. presidential election, he would instantly choose Bush. A
rival candidate might pull American troops out of the Middle East or take
a more even-handed approach in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and Bin
Laden has no interest in stability in the region.

Given that bin Laden does not have a magic wand, what is Bush's best hope
of winning a second term despite an ailing economy and the deepening
quagmire of Iraq? It is that Americans close ranks patriotically behind
him as they did in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11. In practice, that
means that he needs either another major terrorist attack on American soil
or another victorious war against an alleged "terrorist state" or a
suspected proliferator of "weapons of mass destruction."

Do the people around bin Laden understand this? Of course they do, and
they will help Bush, if they can. Just one major terrorist attack in the
United States -- not necessarily another 9-11, which would be very hard to
manage, but just a big car-bomb in a U.S. city that kills a hundred or so
Americans -- and the domestic political balance would be transformed at a
stroke.

Nobody in the Bush entourage would actively wish for a new terrorist
outrage in the United States, but they must be aware that it might happen
anyway, and that it would be likely to stampede American voters back into
the arms of their man. They will also be aware that it might not happen,
however, so they must be considering what action they could take
themselves to improve the administration's re-election prospects.

Put so baldly, this sounds desperately cynical. Would patriotic Americans
in senior positions in the Bush administration really engineer a war in
which young Americans would be killed (not to mention numerous foreigners)
just to improve their man's chances of re-election?

No, probably not. But senior members of the Bush administration have a
short list of "rogue" countries that they would like to attack anyway, for
reasons that seem to them as sound as the ones that moved them to invade
Iraq. Their assessment of the threat level from these places, and of the
urgency with which America should act against them, will be taking place
in one compartment of minds where another compartment is simultaneously
contemplating the awful tragedy of a defeat in November 2004 that would,
in their view, leave the United States horribly exposed and vulnerable.

What all this means is that we are not out of the woods yet. There may
well be another terrorist attack in the United States before the next
election, or there may be another war. If either happens, then the
confrontation between the Islamists and the neo-cons will probably
continue almost to the end of the decade, with each reinforcing the
other's challenge to the global order that has been painfully built up
since 1945. It is not a happy prospect.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are
published in 45 countries.

 Copyright 2003, The Salt Lake Tribune