When the Twin Towers collapsed 10 years ago, global jihadists presented the event as “the end of the Infidel domination of the world.” Modeled on the tactic of ghazva (“raid”) that helped Mohammed conquer Mecca, the attack was expected to produce an equally quick victory for jihadism.
Islamist commentaries at the time claimed 9/11 was the second stage of a strategy that had destroyed one superpower, the Soviet Union, and would force the remaining one, the United States, to crumble.
The jihadists had five objectives:
1) To trigger attacks on “Infidel” countries, thus keeping alive the flames of jihad.
That didn’t happen. Despite attacks in Bali, Madrid and London, the promised “endless explosions” failed to materialize. The democracies developed a security shell strong enough to thwart countless plots.
2) To terminate America’s military presence in Muslim countries. This also didn’t happen.
In 2001, there were some 5,000 US military personnel in the greater Middle East. Ten years later, after massive withdrawals from Iraq, it’s about 150,000. Today, American bases exist in 30 Muslim-majority countries.
3) To end US support for regimes in many Arab countries, leading to a jihadist takeover.
In the wake of 9/11, America did review its 60-year-old policy of backing the regional status quo. The Bush administration, seeing the Mideast as a vast swamp of tyranny that had become a breeding ground for terror, changed US policy to produce the opposite of what the jihadists had expected.
Despotic regimes did crumble; many even collapsed — but “pure jihadists” didn’t take their place. The “Freedom Agenda” Washington unveiled in 2003 helped create space for a variety of forces, including non-jihadist Muslims, giving Arabs fresh hopes of democratization. And the popular uprising that in 2009 shook non-Arab Iran has mortally wounded the Khomeinist regime, in my opinion.
4) To provoke a global “clash of civilizations,” in which the “downtrodden” would side with the winning Islamists.
That, too, didn’t happen. Today, outside of conferences sponsored by Tehran, one seldom hears talk of a “clash of civilizations,” so fashionable a decade ago.
5) To launch a global recruitment drive producing a new generation of jihadists.
The terrorists bred in and around the 1980s Afghan conflict are heading for retirement, and many have perished in the post-9/11 US interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, of the 30 or so “brethren” of the al Qaeda 9/11 high command, fewer than five are still alive and free; the rest are either dead or at Gitmo. And the hoped-for new generation hasn’t emerged. In many Arab countries, al Qaeda has all but disappeared for want of recruits.
Far from spurring Muslims to a new jihad, 9/11 produced a slow but growing revulsion in Muslim countries. (That revulsion has also harmed groups that may have been fighting for legitimate causes, such as in Chechnya and China’s Xingjiang province.)
Late in the day, al Qaeda tried to appeal to radical Palestinians by calling for the elimination of Israel, but apart from a few desperados who fought in Iraq, it failed to attract many.
Only some armed groups, a mix of bandits and holy warriors, notably in the poorest West African mini-states and Somalia, use the al Qaeda label to win a measure of illusionary legitimacy.
Unable to recruit in the Muslim world, global jihad now focuses on Muslim minorities in the West. In the last decade, more than 800 jihadists with Western European passports have been captured in Afghanistan alone. Those monitoring the jihadist presence in cyberspace know that what’s left of that show is now run by Muslims, including converts, from Europe and America. But the westernization of jihadist propaganda only emphasizes the irrelevance of “the cause” to the real life of most Muslims.
Many ask whether, a decade after 9/11, America and the Western democracies are “safer.” The answer is no.
First, as 9/11 showed, it only takes a few dozen individuals with astonishingly small resources to launch a spectacular attack against any non-police state. Then, too, a verbal tsunami of hatred against America and the West is being produced in America and Western European countries, where anti-Americanism has roots that have nothing to do with Islam and/or Islamism. This provides the topos in which global jihad finds recruits for suicide attacks, especially among Muslim minorities.
Second is a possible alliance between the ailing al Qaeda and Iran’s Khomeinist ruling elite. Coinciding with the 10th 9/11 anniversary, Tehran this week is hosting an international conference for more than 600 militants from across the globe to discuss such an alliance.
Even if the wounds inflicted on America a decade ago are beginning to heal, prudence dictates that Western democracies should not lower their guard.