COMMENTARY Al-Qaeda's battle for
hearts and minds By Ehsan
Ahrari
No one can claim that al-Qaeda is
not watching the twists and turns of the debates
related to global terrorism that are currently
being waged in the United States and the Muslim
world. The 9-11 Commission's report popularized
the argument by recommending to the Bush
administration that it must wage a war of ideas to
win the hearts and minds of Muslims.
Al-Qaeda's chief
theoretician, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has incorporated this concept
in his own enduring campaign against the
United States. He has been busy in the past
few months publicizing al-Qaeda's perspectives to the
Muslim world
and to the West in
particular.
In this regard, one has to
consider Zawahiri's recent appeal for aid for the
victims of the massive earthquake in South Asia,
and in particular Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
There is clear urgency for help: more than 80,000
people have died, and many millions have been made
homeless in the remote area.
The poor response of the
international community to the greatest human tragedy
in Pakistan's history is quite apparent. What is even
more tragic is the tepid response of
the Middle Eastern oil monarchies, whose
treasuries are brimming. The United Arab Emirates and
Kuwait offered $100 million each, while Saudi
Arabia offered $133 million. Kuwait went to the
extent of publicizing its $500 million aid to
Hurricane Katrina victims in the US, but comes up with
a relatively measly $100 million for the victims of
Kashmir.
Turkey has been an exception to
the general miserly response of Muslim countries.
Only one day after the earthquake, the government
in Ankara responded by sending search and rescue
teams and food and other aid to Pakistan. It
followed up by sending $150 million in aid.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was
the first foreign dignitary to visit the
earthquake-devastated area, where he observed, "My
wish is this - the world is using resources for
armaments, they should also put aside resources
for such disasters."
The poor response of
the international community to the victims of
Kashmir was underscored by the United Nations
saying that it had received only 27% of the $312
million of its flash appeal for quake relief -
compared with 80% pledged within 10 days of a
similar appeal to international donors after the
tsunami of December 26.
The government of
Pakistan's own response to this massive human
tragedy has also been described as slow and
inadequate. One leader of Pakistan-administered
Kashmir stated, "It's a shame as the government on
the other side [Indian-administered Kashmir] acted
promptly and provided relief and rescue in all the
affected areas ... People are angry here as they
think Islamabad has double standards, even in
handling natural disasters."
What about
the Islamist organizations of Pakistan; how did
they respond? The same Kashmir leader told
Reuters, "The jihadi groups are more sincerely
taking part in relief operations. Those groups,
which were branded bad by the government, are no
doubt doing well and will influence people's
sympathy in the future."
A number of
earthquake victims attested to this reality by
stating that the only prompt help they have gotten
has been from Islamist groups. (See Asia Times
Online Waging
jihad against disaster, October 20.) Even Pakistani
President General Pervez Musharraf agreed with the
performance of the Islamist groups related to
post-earthquake assistance.
Examine the
above realities from the perspective of al-Qaeda's
version of public diplomacy. Considering the
publicity given by the Western media to all
statements that al-Qaeda issues, Zawahiri's appeal
for aid for Pakistani victims was heard all over
the world.
The immediate danger that this
appeal poses is to Musharraf's own regime. Here is
a president who has cast the fate of his
government by siding with President George W
Bush's "war on terror". Then he started waging his
own war on al-Qaeda and the Islamist/jihadi forces
inside his country. Yet, from America's point of
view, he has not done enough.
Secondly, in
his own hour of dire need, at least the way he
described it to the BBC, his government did not
receive adequate assistance. According to
Musharraf, the reason for such an inadequate
Western response is that no Western victims were
involved, as they were in the tsunami-related
catastrophe.
In a number of Western
countries, the rejoinder to Musharraf's criticism
followed two general themes. First, the poor
response has something to do with a general
aid-related fatigue in the West, because the world
has been experiencing a series of mega-human
calamities. Second, a question is also being
raised about why oil-rich Muslim states aren't
coming to the rescue by creating about a
billion-dollar aid mechanism, especially at a time
when prices oil prices are so high.
Al-Qaeda is having a field day watching
the community of nations perform so deplorably in
regard to the human tragedy in Pakistan. It can,
quite effectively, underscore three perspectives.
First, that the illegitimacy of current Muslim
governments in the wake of their failure to come
to the rescue of a Muslim tragedy of epic
proportions does not require any further debate,
from the perspectives of al-Qaeda.
Second,
the seeming lack of Western concern only
underscores al-Qaeda's claim that the West does
not really care about what happens to Muslims, as
long as the compliant and sycophant Muslim regimes
continue to preside over the political status that
ensures the dominance of the West. Third, given
the preceding two reasons, al-Qaeda's own
unrelenting insistence on the violent overthrow of
all extant Muslim regimes is further established,
at least in the minds of everyone who is mildly
sympathetic to that organization's criticisms.
What emerges from the preceding is a
transnational pan-jihadi entity carefully studying
the twists and turns of the US and Western
responses to countering terrorism and coming up
with its own countermeasures.
Despite the
dismantlement of the Taliban regime, al-Qaeda
knows that the battle for control of Afghanistan
has barely begun. It will continue its
guerrilla-type skirmishes with US-led and Afghan
forces. But the most important concomitant battle
is to influence the hearts and minds of the
Muslims of Pakistan and Afghanistan. A weak
Afghanistan remains under constant threat of major
political turbulence. At the same time, an
unstable Pakistan serves as an even more
significant target than Afghanistan. The centers
of gravity to win its war against the "enemies of
Islam" - a phrase that al-Qaeda uses to depict all
forces that oppose it and its objectives - are
located in those two countries.
All it
must do is keep the focus of rhetorical barrages
on all Muslim tragedies and grievances and
persistently highlight the sustained ineptness of
the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan. A
highly charged environment thus created would be
vastly conducive to even greater instability in
the region. That is the essence of al-Qaeda's
battle to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, not
only in South Asia, but also in the rest of the
world of Islam.
Ehsan Ahrari is
a CEO of Strategic Paradigms, an Alexandria,
VA-based defense consultancy. He can be reached at
eahrari@cox.net or stratparadigms@yahoo.com. His
columns appear regularly in Asia Times Online His
website: www.ehsanahrari.com.
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