Wampum

Something’s Missing

Fareed Zakaria, writing in Newsweek argues that it is a mistake to conclude that terrorism requires a state sponsor:

Stepping away from the partisan screaming going on these days, the 9/11 commission hearings and—far more revealing—the panel's staff reports paint a fascinating picture of the rise of a new phenomenon in global politics: terrorism that is not state-sponsored but society-sponsored…

I asked an American official closely involved with counterterrorism about state sponsorship. He replied, "Well, all that's left is Iran and to a lesser extent Syria, and it's mostly directed against Israel. States have been getting out of the terror business since the late 1980s. We have kept many governments on the list of state sponsors for political reasons. The reality is that the terror we face is mostly unconnected to states." Today's terrorists are harbored in countries like Spain and Germany—entirely unintentionally. They draw on support not from states but private individuals—Saudi millionaires, Egyptian radicals, Yemenite preachers.

This is the new face of terror: dozens of local groups across the world connected by a global ideology.

That sounds right to me but David Frum, writing in NRO thinks it is all wrong:

Without the indulgence and complaisance of governments worldwide, al Qaeda could never have taken form. If the Saudis had cut off the flow of funds to al Qaeda, if Afghanistan had denied al Qaeda its territory, if Pakistan had not formed a tacit alliance with al Qaeda and the Taliban, if radical governments like Arab had not incited anti-American and anti-Western extremism, and if moderate governments like Egypt had not appeased it – minus all these ifs, al Qaeda would never have become the menace it has become.

Let’s see, Frum argues that Al Qaeda would not have thrived without state support in the form of money from Saudi Arabia, territory from Afghanistan, the alliance with Pakistan and the appeasement of Egypt.

There seems to be one country very conspicuous by its absence from that list. You know the one. It beings with an “I” and ends with a “q”.

Posted by Dwight Meredith at March 29, 2004 03:16 PM | TrackBack