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COMMENTARY
October 8, 2005
The Caliphate
As the Washington Post reported yesterday, the U.S. military recently intercepted an interesting letter. It was from Al Qaeda's pre-eminent tactician, the Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri, somewhere in the Pushto frontier of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was to his self-acknowledged lieutenant, the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, somewhere in or near Iraq. Though from the other side, curiously enough, it makes the same key point President Bush has been making, most recently in a speech Thursday.The Zawahiri letter is a 13-page treatise in Arabic, written in early July. It was designed to be read by quite a few people along its delivery route, but probably not by U.S. intelligence, because it frankly confesses the degree to which Al Qaeda's senior functionaries have become isolated from detailed Iraqi news. Given this limitation, it stresses the grander, strategic considerations, rather than offering micromanagement of the Iraqi terror campaign. Al Qaeda and Islamist allies (hereinafter, "the Mujahedin") wish, as ever, to found a new universal Caliphate, and have concluded that its centre must be Iraq -- indeed, Baghdad was a "capital" of caliphates past. The idea is to concentrate all resources on prevailing there, then spread outward in waves of conquest. There is an explicit four-stage plan. First, through both direct terror attacks and the exploitation of international anti-Americanism -- two aspects of a single jihad -- get U.S. forces out of Iraq. That is the immediate priority. Second, when Americans and allies go, leaving the Iraqi government in disarray, let the Mujahedin physically establish the caliphate over as much Iraqi territory as they can seize, ruling on the Afghan Taliban model. Most importantly, leave no quarter for any kind of "secular" government to function in the intervening spaces. Third, extend the jihad through the region, particularly in the direction of Egypt, via the Levant -- Assad's Syria, the ayatollahs' Iran, and Saudi Arabia becoming targets only in a later consolidation of power, and being allies of convenience meanwhile. Nor should Israel be a primary target, until her turn comes. That happens in the glorious fourth stage -- as far ahead as the Mujahedin can foresee -- in which the caliphate having erected itself as a Muslim superpower, Israel disappears in nuclear cinders. They await further instructions from Allah after that. Two little problems at the moment (from Zawahiri's point of view). One is that the "pigs and monkeys" have succeeded in eliminating a significant part of the Mujahedin's leadership and infrastructure, so please "send money". The other is that Zarkawi's over-enthusiastic blasting of civilian targets in Iraq, and his sick videotapes, are creating bad press for the Mujahedin throughout the Muslim world. Would Zarkawi please get back on-message, and aim more consistently at Americans and their Iraqi "puppets"? A plausible Zarkawi response to this was already intercepted more than a year ago. For in his own treatise-letter, Zarkawi complained that he's a little short of resources himself, and that the Americans and their allies are getting harder to hit. Moreover, the sucker-punches against e.g. Shia mosques are supposed to ignite a civil war, against which background a Sunni Islamist takeover would be made easier. Compare President Bush, Thursday: "The terrorists' goal is to overthrow a rising democracy, claim a strategic country as a haven for terror, destabilize the Middle East and strike America and other free nations with ever-increasing violence. Our goal is to defeat the terrorists and their allies at the heart of their power, and so we will defeat the enemy in Iraq." Meanwhile the White House, for the first time, tabled an actual list of ten major attempted terror attacks on the U.S., its allies and interests, that had been thwarted since 9/11/01 -- to little media attention. Each of these attempts required international co-ordination. Unfortunately, Mr Bush has even more trouble keeping his allies on-message, than Mr Zawahiri has keeping his. Whatever the cause of the failure in communication, the world at large seems not yet to grasp that the struggle in Iraq is not merely intimately connected with the struggle against Islamist terrorism -- it is one and the same. New York City is currently being rattled by the threat of London-style subway attacks. From what I am able to learn, three of the operatives for that attack were to arrive from Iraq through Syria. At the same moment, similar international connexions are being investigated, from fresh terror hits in Pakistan, Indonesia, and Egypt. Underground it may be, but this caliphate does already exist, and Iraq is its centre. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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