AEI resident fellow Katherine Zimmerman’s latest publication, Beyond
Counterterrorism, offers a new strategy for countering
the Salafi-jihadi movement. Perhaps they should consider supporting and achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Counterterrorism may have "stopped another 9/11 attack on the US homeland, but it has not stopped al Qaeda and the Islamic State from growing much stronger than they were in 2001."
Counterterrorism may have "stopped another 9/11 attack on the US homeland, but it has not stopped al Qaeda and the Islamic State from growing much stronger than they were in 2001."
The US has effectively "targeted al Qaeda’s and the Islamic State’s
terrorist networks and with partner military operations denied them control over
large territories and populations. Yet al Qaeda and the Islamic State, as part
of the Salafi-jihadi movement, have more territory, more fighters, and more
capabilities than ever before."
"Winning the forever war" has always required the adoption of a new strategy to weaken the Salafi-jihadi ideology. And, not just reduce the terrorist threat.
"Winning the forever war" has always required the adoption of a new strategy to weaken the Salafi-jihadi ideology. And, not just reduce the terrorist threat.
Zimmerman argues what has been known for decades by others. She suggest that the US must reframe its
approach to counter the Salafi-jihadi movement. She states working with partners, the US
must seek to sever Jihadist ties with local communities by offering communities
a viable alternative to the Salafi-jihadi movement. Dah!
Ms.
Zimmerman and AEI now believe this is what’s needed to “weaken and ultimately
isolate the movement.” The terrorist vanguard has
effectively “penetrated local governance and institutions in some communities
by strengthened their ties to local communities and expanded significantly
across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia believing its relationships with Sunni Muslim communities are its
source of strength.
These relationships and influence within local communities
enable the Salafi-jihadi movement to achieve its strategic objectives of
transforming the Muslim world through imposing its form of governance… building
“relationships through delivering basic goods or services, including defending
the community.” Wow. They just figured this out?
“Al Qaeda fixed sewers and delivered water and fuel in
Yemen. Its courts in Somalia and Mali offer the fair resolution of local
disputes. Its operatives dispatched to Syria to organize against the Assad
regime. The Salafi-jihadi vanguard then uses its local ties to communities to
start shaping them in its image and to strengthen itself by securing resources
and sanctuary and building a position from which to eventually overthrow
Muslim governments.”
They do “not require that the
community share its ideological conviction but seeks to expand its adherents
over time.”
War “conditions have weakened communities
and made them vulnerable to the Salafi-jihadi vanguard’s predatory efforts”. AEI scholars now be believe that “The requirement
is not to resolve all local conflicts or strengthen governance globally but to
target the approach where the Salafi-jihadi vanguard is operating”.
AEI thinkers are failing to understand that terrorist migrate
to any community lacking effective governance, justice, and basic services. These thinkers to get it right when they state
that providing “communities a viable alternative to the vanguard empowers the
community to reject them.”
AEI thinkers assert “The US should attack the means by
which the vanguard has built its relationships with communities, which will
weaken the movement and relegate it again to the fringes of society.” This only
makes sense if it means improving the living conditions of the communities before
al Qaeda comes.
This certainly sounds a lot like “development” work that
progressives have been pushing for decades.
It was officially recommended in the 1980 bi partisan Presidential Commission
on World Hunger as a way to reduce the future appeal of terrorism.
Perhaps AEI will now be more interested in (and even
support) the idea of achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals as a way of
really preventing the spread of terrorism instead assuming it can be beat militarily.
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