The Young Turks

How else could he explain the United States failure to kill him and crush his movement other that just dumb luck or predictably, Allah’s will. After all, Osama went out looking for an enemy to fight and discovered an ally.

I vote for dumb luck. Dumb being the operative word and we aren’t talking about Osama here either folks. No, I am sure; make that positively sure, that Osama has worn out numerous prayer rugs thanking Allah for his good fortune in attacking the US while G.W.Bush was President. In the future perhaps, when bin Ladens personal papers are discovered, will we know if he ever anticipated the blunders of the Bush’s fixation on Iraq. We will also find out what the Arabic equivalent is for “dumbass.”

This leads us to the rhetorical question why is fighting al Qeada so damn hard? For one, to fight and win we have to know who we are fighting and why.

 
The true aims of al Qeada have been obscured, purposefully, to drum up patriotic support for Iraq and hide the actual reason for the attack.  Bin Laden didn’t attack us because we are a democracy and he does not “hate us for our freedoms” or because we are (mostly) Christians. Nor does bin Laden particularly care about the United States in general, contrary to the hyper inflated patriotic propaganda of President Bush, Republicans and the conservatives. Simply stated, bin Laden wants to drive Western influence from Arabia, to destroy all Muslim governments and eventually to abolish state boundaries to reestablish the caliphate.

 
Bin Laden wrote; I will unite all Muslims, establish a government which follows the rule of the Caliphs. Only when western influence is removed bin Laden reasoned, can “salafiyya”  be realized.

In that regard, Osama bin Laden has openly and repeatedly stated his strategy from the very beginnings of his movement. Critical for the fulfillment of Bin Laden's overall plan for the caliphate is to make the Middle East a chaotic, ungovernable mess that just happens to control the lions share of the worlds energy supplies.

 The Four Points

Bin laden has publicly stated that he will accomplish this with a simple strategy, what I call the four points. The four points, repeated over and over, in captured al Qaeda missives are:

1. Arouse public sentiment against the” Crusaders” , (namely the United States and the West),
2. Reinforce the idea of “unbelief is one nation” to bolster recruiting. ( diminish or destroy secular Muslim governments)
3. Engage US forces were they could be attacked and destroyed. ( since Al-Qaida can not win in the U.S and on a traditional battlefield battle grounds like Iraq are ideal.  The more forces deployed, the more that can be destroyed or impacted, the better the result for Al-Qaida’s long term strategy. Destruction to Al-Qaeda means several things…killed, maimed or more importantly: logistically and operational constrained.)
4. Impact and destroy if possible the US economy. (Most importantly Bin Laden want more than anything else to do this)

Pretty simple really. You would think Bush could understand it.

Engaging US Forces

For his plan to succeed bin Laden absolutely requires that the U.S. to engage militarily and deploy large, visible , traditional military forces to the Middle East.

It should be no surprise then that beginning with the first world Trade Center Attack in 1993, Osama Bin Laden and his al Qeada colleagues have attempted to draw the United States, through various methods, into a ground conflict in the Middle East.  Bin Ladens strategy was one of jihadist rhetoric, declarations of War and the provocation of escalating attacks culminating in the attack on the World Trade Center

Initially the US response was tactically and strategically brilliant. We avoided ensnarement in bin Ladens "four points" initially by leveraging favorable world opinion, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, playing on moderates in  Islamic sense of justice to launch rapid aerial and ground strikes against al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Afghanistan’s isolation ensured that the media war could be controlled by the U.S. an important tactical and strategic advantage ( now we know the media war was waged against opponents of the Iraq war, not the enemy) . We employed covert and conventional forces, superior technology plus our global command of financial and media markets to rock al Qeada back on its heels. The death blow was ready to be dealt when suddenly, inexplicably, the US shifted targets.

I am a boxing fan and the events of 2002 and 2003 amaze me to this day. I have never seen a fighter ready to finish his opponent suddenly walk away to begin prepping for the next bout, until we did just that in Afganistan.

Literally, since the hour after the 9/11 attacks the Neocons and like minded conservatives began pressuring the Bush administration to target Iraq. Accounts by insiders now show that Bush himself had pretty much decided to attack Iraq shortly after 9/11. All that was needed was a reason, a threat, real or imagined to convince the American public. Of course as we all know that was provided in the form of phantom piles of WMD and bogus linkage of Saddam’s regime to 9/11.

Serendipity Redux

The build up for the Iraqi war shifted attention resources and rhetoric away from bin Laden to Saddam just at a critical juncture in Afghanistan.  That shift allowed bin Laden and his lieutenants to escape and reconstitute in Waziristan, protected by a previously unknown sensitivity to the Paki's territorial sovereignty.

So now we know that for the U.S. under the Bush Administration the real target, the prize, was Iraq from the beginning. Afghanistan was a formality, expected by the public after 9/11 and executed as a placeholder until the main event; Iraq.

Iraq Iraq Iraq…flush with initial successes in Afghanistan …they ( The Bush Administration) reacted exactly as Bin Laden had hoped by rushing to deploy large forces of American troops to Iraq.

The US actions have given Bin Laden two things, oil production to interrupt and American troops to publicly kill in neat little package. The beauty of the situation was that bin Laden didn’t even have to try very hard or send his front line "fighters" to Iraq. The Bush Administrations zeal in De-bathification and J. Paul Brenner’s inexcusable errors in dealing with the Baathists created a home grown insurgency and ultimately opened a window of opportunity for a small al Qeada franchise, comprised mostly of locals and some outsiders opposed US presence.

The Surge: More Time for Iran

Not only that, the Shia controlled government is now firmly in the Iranian sphere of influence. Short term this is a big, big plus for bin Laden.  Iraq and Iran control 40% of the world’s known reserves and are now in the hands of, or influenced by,  government(s) hostile to the United States. Bin Laden has often stated he will deal with the infidel Shia later. First up is the US.

The so called “surge” has given the Maliki government time, not time to build its army and hammer out a political settlement with the Sunni and Kurds to control the country ( as advertised by the Bush administration ) but time to firm its ties to Iran. The drop in violence is more of a function of the forced partition of cities and towns into Shia, Sunni and Kurd communities plus a “truce” between militias and factions within the Shia ranks. They are simply waiting for the right moment.

It seems Bin Laden couldn’t have hand picked a better group of foils than the neocon Republicans for his plans.

The Oil Weapon:  Destroying the US Economy

This brings us to bin Laden’s final objective; unleash the oil weapon to force the withdrawal of U.S. and Western presence in the region.  We have already began this process this to a degree with our own greed. The so called oil “futures” markets constantly drive the price of petroleum ever upwards on the slightest provocation. The background players in these” markets” are the same players that participate in OPEC and our big oil companies. The effects of elevated oil prices are being felt as I write this with our economy in the grips of beginning of a major recession.

In any case, bin Laden will use a variety of methods to further destabilize the oil markets; terrorism, obviously, but also the prospect of a extremist Pakistan looms large on the horizon. Paki nuclear weapons could be placed in oil fields or launched on Paki MRBMs at Iran and other regional producers, used to close the Straits of Hormuz. there are too many scary scenarios to imagine, suffice to say we have a major problem if Pakistan tilts to the Islamic extremist camp. Once the destabilization is set in motion bin Laden can directly gain or impact the control of the petroleum production.

In true Bush and Republican fashion we could inadvertently help bin Laden, ( just like we did by invading Iraq) to leverage the oil weapon with U.S. attacks on alleged Iranian nuclear sites. Bolstered by the bellicosity of the Bush administrations attempts to provoke Iran into a confrontation, Iranian involvement is an added bonus for bin Laden.  World oil prices have reached $130+ USD a barrel and the initial effects of the “oil weapon” are now being felt.

Conclusions after 6 ½ years of “GWOT”

It is painfully obvious that after 6 ½ years of Republican stewardship al Qeada has rebuilt and regained the initiative and Bin Laden is closer now than ever in accomplishing his goal of the Caliphate. There is no global war on “terror’ in an organized sense. It is, rather, a pipe dream and handy acronym. What we have is an intractable fiasco in Iraq and a reluctant NATO contingent in Afghanistan wondering why we ( the US) aren’t fighting bona fide al Qaeda and their allies with more commitment. Consequently, as anticipated by Bin Laden;

1. Every action taken by the U.S. in the region now weakens the position of the ruling families, while also destabilizing Pakistan(Arouse public sentiment against the” Crusaders” ).  

2.The Bush Administration and the radical Christian conservatives have vilified all Muslim’s at home and abroad in the word and deed. The secular Muslims, targets of bin Laden’s campaign have been marginalized. (Reinforce the idea of “unbelief is one nation” to bolster recruiting )

3.We are hopeless bogged down in Iraq (Engage US forces were they could be attacked and destroyed )

4.The US economy is in the grip of a major recession with years of deficits pilling up from paying for the war. Oil prices at all time highs and supplies are at all time lows (Impact and destroy if possible the US economy).

Not only have we helped bin Laden in achieving the four goals by our ineptitude, Bush created and reinforced the bin Laden myth by his statements and inaction.

To the Arab world, Bin Laden is free and challenging the US. Every day he is free, every tape he releases, reinforces that belief. The nuanced spin on our failure to kill or capture him or eliminate the safe haven in Pakistan by the Bush Administration meant to convince the US electorate is lost on bin Laden’s intended audience…the Muslim man on the street. Each misstep in Iraq has strengthened Bin Laden diverting US attention from defeating Al-Qaeda.

Sadly, it’s probably to late. The capture or the death of bin Laden is probably a moot point. After 6 ½ years of defeating  the US by remaining free the bin Laden’s “David and Goliath” story will generate terrorists for decades.  Bin Ladens death will create wild rejoicing in the streets of both the US and the Arab world for diametrically opposed reasons

End Game

The end game is the destruction of Middle Eastern petroleum production. That would leave the U.S. with no interests in the region and no ability to remain engaged or reclaim the oil resources. This eventuality would force a total US withdrawal and transform Arab and global politics to favor his anti-Western beliefs. He needs this to begin the ultimate transformation of the Arab states in to his caliphate. That outcome would also initiate a global depression and shift the geopolitical balance to him and to other oil rich nations openly hostile to the US, namely Venezuela, Iran , and to a lesser extent those “covertly “ hostile like Russia. 

The resulting world wide depression would drive hoards of Muslim followers to his movement in essence rolling back the clock to a moral and political equivalent of the height of Arabian culture that occurred in the early 11^th century. The US would then be left with meager supplies at home and dependence on unstable regimes like Nigeria and others. With no prospects or ability to exercise its global power projection, the American chapter in history would for all practical purposes, be over.

Serendipity, one more time. 

If nothing else the entire post 9/11 response proves one thing: that the Republicans and conservatives really do hate government. They will accomplish their goal of a "smaller government " all right and Osama is ready willing and now, able, to help. He even has an english word to descibe it.