Fighting Terrorism with the Wrong Weapons

Ahmad Faruqui suggests that,

We need to rethink the premises of our policy against terrorism. Like other criminal problems, terrorism has a supply side and a demand side. We have focused exclusively on the supply side, and deployed military force to eliminate the existing terrorist networks. This is an incomplete cure at best. As Israel has found out over the past three decades, killing terrorists will not eliminate terrorism. For every terrorist that is killed, another one is created.

This is not to say that we should condone murder by terrorists. We should continue to prosecute terrorists to the fullest extent of the law. However, without condoning terrorism or letting terrorists go free, we should also focus our energies on preventing future terrorists from being created. We should seek to understand the political problems that are leading large numbers of young people throughout the Muslim world to become terrorists. We should find a way to communicate with these people. We may never be able to convince the likes of Osama bin Laden, but may be able to reach large numbers of their existing and future followers. Then we would be able to develop political solutions that will draw people away from a path where they are willing to sacrifice their lives, in order to take other lives. Only then will the demand for terrorism diminish.

And Paul Rogers concurs:

...if we respond [to terrorism] solely by trying to redouble efforts to destroy al-Qaida and its associates, the effect may be simply to strengthen their support.

What we are still failing to do is to understand the root causes of the support for such movements. To seek to understand is not to condone in any shape or form, but it does raise the possibility of recognising the reasons for their enduring support and, in turn, offering some prospect for undercutting it.

The problem is that this different angle of vision would go right to the heart of policy towards Israel as well as the wider issues of the Western control of the Gulf region. The Bush administration is not remotely prepared to entertain such a consideration – it has to come from elsewhere.