Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Power and Terror

Yesterday was the anniversary of 9/11.

This summer I formed a conjecture about power and terror which I think is appropriate to share - today - and not yesterday...

Today, and not yesterday, because cold calculation and realism is immeasurably more appropriate to today than it is to yesterday.

A few months ago I was struck by this photograph:


This is, of course, Queen Elizabeth - Dei Gratia Regina Fidei Defensor - shaking the hand of Martin McGuinness - the man who, in his capacity as the commander of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, almost certainly ordered the murder of Elizabeth's cousin Lord Mountbatten in 1979.

Liz, meet Marty. Marty, Liz...

The handshake came in private, at the conclusion of a meeting in June with McGuinness, now serving in his current capacity as deputy first minister of Northern Ireland.

You can read more about it at the link above, and I've spent an hour or so this evening revisiting the context... I don't pretend to be an expert on the Troubles, but the thought that formed on seeing the photograph doesn't rely on specific knowledge.

My conjecture is simply this:

Power does not accrue to those who are able to instigate terror. Power accrues to those who are able to make it stop.

McGuinness does not now enjoy the kind recognition of the British Monarch because he ordered the murder of a British royal and peer (and others including two boys 14 and 15). Or because he ordered the ambush of 18 British soldiers that same day. Or because he kept the Queen herself on a hit list for decades. Or because of any of the other acts of terror which the IRA claimed responsibility for in that era.

McGuinness and his cohort (e.g. Gerry Adams) now enjoy prestige and authority because they were credibly able to promise to put the weapons of the IRA "beyond use", and have (more or less) made that promise stick.

Again, I don't claim to be an expert on Northern Ireland or Irish Republicanism, but my conjecture - to the extent it has any merit - has implications for our current Long War against Islamist terror.

Very simply, Bin Laden was bound to fail - and the United States was bound to seek the destruction of his organization - because he had no credible power to reign in his movement. To be sure, there is a good deal of justified moral opprobrium to be heaped on any who would suggest that he should have been negotiated with. But the realpolitik, Nash-equilibrium game-theoretic reason not to negotiate with Bin Laden was that he had no ability to deliver any kind of peace.

When "planes into buildings" is the beginning and the end of your shtick, you end up at the bottom of the sea.

Every. Single. Time.

But sovereign statecraft of the professional variety does not exist to uphold moral principles. In fact, arguably, it exists to sidestep moral and popular outrage and act in the long term, rational self interest of the State. Diplomats and negotiators must of course act in ways which will not excessively undermine popular legitimacy of the government when popular will is subverted: the State never negotiates with terrorists. If the cheapest and most effective way to secure peace is to negotiate with the terrorist, the State will of course negotiate with the... freedom fighter, or whatnot - after a decent interval...

[Incidentally, for the Israelis, the whole Oslo fiasco might be explained by the fact that tough, hard headed Israeli heroes and patriots were genuinely taken in by Arafat, believing him to be more of a McGuinness when in fact he was more of a Bin Laden - but I digress...]

Saudi Arabia has always had the capacity to instigate terror against the United States. Among the many anchors of the US relationship with the KSA is their ability to prevent - or at least modulate - that terror. Yes, I'm aware of the many links between Al Qaida and the KSA elites, but I have to come down on the side of those who claim the Kingdom itself keeps the lid on such activities. I have no trust in their general Enlightenment, only in the degree to which their self interest is.

The Saudi Royals came very near to losing the ability to keep the jihadis from taking over their asylum in the mid 2000's - and hence very near to losing their own power (either to the jihadis, or an enraged United States, or both). For the moment, our decade long adventures and misadventures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, etc, have at the very least served to remind the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - the eternal epicenter of jihadi madness - which side their bread is buttered on.

Today we see a new generation of Islamists taking over the state apparatus of several Middle East countries, notably Egypt. Nobody who took the long journey through the last decade and waved their neo-con counter-jihad flag as sincerely as I did can be under any illusion that these regimes will not be infected by terrorists at their core.

I'm left pondering two possibilities, neither one comforting:
 - those terrorists will be more like McGuinness...
 - or those terrorists will be more like Bin Laden.

9 comments:

  1. Today we see a new generation of Islamists taking over the state apparatus of several Middle East countries, notably Egypt. Nobody who took the long journey through the last decade and waved their neo-con counter-jihad flag as sincerely as I did can be under any illusion that these regimes will not be infected by terrorists at their core.

    Agreed 100%. Excellent analysis.

    I'm left pondering two possibilities, neither one comforting:
    - those terrorists will be more like McGuinness...
    - or those terrorists will be more like Bin Laden.


    Or even worse, like Yasser Arafat.

    Meanwhile, as proof of your theory, American embassies in Cairo and Benghazi are being attacked and the Ambassador murdered.

    When will America wake up?

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  2. [Incidentally, for the Israelis, the whole Oslo fiasco might be explained by the fact that tough, hard headed Israeli heroes and patriots were genuinely taken in by Arafat, believing him to be more of a McGuinness when in fact he was more of a Bin Laden - ]

    No one was taken in by Arafat. The plan was concocted by the treacherous Shimon Peres and extreme leftist politican Yossi Beilin and academic Ron Pundak amongst others. They sought - and succeeded - in imposing their extreme leftist theories on a very unwilling Israeli public and unwilling PM Rabin. I'm still not sure why Rabin agreed. Possibly the empty promises of Peres that if it doesn't work we can always go back in and retake the land. Oops.

    Well, that didn't work out so well in the deadly second Intifada that followed, with its thousands of casualties, and nor did it work in Gaza. Israel paid with tangibles, and received only death and destruction and condemnation from the international community in return.

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  3. Lewy said:

    ... the State will of course negotiate with the... freedom fighter, or whatnot - after a decent interval...

    Interesting turn of phrase there. Reminds me of Frank Snepp's book "Decent Interval", which I wholeheartedly recommend everyone read. Snepp was pursued and prosecuted by the DOJ & CIA for writing his book...and all proceeds were confiscated by the government. Similar procedures are underway now against Matt Bissonnette for writing "No Easy Day" ... which in part contradicts the official government version of events ... just like "Decent Interval" did for the period leading up to 30 Apr 1975. I plan to read Bissonnette's book.

    I've read "Decent Interval" several times, carefully, and there is no revelation of legitimately classified information in it. Period. It was a thorough summary of real events of my day and time....and far far ahead of "A Bright Shining Lie" by Neil Sheehan, purportedly sourced on the "Pentagon Papers." "Decent Interval" is decidedly less nuanced than "A Bright Shinning Lie."

    Snepp was prosecuted for failing to say "Mother may I..." and not for endangering others, such as the books by Phillip Agee did, absolutely, notably "Inside the Company" before he fled to Cuba for asylum.

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  4. Continued:

    Also of interest is how "terrorist" becomes "freedom fighter." We all know it is done and most of us know why in the world of Realpolitik. Okay, but there is a danger in this easy revision...and I'd suggest reading Professor S I Hayakawa's book "Language in Though and Action" for some insight about the danger of word interpretation manipulation.

    Now the idea that a nation or leader's strength and longevity is founded on the ability to stop or prevent things...I wholehearted agree with you. Too bad our leadership nearly uniformly doesn't get it.

    Commenting elsewhere today on the US government reation to the attacks in Egypt and Libya, I said:

    One would think that we'd know the script by now, that certainly Obama's adminitration would know it. They do not.

    The appeasers have forgotten completely what Tet'1968 Vietcong attack, PAVN Saigon Attack 1975, and Tehran's 1979 Revolution portended. And that is just post WWII...actually, the phenomena is ancient.

    Politicians today have failed recall on other similar events of defiance such as Beirut 1983, WTC- NYC 1993, Khobar 1996, and USS Cole 2000, among several others....worst among them being NYC 11 Sep 2001. To me, if I listed this sequence of events to almost any 8th grader they'd come to a conclusion that bigger & worse things were coming.

    Now we have Egypt 2012 and Libya 2012, both on an anniversary of 11 Sep 2001. Both highly symbolic attacks, but ones relatively easy to make and fair low risk because they were in their own countries.

    The "movements" behind both the "Arab Spring" (a western imaginary concept) are now striving to drag their populace & culture back to 610 AD in a blatant attempt to establish a new "Saladin", a Kurdish Muslim born in Tikrit, Iraq; crowned "Sultan" in 1174 in Cairo, Egypt; died and buried in Damascus, Syria. In short, it is not like this stuff is new to the region these days.

    Now in the Jurassic of my youth, say 1958 in high school, virtually every 10th or 11th grader would know who "Salidin" was, what he did, as well as King Richard I of England. We had to take history courses, covering both the BC and AD time spans. No more.

    Today? Today I doubt you'd find 1 in 100 high school kids, or adults under 45 who would know who Saladin was, let alone King Richard of 12th century England...BUT we're still making movies and television shows about "robin Hood", eh?

    The risk...it is varied, but one of the worst is the fact that today's modern Jihadist Muslims are no where near as civilized as Saladin...not even close. Reason is the same, ignorance abetted by failure or or lack of education.


    It could be easily said that Yusuf Saladin's power, in the 12th century, rested on his ability to prevent conflagration as it was to wage it. IIRC none less than the Crusader King Richard I of England said as much.

    None of the "terrorists/freedom fighters [spit!]" of today have even a milligram of the education, intellect or wits of a Saladin. So we'll have "bin Ladens" en mass...he was but one link of the chain mail mesh that makes up Jihad. And he was a Saudi.

    As for McGuinness and the Queen....one old fool greeting an equally old killer...one who'd kill again, in his cowardly fashion, if it served his interests. His ability to "manage" what's left of the Provos is key to his acclaim, as you say, Lewy...but the snake is still there. Charles manson should be so lucky, eh?

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    1. Saladin or King Richard I? How about Winston Churchill?

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  5. There's a slim chance the appeaser crowd just might know who Winston Churchill was and some of what he stood for ... he's been featured in fairly recent books and movies. Of that would presume anyone reads anymore.

    However, the point was to illustrate the last Muslim ruler, Saladin, that had the power to stop conflagration, and was thus worthy of a modicum of respect. None of the modern Muslim "leaders" are anything but ignorant gangsters, and all are incapable of stopping or ending anything. That was the criteria for power, right?

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    1. I understood what you were saying. My point is that in England today, student are not taught about Churchill. The leftist establishment won't even teach about such an important figure from seventy years ago, muchness historical figures from centuries ago.

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    2. RMM ...okay, I missed that. The UK ignores history just as much as the USA. Wonderful. What amuses me about the UK and Canada, France, et al and their issues with Muslims is how they were all about this grand assimilated diversity as a virtue. Funny how I live in the most densely populated Muslim community in the USA and we do NOT have the same issues. Not even close.

      IMO ... That's because the community's core dates back to 1900 and the people were immigrants per se, not imported labor or refugees expected to keep to themselves and not socialize. For the most part, they became Americans, while retaining a modicum of the cultural and religious identity. That is what the rest of us expected. It is a diverse community, not by design but by natural migration. We are everything from Primative Baptist to Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, Muslim and Marionite, all in a big wad.

      We did NOT have trouble until it was brought in the from the outside, some of it by refugee migrant fanatics and the rest by outsiders who think we're fertile ground for violent propagation. MJy attitude is the same for all...if you are an outsider and bring violence here, people like me, Christian and Muslim alike, who have built lives, will meet you and drop you in your tracks. Try us. It won't work out well for agitators.

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