The Crucibles:  9/11, Afghanistan and the Fashioning of a Foe [Part I]
By Gregory J. H. Dowling

Regret what? The secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap…What is more important to the history of the world? …Some stirred up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

- Zbigniew Brzezinski ¹

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned.

- William Butler Yeats ²

History is an insistent force: the past is what put us where we are.

- William Pfaff ³

Searching for an Enemy to Fit the Crime…

September 11th 2001 confirmed terrorism's power not only to inflict horrific personal and material loss but, and this is arguably its most important legacy, to dramatically influence perceptions. In a very real sense, the United States remains hostage to 9/11 - the event dominates our contemporary political life to the point of defining it. It has galvanized substantive changes to the nation's domestic politics just as it has become the primary portal through which we view the country's foreign policy challenges. And while 9/11 has altered the approach to our nation's future, it has equally affected the approach to its past, compromising the ability to assess objectively and comprehensively the genesis and nature of the threat.

The identification of al Qaeda as the organization behind the attack reinforced this perspective. 9/11 was quickly perceived to be an expression of an inherently brutal organization motivated by an aggressively militant and politicized Islam, and dedicated, according to its pronouncements, to reconstituting the 'ummah, a supranational and idealized Islamic community in which Islamic law would be strictly applied. The group's unremitting hostility to the United States was seen as a reflection not so much of what the country had done in the world but as a reaction to it's very presence in the world as a powerful cultural and secularizing force. Accordingly, 9/11 was portrayed as the opening salvo in a new ideological conflict grounded in alternate and irreconcilable visions of what should be the dominant social norm.

While the perspective of al Qaeda as implacably opposed to the United States has certain validity, assessing this terrorist threat primarily if not solely as one grounded in inherently opposed social orders, as the U.S. media has done, skews analysis. Critically, it works to exclude from the discussion any substantive reference to U.S. policy and historical context. The notion that our policies and their implementation by the CIA are less than germane to evaluating al Qaeda is underpinned by the very nature of 9/11. It was an act of such unconscionable, murderous violence that any reference to the role of U.S. policy in creating the conditions that gave rise to such terror are quickly and harshly dismissed as equivalent to legitimating the terrorists. Equally important, such an analytical approach commits to an interpretation of al Qaeda as a representation of a particular type of social order rather than as an autonomous agent with its own distinct evolution.

…And Finding the Wrong One

The weakness of this interpretive approach is nowhere more evident than in the concerted and persistent effort to directly link Saudi Arabia to the terror. Of course, given that the majority of the terrorists who participated in 9/11 were Saudi nationals and that the public face of al Qaeda, Usama bin Laden, was Saudi-born as well, it was inevitable that a torrent of accusatory commentary would be unleashed in the U.S. media towards the Kingdom. Nor should one be particularly surprised, at least at the outset, with the tone and form that the phenomenon of 'Saudi-bashing' took:  the shrill condemnation of Saudi society in toto. The response mirrored the U.S. public's highly charged sense that its own society was under generalized attack. However, as the U.S. media sought to 'connect the dots' for the American public and display the full shape of the foe, the resulting image was more fabulist than factual. In order to make the Kingdom out to be al Qaeda's wellspring, not only were central aspects of the Kingdom's social order obscured but the Kingdom's role in the war of resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was distorted.

Questioning the Caricature of the Kingdom

The picture drawn of the Kingdom by much of the media commentary is nothing less than a 'rogue state' with al Qaeda as the Kingdom's willful alter ego - devious, deviant and dangerous - enabling the Kingdom to play a duplicitous 'double-game', using while simultaneously abusing the United States. However, such caricature invites more questions than it answers and ignores points that challenge it.

If al Qaeda is so intimately linked to Saudi Arabian society as so much of the media coverage implies, that begs the question as to why it has been unable to develop a secure base of operations there rather than being compelled to 'set up shop' in Afghanistan. The critical commentary would have us believe that this has little to do with the strength of the Saudi state, its opposition to al Qaeda or al Qaeda's marginality within the Kingdom. Rather, according to the preponderate view, it reflects the Saudi government's considerable anxieties over al Qaeda's appeal within the Kingdom, indeed a limited ability to effectively confront and contain it. It is a concern, so the speculation goes, sufficient to prompt the government to pay the organization to ensure that it operated beyond the confines of the Kingdom. Yet, the presumption the Saudi state is so vulnerable and the pull of al Qaeda's ethos so strong among the populace as to allow the latter to extort financing from the former only serves to confound the issue while hardly answering the question that is begged. Even more contentious is the notion that the Saudi state would intentionally finance a terrorist organization that by its own admission is committed to overturning the Kingdom's political order.

Another common assertion proffered to underpin the putative identity between the two is that the entire educational system in the Kingdom over the past generation has been nothing less than a system of indoctrination designed to inculcate a mind-set dedicated to al Qaeda's goals. Yet again questions a plenty go begging. Why would the Saudi government willingly allow the country's educational system to become an instrument to propound an outlook that, as noted below, contradicts founding principles of the Saudi system of governance? Equally, if that indeed has happened, why have we not witnessed the entire Saudi population under the age of forty acting in accord with Usama bin Laden's much-vaunted video pronouncements?

One of the most persistent claims made in the media to promote the view that the Kingdom and al Qaeda are closely linked is that the 18th century Najdi reformer Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab is the ideological godfather for both.⁵ While that claim is unquestionably true for the Kingdom, it is decidedly not for al Qaeda. The latter draws its inspiration from such 20th century Islamic ideologues as Sayyid Qutb, Hassan Al Banna and Abul Ala Maududi, none of whom, it may be noted, are Saudi Arab. These latter thinkers espouse a vision of Islam that would transcend the limits of state and nation to create the ideal Islamic community. By contrast, Abdul Wahhab sought the establishment of the true Islam by championing the authority of a territorial power as evidenced by his mid-18th century 'pact' with the Saudi amirate of Dir'iyyah. For the Kingdom, Islam is decidedly 'within' and supportive of the state; for al Qaeda, its politicized and militant concept of Islam exists, by definition, outside the bounds of any state. (It is hardly surprising that al Qaeda found the most conducive and convivial environment for its operational center in Afghanistan, a country wherein the emergence of a strong centralized system of governance has been sorely constrained.)

Then there is the issue of the charities, the funding of which is proffered as a key example of how Saudi society serves as a willing accomplice to al Qaeda.⁶ One need not disagree at all with the claim that Saudi charitable giving found its way into the hands of al Qaeda to question that the Saudi state in particular and Saudi society in general were intentionally financing a terrorist organization. As recently shown in our own country, where legitimate charitable organizations have been purposely designed to enrich the organizers rather than provide primarily for those in need, the impulse to give can too easily override any inclination to pay sufficient attention to where the funds may in fact end up. Of course, this is not to say that charitable giving that ends up enriching unscrupulous individuals is an equivalent failing to charitable giving that ends up supporting terrorist agencies. It is merely to note that in any country, the urge to help can be exploited. And Saudi society - with its substantial financial reservoirs, a tradition of patronage by (and expected of) the elites, and where alms giving is one of the five key duties (the 'pillars') incumbent upon the good Muslim - is more than ripe for exploitation. The importance of charitable giving to the Kingdom is manifest in the number of organizations, both private and public, that are involved in this activity. Equally, the concern on the part of the government that al Qaeda may have successfully tapped such financing is evident by the tight regulatory oversight now in place. But if Saudi Arab charitable objectives were perverted to terrorists' ends, such a failure is properly understood - in the absence of information much more convincing than the speculation that dominates in the media - as a sin of omission rather than commission.

Clearly, the foregoing is nothing like a systemic rebuttal to the myriad charges made against the Kingdom. Nor can it substitute for a substantial examination of the socio-cultural, economic and political issues that challenge the contemporary Kingdom and, arguably, create conditions that have induced elements of the Saudi population to respond to al Qaeda's call to jihad. What is simply suggested is that any wholesale condemnation of the Kingdom is not simply to distort a complex society but to misconstrue the enemy.

Hardly a Friend to al Qaeda

What must be understood is that al Qaeda is doubly anathema to the Kingdom:  al Qaeda seeks to usurp the political power of the House of Saud just as it acts to usurp the religious authority of the Kingdom's 'ulama. This combined challenge is evidenced by a single act, the issuing of religious edicts by al Qaeda's leadership, who devoid of recognized religious credentials employ Islamic rhetoric to instigate political action. For al Qaeda, Islam is, in essence, a politically activist ideology. By contrast, in the Kingdom, religious authority is there to legitimate state acts, advising the political leadership as necessary and, on occasion, censuring it but certainly not acting in anyway to supplant the state. Islam as understood in the Kingdom - though the Faith infuses every aspect of the society - is not in pursuit of political power; religious authority works through the state. Al Qaeda's challenge resides in its attempt to unhinge religious authority from state power and, in so doing, destroy the nexus that is the Kingdom.

Afghanistan:  Of Pyrrhic Victories and Unintended Consequences

The Kingdom's involvement in Afghanistan has been assumed by many commentators to be a specific example of a general Saudi foreign policy goal to proselytize a so-called 'Wahhabi Islam' understood as a militant, anti-western creed. In other words, the manifestations of a 'radicalized' Faith in Afghanistan - al Qaeda and the Taliban - were derivative of Saudi government objectives. However, that misstates the Kingdom's goals, just as it misunderstands the fractious situation in Afghanistan, the indigenous expressions of Islam and militancy in the zone of conflict, and the aftermath of the Afghani conflict to evict the Soviet Union. Most importantly, this view offers an inverted reading of what occurred, in effect, pronouncing the effect to be the cause. The Kingdom did not export 'radical' Islam to Afghanistan. If anything, the conflict surrounding Afghanistan exported one back to it in the shape of al Qaeda; Afghanistan was the 'radicalizing' milieu, not the Kingdom.

The year 1979 was momentous for the Kingdom, throwing up potential challenges both to the Kingdom's regional position (the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in April) and the government's domestic authority (the attack on the Great mosque in Mecca in November.) The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of the year offered what seemed an ideal opportunity to bolster its Islamic credentials and to enhance its political influence in a country bordering the now threatening Iran. The Kingdom's participation, rather than being interpreted as an aggressive act at spreading religious militancy was essentially defensive in nature, and purposely designed to deflect such militancy. It should also be stressed that the Afghani venture, accomplished in close conjunction with the United States, was hardly the manifestation of an anti-western animus. To the contrary, it conformed to a long-established Saudi government pattern found in both its domestic and foreign affairs of combining fealty to the Kingdom's faith with a productive relationship with the United States.

Part II of "The Crucible" by Gregory Dowling will be published next week by the Saudi-American Forum.

End Notes:

1.  Interview in Le Nouvel Observateur (France), January 15-21, 1998.
2.  From his poem ‘The Second Coming.’
3.  Barbarian Sentiments: America in the New Century, Hill and Wang, New York, 2000, p.3.
4.  The Bush Administration has reinforced, presumably unintentionally, this sense that an ‘open’ society is ill-equipped to deal with terrorism by introducing federal regulations arguably in conflict with the U.S. Constitution designed, it is presumed, to augment the government’s ability to counter terrorist threats.
5.  From a more general and somewhat theoretical perspective, the effort to classify al Qaeda by reference to its ideological outlook seems a questionable approach.  Ideologies do not so much determine specific acts as legitimize them.  Even if one could point to ideological commonalities between al Qaeda and the Kingdom, it would be mistaken to assume that such similarity presupposes a commonality of purpose. Indeed, mutual adherence to a common ideological framework can just as easily invoke dissension – witness how the ideology of Ba’athism only exacerbated relations between Syria and Iraq.  Ideologies of whatever ilk are malleable constructions evolving in response to the ‘facts on the ground.’  The intense focus on former in the effort to evaluate al Qaeda only works to obscure the latter.  As a result, the role that such key events as the Afghani conflict – long running, tumultuous, marked by unpredictability and hardly controllable - have played in creating and defining al Qaeda receive short shrift. 
6.  This is once again a headline topic with the release in late July of the Congressional report on the failures of the US intelligence agencies prior to 9/11.  A small section of that report - 28 pages out of some 900 - that considers what role foreign governments may have played in the US’ failure to uncover the plot remains classified.  However, it is generally accepted in the US press, based upon comments from individuals with access to the classified sections, that it is dominated by comments about the Kingdom and the role of Islamic charities.