THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 240, December 10, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE ZEN OF SUICIDE BOMBING
By Alan Caruba
ISLAMIC TERRORISM & ITS IMPACT ON UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST: HOW SUICIDE
BOMBING HAS FORCED THE U.S.A. TO REEVALUATE ITS STRATEGIC GOALS IN THE MIDDLE EAST -- THE STRATEGIC
REASON WHY THE U.S.A. & ITS COALITION ALLIES ATTACKED & INVADED IRAQ -- THE NEED TO PROTECT THE WEST'S
ACCESS TO MIDDLE EASTERN OIL RESERVES -- FINDING THE DELICATE BALANCE BETWEEN THE PROTECTION OF AMERICAN
NATIONAL INTERESTS & ENGAGEMENT WITH THE FORCES COMPETING FOR HEGEMONY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
FULL STORY:
As you might imagine, suicide bombers are very angry people. To those of us in the West, the idea of killing oneself for
the purpose of killing others and doing so for the goal of driving them from one’s country, is utterly foreign to our moral
and ethical values. It is, however, a very effective weapon of the weak. It works.
The succession of suicide bombings in Iraq influenced the outcome of the recent U.S. election to the point where a majority
of Americans have signaled the government that it is time, in their opinion, to leave Iraq. Prior to the 2003 “Coalition”
invasion, Iraq had never had a suicide terrorist attack in its history.
Robert A. Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and Director of the Chicago Project on Suicide
Terrorism, is the author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. He recently had an analysis
published by the Cato Institute called What We’ve Learned Since 9/11. Policy wonks like myself read the Cato
Analysis papers to get behind and beyond the daily headlines.
Pape understands the suicide bomber like few others. So, let me share some of his insights: “Suicide is an especially
convincing signal of future intent because it suggests that the attackers could not have been deterred, and future attackers
will not be, by a threat of costly retaliation.”
Put aside, for the moment, the dramatic 9/11 Islamist attacks on America. We know that the U.S.A. elected to inflict a costly
retaliation on the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban have returned to Afghanistan and are, once again, waging a guerrilla
war there. Just as they originally wanted the Russians out, now it is the Americans.
We did not, however, invade Iraq as the result of 9/11, although the invasion was sold on the basis of a potential future
attack on the U.S. homeland or on its allies in the Middle Eastern region. We attacked Iraq for the strategic reason that it
would (1) depose a troublemaking dictator, (2) lure terrorists to a place where they could be killed, and (3) provide the
U.S.A. with a military platform in the most important, strategic location in the Middle East.
Vital to understanding the action taken, there was clearly a perceived need to protect the West’s access to Iraq’s oil
reserves, as well as other reserves in the region, such as those of the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Bahrain and the United Arab
Emirates, all of them Sunni societies, and all of them fearing Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime and now fearing the radical
Shiite regime in Iran.
A relative handful of suicide bombers have successfully forced the U.S.A to reevaluate its strategic goals, and it is not
surprising that most attacks occur in Baghdad, where they receive maximum media coverage -- coverage by a media
that is largely opposed to our objectives there.
Since the 1980s, the West has pulled back from military engagements, ranging from Lebanon, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia
where our troops were garrisoned, and other places in the Middle East. Nations such as Spain and Great Britain, whose
troops were allied with the U.S.A., also experienced terrorist bombings.
According to Pape, “The data showed that all suicide terrorist campaigns have in common a specific secular and strategic
goal: to compel democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists value.”
Like 9/11, it is not the dregs of Islamic society committing these acts of terror. As often as not, the bombers are educated
members of the middle class. They are primarily motivated by a “deep anger over Western combat forces in the Persian
Gulf region and other predominantly Muslim lands.”
The vast bulk of the suicide terrorists have been Saudis, and this is understandable, if one considers that it is the locus
of Wahhabism, the most fundamentalist of Islamic sects.
Pape states: “If al-Qa'ida no longer drew recruits from the Muslim countries where there is an American combat presence,
the remaining transnational network would pose a far smaller threat and might well simply collapse.”
This fact requires one to ask the question of the value of keeping American and Coalition troops in the Middle Eastern
region. Pape concludes that, “The longer this suicide terrorist campaign continues, the greater the risk of new attacks in
the United States.”
The coup de gras he delivers is the view:
“Spreading democracy in the Middle East is not likely to be
a panacea as long as foreign combat troops remain in the
region. If not for the world’s obvious interest in Persian Gulf
oil, the obvious solution might well be to simply abandon
the region altogether. Complete disengagement from the
Middle East, however, is not possible.”
Welcome to that spot between a rock and a hard place. Benjamin Franklin famously once said that, “The definition of
insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
We need to find that delicate balance between the protection of our interest in the flow of oil from the region and
engagement with the forces competing for hegemony there. Nobody said it was going to be easy, but the failure to
project our power will only create a vacuum that would swiftly be filled by Islamic extremists.
Middle Eastern nations have spawned a new, very long war between each other and, so long as we play soldier in their
sandbox, it is a war directed against the West as well. If we leave, does anyone believe it will get better?
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
North Africa -- The Arab States of Islamic North Africa
The Middle East & the Problem of Iraq
Page Two
Page One
The Problem of Rogue States:
Iraq as a Case History
National Strategy for Victory in Iraq
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
Egypt, Arabs, & the Middle East
Tunisia, Islamic North Africa, & the Arab World
The Middle East & the Problem of Syria
The Middle East -- Lebanon as a Geopolitical Problem
Turkey, the Middle East, & the U.S.A.
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
American Foreign Policy -- Constitutional Democracy:
U.S. Promotion of Constitutional Democracy in Foreign Countries
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba’s new book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press.
© Alan Caruba 2006
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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