Terrorism – An American Failure?

In 2000, terrorism — at least as we know it today — did not exist in Iraq or Syria, or in the Middle East as a whole. However, the American invasion of ancient Mesopotamia totally changed things, thus causing it to become radicalized and turning it into a cross-border plague. Is it really so hard to believe that this was only possible with the contribution of the United States to what would become al-Qaida, through logistical and strategic support to the Islamist movements operating between 1980 and 1990 in Afghanistan, movements formed by the CIA and financed by Saudi Arabia? If we do not return to the origins of what is now a global plague, and if we do not define this phenomenon in a straightforward way, we will not be able to understand its international expansion, much less eradicate it.

The advent of international terrorism is actually closely linked to America’s world domination strategy on one hand, and on the other, to Washington’s desire to share the Middle East on an ethical, tribal and religious basis — George W. Bush’s Greater Middle East project. Today, Syria, Iraq and Libya provide a damning overview of what will become of the Machrek and Maghreb regions, which have surrendered to jihadism. And it is Qatar and Saudi Arabia that finance jihadism, whose responsibility is great in the project to destroy the Arab nation.

Before Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism was not common — at least not on such a destructive scale as will be known from now on. But 9/11 was the very excuse that influenced American neoconservatives to take action and prepare the world for the “war on terror,” which is nothing but a strategy to reconfigure global geopolitics. In the State of Union address on Jan. 28, 2004, George W. Bush revealed his intentions and assured that “evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda.”

On Feb. 5, 2003, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell stood in front of the United Nations Security Council and “produced evidence” of the links that existed, according to him, between Iraq and the Islamist nebula. Thus, under the guise of a war on terrorism, the White House, Department of State and Pentagon launched a senseless campaign, to say the least.

Earlier, on June 1, 2002, President Bush unveiled what would be dubbed “the Bush Doctrine” that advocated strikes on what he called the “rogue states.” George W. Bush was fantasizing. In 2002, there was none of the terrorist “terror” that the Syrian and Iraqi people are experiencing in 2014. However, in Iraq, it is the American invasion that gave birth to the jihadi groups, namely the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. In Syria, it is once again the United States, aided by France and the United Kingdom, that has actively encouraged the overthrow of the legal Syrian regime, also with the emergence of jihadi groups, including the al-Nusra Front (local al-Qaida representative), responsible for the death of tens of thousands of Syrians and the exodus of millions more.

Wherever the United States has wanted to forcibly change a regime — Iraq, Libya, Syria — far from establishing democracy and the respect of the people, this has resulted in the deconstruction of these states, the resulting effect being power grabs by armed jihadi groups that reign with terror over the populations, which are subjected to their tyranny. Will the Americans send soldiers to Iraq? Not likely. They will use the tactic that they are already employing in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen: a drone war. For the United States, this means fewer human lives lost, and it costs less financially, whereas the collateral damage is and will be disastrous for the target countries. There are more Afghan, Pakistani and Yemenite civilians who die from American drone strikes than from terrorists. The Americans will say that sacrifices, if not errors, are inevitable, even if it is still the Iraqis and Syrians who will have to pay the price.

However, since 2003, it has been clear that the arguments used by the U.S. to legitimize the war on terrorism were an illusion. It was a fake war that gave the Americans the jihadi “plague” to spread to the world, thus they could say that they were the only ones with the cure. Terrorism, unheard of 13 years ago, has not only progressed but has also been consolidated thanks to Western logistics and the financing of the Gulf monarchies. As such, the U.S. anti-terrorism fight has succeeded in propelling jihadism, somewhat encouraged or even oriented toward objectives that only Washington must know. Seen from this perspective, “terrorism” seems rather like an American “success!”