The Campaign Against Terror - Part 21 - Conclusions.

With the war against terror now completing its second year, both sides in the conflict are beginning to realise that the situation is far more complex than it appeared initially. Neither side has been able to achieve what it wanted, and indications are that the confrontation between radical

The United States had expected a series of high-tech military campaigns to take down the safe havens for radical Islamic movements one by one. They have succeeded in ousting the regimes that provided safe haven, notably that of the Taliban in Afghanistan and to a much lesser extent that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, but Islamists of various kinds, including Al Qaida activists and/or sympathizers, continue to operate with relative impunity in both countries. Afghanistan, in particular, is an example of how a defeated regime, i.e. the Taliban, is gradually nibbling back its power base through incremental consolidation from the periphery.

The terrorists who planned and executed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, had anticipated a global backlash against Islam as a whole, not just against radical Islam. While there has indeed been a backlash from the West, and to a lesser extent from non-Islamic countries in the East, it has been heavily couched in conciliatory rhetoric on the one hand, while on the other efforts are being made to define the targets of the backlash as specifically as possible. Perhaps more importantly, the Islamists have discovered that the governments of the Middle East and regional public opinion in general have not behaved as they expected. While Osama Bin Ladin is held in high esteem among the general public, observers concur that enthusiasm for joining up to wage jihad has waned in light of the intense security crackdown worldwide by the US and an associated campaign within their countries by the regimes in power, especially in the Middle East but also in other parts of the world.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that neither the US and its allies nor the Islamist radicals have been right in their calculations, the campaign against terror has developed broadly along lines projected by various Western and Arab think-tanks, as well as by APS. For example, it was noted at the start of this survey that countries could be classified as falling into three general groups, namely those who are (1) fully on the American side of the war, who would be treated as preferred allies, (2) reluctantly on the American side, who would be regarded as allies of convenience, and (3) totally opposed to the US, who would be treated as "states of concern" or "rogue states".

It was also pointed out that this classification would be dynamic, with some countries shifting from one group to the other - either moving further away from the world coalition against terror or closer towards it. Examples of this, too, are becoming evident. On one side is Libya, which in 2001 was regarded as a "rogue state". But through careful diplomacy it has managed to improve its position to the extent that UN sanctions are on the verge of being lifted, after the regime of Col. Qadhafi admitted responsibility for the Lockerbie Pan Am bombing of 1988 and agreed to pay compensation amounting to a total of $2.7 billion to the families. Of this $1 billion will be paid after the UN sanctions are lifted and the remaining $1.7 billion will be disbursed after the US ends its bilateral sanctions against Libya - in effect after the country is fully reinstated as a normal member of the international community.

On the other side is Saudi Arabia, as one example, which in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 was portrayed as a key ally of the US in the war against terror, despite the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers who were involved in the attacks were Saudis. Despite the initial claims, over the past two years, Riyadh has been getting steadily more distant from Washington, partly because media and governmental investigations keep turning up increasing links between Saudi officialdom and radical Islamists such as the perpetrators of 9/11 - especially in the realm of financing. The government in Saudi Arabia has in fact been taking very tough measures to check such financing, and indeed to end all links between such radicals and the kingdom - including the suspension of about 2,000 mosque imams, who were told that they could no longer giver prayer sermons unless they got re-educated, according to an interview given by Crown Prince Abdullah's special advisor on foreign affairs, Adel Al Jubair, on BBC Hardtalk on Aug. 15, 2003. Another move taken by Riyadh has been to close external branches of a number of charity organisations operating out of the kingdom.

As projected at the outset of this survey, rewards have been given and punishments have been meted out to according to the performance of regional allies and opponents. Thus Turkey, an ally which in the US perception betrayed America by refusing to open up a front in northern Iraq against the regime of Saddam Hussein, has faced diplomatic pressures and military embarrassments over the past few months - including the detention and mistreatment of some of its Special Forces troops in northern Iraq. However, a "second chance" is being given to Ankara by the US with a request for troops to be deployed in Iraq as a stabilising force.

By contrast Pakistan, where the ruling military establishment was behind the creation of the Taliban and a country visited by virtually every major terrorist arrested since 9/11, quickly took the side of the US by abandoning the Taliban. Since then, the Pakistani military establishment has opened up its military bases to US forces and permitted American investigative and intelligence agencies a virtual free hand in operating within the country.

The war against terror, which cannot be classified as being either "cold" or "hot", has thrown up unusual strategic and tactical equations involving the US. The calculations of the past still apply up to a point, but countries in the Greater Middle East are themselves not sure what that point is - and the US likes to keep things that way so that a degree of uncertainty about its objectives and intentions remains. All this is part of its comprehensive approach to the war, which was outlined in the aftermath of 9/11 by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, who explained that the campaign against terror would involve overt and high profile military actions, as well as secret special forces operations, intelligence co-operation on a strategic level as well as ad hoc alliances, deception to give the wrong impression about US intentions, and pressure tactics that would involve using the creators of radical movements to turn against their creations. Aspects of all these methods can be perceived in anti-terror developments worldwide since 9/11.