It could also lead to more attacks from his enraged supporters and impel otherwise factious extremists to join hands against the West. Regardless, there remains little reason to revel.
In retrospect, the ideal method to counter international terrorism would have involved a direct ideological challenge from modernist democratic forces to Islamist extremists. But this solution is difficult to implement in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Af-Pak), where any ideological campaign has to first clear the ‘Islam-in-danger’ hurdle; that is, any association with modernity purportedly weakens Islam’s founding principles, which are time and culture invariant, and therefore amounts to apostasy. There are limits to what Western intervention can achieve under these circumstances because of the accusations that the West seeks to undermine Islam in general. The window of opportunity offered by the last general election in Pakistan was prematurely closed after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the leader of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), in 2007. More recently, the campaign for amendment of the archaic blasphemy laws provided another opportunity to the democrats to publicly challenge the extremist ideology. But the assassination of Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, and Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minister of Minorities Affairs, in a quick succession earlier this year foreclosed that possibility too. Both of them belonged to PPP.
Another method would have involved an alliance between the West and moderate Islamic groups traditionally opposed to the extremists. Here, clearing the ‘Islam-in-danger’ hurdle is less problematic given the difficulty for extremists in portraying Muslim leaders of widely respected traditional institutions as anti-Islamic. Both methods would include the provision of physical security and development funding to non-extremists. Actually, given the relative weakness of political and religious moderates, a combination of these methods would have been more appropriate for waging the War on Terror in Af-Pak.
Unfortunately the US has not followed any of these options with anything more than half-hearted lip service, and is stuck in its current approach to the War on Terror — consisting of military operations coupled with development initiatives. In the best case scenario, this purely secular strategy will temporarily neutralise ragtag Islamist militias without affecting their ideological appeal and bring the war-torn Af-Pak back to pre-war levels of development. But, in the meantime, the militarised counterinsurgency is damaging the cause it is meant to defend.
Militarisation of the conflict and its spread across Af-Pak has destroyed public institutions and infrastructure, paralysed the economy and given birth to a militant culture. In this environment, political and religious moderates alike have suffered attrition due to their inability to withstand the onslaught of the extremists. The assassinations of high profile democratic leaders and relentless attacks on Sufi institutions are cases in point. The inability and/or unwillingness of the state in Af-Pak to check extremist violence has further demoralised the moderates. These developments have strengthened the extremists by reducing ideological competition and allowing them to access cheaper human capital and material resources — precisely what the War on Terror was launched to prevent.
Modernist democratic groups have also suffered secondary attrition. The collateral damage due to the drone-borne war financed by the democratic West has discredited the idea of democracy more than it has harmed the extremists. Also, the secrecy surrounding the war and availability of unaccounted funds from abroad have spawned corruption and undermined democratic institutions. Nationalists within the democratic camps in Af-Pak are now less open to Washington’s development and democracy initiatives because they see the war, particularly the way it has been conducted, as an affront to their sovereignty. The secondary attrition in the moderate Islamic camp has resulted because of the militarisation and radicalisation of some of its members, triggered by the visibility of extremist successes.
In short, faulty execution of the War on Terror has severely weakened the moderates while leaving the ideological appeal of the extremists intact. This limits our ability to encourage local ideological resistance, whether secular or Islamic, in the future. This is particularly worrisome because the revival of Islamic extremists after the United States’ withdrawal seems inevitable. But it would be presumptuous to believe that the US is unaware of the limitations of its strategy. So, why did it choose a purely non-ideological, secular, military strategy?
Perhaps the clamour for swift revenge constrained the Bush administration, which thought it could pull out after a speedy operation but ended up chasing a mirage. But ten years is long enough a period for course correction. One could argue that the US’s constitutional commitment domestically against state interference in the religious and cultural spheres hinders forging a strong alliance between the West and moderate Islamic groups. But that this commitment is not a binding constraint should be clear from the way the West used cultural and religious cleavages, even though clumsily, to bolster the anti-communist resistance during the Cold War.
Alternatively, it could be argued that the US’s strategic inflexibility or blunder is a consequence of intellectual and cultural arrogance in the West, accentuated by its military and economic superiority. At least initially, the strategy presumed that once the extremists are physically defeated the masses will automatically and irreversibly follow the Western model — because it was deemed to be not only superior to other models, and hence desirable, but also universally applicable across cultures. But even this alternative explanation is only partly credible because some of the most nuanced critiques of the West’s arrogance, and finest contributions toward understanding the non-West, have emerged from within the West.
What is needed is a clearer understanding of the flawed presumptions and compulsions of the War on Terror for a better counterinsurgency aimed at bringing back normalcy to the lives of millions of hapless poor in Afghanistan and Pakistan. People in this region have seen their worlds destroyed many times over for no fault of their own. It is extremely unfortunate that policymakers, and recent revellers, in the West have forgotten about the biggest victims of terror and counter-terror.
Vikas Kumar is an independent researcher based in Bangalore.
An earlier version of this article was first published here on South Asia Masala.