Scheuer Vs. Burke: Where do we really stand in the fight against al-Qa'ida?

By Jeffrey Cozzens

Michael Scheuer and Jason Burke last week published very different assessments of whether the West is gaining the upper-hand in the fight against the global jihad of al-Qa’ida (AQ) and its Emir, Usama bin Laden (UBL). Both authors are highly regarded experts who have written perhaps the most defining works on al-Qa’ida to date. However, these authors employ quite different approaches and metrics to determine Western success (or lack thereof) against the global jihad. Their perspectives represent two primary (and generally conflicting) views on the current state of the global movement and its chief symbol. Generally, Scheuer sees UBL’s glass as half-full; Burke sees it as half-empty.

The following analysis considers Burke’s and Scheuer’s views, which generally summarize those found in the wider U.S. counter-terrorism community, then offers its own set of criteria that might be appropriate to consider in any “scorecard” that evaluates our current efforts against global jihadism.

First, concerning Burke’s analysis in the Guardian, several prominent themes emerge in his argument that AQ is losing:

•Burke’s determination that we are winning is based upon a broad-brush approach that factors in a holistic picture of the evolution of Islamic militancy, its root causes and nuanced, regional forms. It is also obvious that he considers bin Laden to be merely a spoke in the evolving “wheel” of militant Islam.
•Reason for Western optimism 1: AQ’s strategy of igniting a global awakening has faltered because of its exclusive reliance upon violence.
•Reason for Western optimism 2: Islamic militancy is serious, but it has not impacted the West to a large extent. We can live with minor inconvenience and restrictions.
•Reason for Western optimism 3: Polls demonstrate that the vast majority of Muslims worldwide prefer non-violent contention and are increasingly less enthusiastic in their admiration of bin Laden.

Scheuer’s assessment is markedly different; as seen below, he argues that UBL is likely pleased with where things stand today:

•Scheuer’s argument that UBL and the global jihadi movement have some reason for optimism is based on a qualitative method that attempts to assess the present geopolitical context “through our enemies’ eyes.” In so many words, Scheuer pays homage to the jihadi perception of UBL as a mujadid—one who would awaken Muslims to their obligations—and therefore views him with central importance as an inspirational figure.
•Reason for AQ’s optimism 1: As UBL has noted, he never considered himself (or AQ, for that matter) the sole carrier of the burden of jihad; it was merely an incendiary force. The killing of individual jihadi figureheads like al-Zarqawi will therefore not eliminate this function.
•Reason for AQ’s optimism 2: Western policies in the Islamic world have given prescience to the arguments of UBL and other figureheads; thus UBL’s “tight focus” on these Western policies is motivating “an increasing number” of Muslims to respond to his call to arms.
•Reason for AQ’s optimism 3: There have been a number of AQ-inspired—though not directly linked—attacks around the globe.

So, which expert is correct? Unlike natural science, no one can ‘prove’ either author right or wrong, just as no one can say with certainty that we are winning or losing the battle against Islamic militancy. This answer is evasive owing to two abstractions, time and quality, which work in concert to produce a muddied picture of a battlefield that looks different to many of the combatants. That being said, I will briefly evaluate some of the merits and short-comings of both experts’ arguments.

First, as Andrew Cochran recently indicated, an outright assessment of victory and defeat is premature in the first instance and cannot be measured in the same way that we evaluate other military campaigns; we are fighting ideas. This war is not fought over territory alone, nor are we struggling to subdue a politically instrumental adversary. Those who clamor for such a pronouncement must never forget that we are in a “historic challenge,” as jihadi “interpreter” Louis Attiyat Allah wrote after 7/7. This battle has an epic timeline (at least according to AQ) and the scope and nature of its information campaigns set it apart from previous wars; it is one where victory is synonymous not only with understanding the adversary, but with a reformulated understanding of patience and gaining the upper-hand in a moral, narrative duel. Moreover, we must recall that AQ’s self-conception as the “victorious sect” lends itself to an apocalyptic time horizon that cannot be measured by recent polling data.

Second, in terms of Scheuer and Burke’s contentions, both open themselves wide to countervailing points. In determining where we stand vis-à-vis our fight against AQ, Scheuer’s arguments are strong owing to his attempts to perceive the situation through the eyes of the jihadis; however, this particular analysis (like so many others) is overly UBL-centric. The “war” is not entirely about bin Laden, regardless of his credentials; it is about him and others like him who follow a “heroic” template to “raise the banner of Islam” by expelling un-Islamic forces from Muslims lands and unseating “apostate” regimes. Like UBL, these forsake the love of the world with humility to shoulder an obligation to jihad while living continually “in the trenches” and within the shadow of martyrdom, their stated ambition. That’s why we must not only concentrate on taking out “nodes” in the global network of jihad; we must simultaneously erode the narrative lines and social trust that link these nodes to each other by re-evaluating our policies and exploiting cleavages within the global “culture” of jihad. Thus Zarqawi’s death, while a deserved morale boost to our troops and certainly a set-back for al-Qa’ida in Iraq, is merely an end that those who aspire to fight jihad claim to seek and anticipate. Nevertheless, kudos to Mike Scheuer for offering a strategic evaluation of AQ’s progress through UBL’s worldview; this is a critical approach that Burke (like many others in the global security business) fails to adopt.

In contrast, Burke factors in a more comprehensive awareness of a rapidly changing Islamic world. Unlike Scheuer, he does not base his assessment largely around one individual, but takes a more holistic account of the contemporary geopolitical landscape. Nevertheless, his approach is somewhat marred by a reliance on quantitative data that can change on a dime and should be contextualized and qualified.

Third, while I buy Burke’s argument that there is broad disgust with the late Zarqawi’s tactics in Iraq and elsewhere in the Islamic world, on the other hand, as Scheuer indicates, there most certainly has been a rise in major attacks and plots by AQ sympathizers - particularly in the West - during the same time. Which figure is a better indicator of our success or failure, the Islamic world’s recent general disapproval of UBL (as Burke claims) -- a figure that could easily change pending the outcome of the Haditha enquiry, or the recent Gitmo suicides, for example -- or the rise in plots in the West? For our purposes, the later seems to indicate that the battle of ideas is heating-up, not winding down. Although it is clear that bin Laden’s “awakening” has not started to the degree that he desires, we discount at our own peril atrocities like the 3/11 and 7/7 bombings, and the recent (2005-2006) alleged plots in Los Angeles, the UK and Canada.

Finally, one must take issue with the main pillar of Burke’s argument: “We have had to submit to new laws, expense and inconvenience certainly, but things are not so different from before.” Burke’s argument is a nice counter-weight to others that point to a jihadi lurking behind every tree; which refuse to contextualize and differentiate between the “al-Aqsa Intifadah” and al-Qa’ida’s jihad; and proclaim the 4th Mechanized al-Qa’ida Infantry’s imminent insertion into the National Capitol Region. However, it is a pity that Burke did not canvass the wider Muslim community in Great Britain, which would undoubtedly take issue with that statement. In some cases, it could be argued that perceptions of heavy handedness, in combination with a foreign policy widely viewed as adversarial to Islam, have created a situation in the minds of some young British (and American? and Canadian? and Western European?) Muslims that their country is now at war with them. This view is a necessary precursor to both emigration for jihad and fighting jihad in one’s non-Muslim nation of residence.

Along these lines, it must also be questioned whether America’s post-9/11 foreign policy direction, re-calibration of its national security architecture, and domestic security legislation like the Patriot Act constitutes “business as usual.” Some might argue that the sum of these developments constitutes a semblance of victory for strategic thinkers like Ayman al-Zawahiri, whose long-term ambition has been to alternatively provoke, strike and goad al-Qa’ida’s enemies into divisions at home and abroad, culminating in their eventual physical and political withdrawal from the Muslim world.

On balance, while Burke’s perspective reflects his significant “in-country” experience and his (however implicit) justifiable cynicism, Scheuer’s argument carries a bit more weight because he plays the ultimate “Red Side” actor: he offers an assessment through the lens of the adversary.

That being said, perhaps we need to also consider other criteria in future assessments of “who is winning?” Some of these (inherently qualitative and difficult to measure) might come in the form of answers to the following questions:

•Are we doing a good job training the “next generation” of analysts to actually understand the nuances, drivers, processes and methods of Islamic militancy?
•How well are we fighting at the “moral level” of warfare, which is perhaps the most important in the struggle against global jihad?
•Are we making useful distinctions between Islamist reformers and global jihadis and harnessing the former in a narrative battle against the other?
•Are we pursuing Muslim hearts and minds with the same intensity and effect that we are global jihadi icons like Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi?
•Are we preparing the United States to fight fictional adversaries at great expense to taxpayers, or are our conceptions of the adversary’s characteristics and methodology reflective of more fiction than evidence-based analysis?

Regardless of how such an assessment is formulated, any metric that does not provoke soul-searching and call for brutal honesty is a disservice to those it is designed to protect.

TrackBack