On the Sixth anniversary of 9/11: Ten questions for the future

By Walid Phares

At this sixth anniversary of the Jihadist attacks on America, a better understanding of the past can lead us to a clearer analysis of future trends. Such analysis opens up the way for a series of critically important questions.

1. Do the Jihadists wish to destroy the enemy (the free world) or absorb it?

2. Do they want to attack the West and the United States before they accomplish their goals in the Muslim world first? A crucial question, leading to many others.

3. Will it be possible to conclude peace with the Jihadists? What would doing so entail?

4. What are al Qaeda’s priorities in the struggle against the United States?

5. What weaknesses and holes do the Jihadists see in America and the West, and how would they use them?

6. Are the governments in the United States and other western nations ready for these future wars?

7. What would the next generations of Americans, today’s children and youths, have to face in these wars?

8. What should the United States and the West do to avoid future jihads?

9. Why wasn’t it already done in the past?

10. Are the Jihadists alone, or do they have the backing of other powers and states?

A first objective is to show that future is very much about the past. The future of America depends on our understanding of the historical roots of Jihadism. This is not a war with an enemy with whom governments can sign peace treaties or establish new frontiers. The free world is facing forces that link directly to ancient and modern history. Their ideology was born decades ago, but was inspired by doctrines from the Middle Ages. America has never engaged in a conflict with deeper roots in the past. Today’s terrorists see the world with different eyes and minds from all Americans – and from most communities worldwide. To fully understand their mindset, we must learn about the terrorists’ history and their reading of history. The future of U.S. national security, international relations, and world stability lies in the hands of those who are first to learn about the terrorists’ relevant history. That is the key to their code, but it is not a secret one; it was simply hidden for too long by our own elite, which denied the public this fundamental knowledge. By severing the historical roots from contemporary conflicts waged by the terrorists, and by camouflaging their real long term intents (which are also linked to their version of history), our elite blurred or even blinded our vision.

In my research I make the case that a central obligation in the war on terror, waged since the fall of 2001, is education of the public: the American public first, but international public opinion as well. The outcome of the conflict will be decided by how well citizens understand the threat. The Islamic Fundamentalists’ jihadist strategies are not fully centered on classical state warfare. The resources of regimes have been merged with the capabilities of networks. The jihadists’ presence is fluid and their actions are stealthy until the final stages of an operation. But ironically, jihadists emerge, grow and develop almost entirely in the open. If we look at their public manifestation and thinking, whether in chat room conversations or media like al Jazeera, we can begin to understand their objectives. And if we learn about their past and deeper history, we can understand their current and future strategies.

Many among us wonder about the global strategy of the jihadists. Not only there is a global jihadist strategy, but also several different components. Not only are the terror plans frightening; they are already underway on a global level. The terrorist and jihadist strategies against the United States and the West started earlier than most of us generally think, that terrorists have been more successful in infiltrating than we expect, and that they are readying themselves for far larger strikes than they have mounted in the past.

There should be a global effort to educate the West about past mistakes in judgment that led to the terrorist advances. But perhaps more importantly, from what we know has really happened, and what we know could have happened, comes a terrifying picture of what could happen around the world if the appropriate policies and measures are not taken.

PS: This article was adapted from Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against America

Dr Walid Phares is the director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the author of The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Dem

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