Monday, 11 March, 2002, 08:04 GMT
War 'playing into al-Qaeda's hands'
The war could be "deeply counter-productive"
By BBC News Online's Alex Kirby
Two British scholars say the US strategy for defeating al-Qaeda is in fact
having the opposite effect.
They describe the military response to the terrorism of 11 September as "deeply
counter-productive".
Unless core issues of marginalisation and disempowerment are addressed, the end
result of responding to terror with violence will be increased support for
groups like al-Qaeda
Oxford Research Group report
Broadening the war on terror from Afghanistan to Iraq, they believe, could
provoke Baghdad into first use of chemical or biological weapons.
Endless conflict, they argue, will be the consequence of meeting terror with
violence.
The two academics are Professor Paul Rogers, of Bradford University's peace
studies department, and Dr Scilla Elworthy, director of the Oxford Research
Group (ORG).
Six months on from the attacks on the US, the ORG has published their appraisal
of what has been achieved, entitled Never-ending War?: Consequences of
September 11.
The authors say antagonism towards the US from al-Qaeda and its allies had been
developing for more than a decade, fuelled by the politics of the Gulf region
after the 1991 war against Iraq.
The Gulf holds two-thirds of the world's known oil reserves: US dependence on
imported oil rose from 12.5% of consumption in 1970 to 60.9% in 2000.
'Unacceptable control'
The report notes "a widespread belief that the US... [is] exerting an
unacceptable control over the Gulf states because of its determination to
maintain security of oil supplies".
It contrasts this with an American focus on seeing al-Qaeda "simply as
fundamentalists acting from motives of sheer hatred for the US and all it stood
for".
In Afghanistan itself, the authors say, Russia has now regained significant
influence as a consequence of the war.
They add that far more people, many of them innocent, have died there from the
war's direct and indirect effects than in the attacks on New York and
Washington.
And they also say that the FBI believes the war has robbed al-Qaeda of only 30%
of its capabilities.
The authors say al-Qaeda's aims are to evict Western troops from the Gulf and
to replace Saudi Arabia's rulers "with what would be considered a legitimate
Islamic regime".
It would have expected the US to respond with great force after 11 September,
and to increase its troops in the Middle East and south-west Asia
substantially, inciting further anti-American feeling.
This is just what has happened, with sizeable US forces now in Uzbekistan,
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and an initial deployment in Georgia.
Iraqi threat
The authors add: "Moreover, in a development that must be hugely welcomed by
the al-Qaeda network, the US has developed a much stronger support for the
Sharon Government in Israel."
So the report says al-Qaeda is "substantially capable of further action", and
US support for Israel is producing "a widespread anti-American mood".
To attack Iraq "should be expected to lead to the use of any weapons of mass
destruction that the regime might be able to muster", with great risk to US
forces, Gulf state civilians and Israel.
The report concludes that no state can promote a global economy while at the
same time acting exclusively in its own perceived interest.
Nor can the world afford the double standards which allow United Nations
Security Council members to have nuclear weapons, but nobody else.
The authors conclude: "Unless core issues of marginalisation and disempowerment
are addressed, the end result of responding to terror with violence will be
increased support for groups like al-Qaeda, and an expanded cycle of violence."
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