Why Sunni Islamism is the world’s greatest threat

By BARRY RUBIN, JPOST

To understand al-Qaida, which of course goes under many names and regional local groups, is simple. It has one strategy: kill!

No, it sure isn’t the Age of Aquarius or of multicultural, politically correct love-ins. It’s the age of revolutionary Islamism, especially Sunni Islamism. And you better learn to understand what this is all about, real fast.

(Shia Islamism, important mainly because of Iran and especially due to its nuclear ambitions is number two on the threat list. But that’s not our topic today.)

Focusing on the Sunni tidal wave, the foundational bit of knowledge is that there are three types, and you better learn them all and their complex interrelationships because a lot of people are going to be misinforming you about this and getting others – never themselves, of course – killed.

The three types are the al-Qaida type; the Salafis, and the Muslim Brotherhood. They are all equally dangerous and some are more dangerous in different ways. Have no illusions.

To understand al-Qaida, which of course goes under many names and regional local groups, is simple. It has one strategy: kill! Its only tactic is terrorism.
It is like those 19th-century revolutionary movements that always failed and for which the Marxists had so much contempt. These small groups were always persuaded that if the workers would only be roused to a general strike, or if enough officials were assassinated, the revolution would come like a nuclear explosion. Now, these movements always failed but sometimes they laid the basis for others to succeed.

Remember, the People’s Will helped launch the Russian revolutionary movement; an anarchist assassinated an American president; the Serbian state-sponsored terrorist cell set off World War One in 1914, and of course al-Qaida created September 11.

Al-Qaida and its various versions in Morocco, Gaza (the Palestinian Resistance Committees), Iraq, Somalia, Europe, Yemen and a dozen other places is dangerous in that it can stage terrorist attacks. In a place where no government exists – like Somalia – it might conceivably seize power. But al-Qaida is not the great threat of the 21st century. It is a problem for counterterrorism and relatively lightweight counterinsurgency.

They may be the worst guys, but they are not the West’s main global strategic problem. Everybody who isn’t basically a supporter of an al- Qaida group hates al-Qaida, except for the Taliban which is really sort of a similar version. Why? Simple. Because al-Qaida wants to overthrow every regime (they do play a little footsy with Iran but even that’s limited). Oh, and they also loathe Shia Muslims which makes for even more enemies and fewer potential allies.

It is “stupid” to have no friends because that means everyone has a motive to get you and nobody has a reason to help you or give you safe haven. Doesn’t sound like brilliant strategy, right? But there’s more.

Al-Qaida, although the name means “base” in Arabic, ironically has no political base. It sets up no real mass organizations; it doesn’t do social welfare work capable of rallying whole countries behind it. There is no way that hundreds of thousands or millions of people will rally to its cause. Imagine someone in 1917 saying in Moscow, “Forget about those moderate Bolsheviks. It’s the anarchists we have to fear.”

In other words, they are in a distant third place.

But even al-Qaida can be used by the Brotherhood. Look at what happened: an al-Qaida group stormed into an Egyptian base, killed lots of soldiers, stole a couple of vehicles, and attacked the border with Israel.

True, the Egyptian regime (that is, the Brotherhood) attacked and killed some of the al-Qaida people. After all, these terrorists had murdered Egyptian soldiers. But what did the regime tell its people? That Israel was behind the attack. Israel had murdered Egyptians.

And therefore there is more reason than ever to hate and wage war against Israel.

This is how Middle Eastern politics works. And that’s one reason why the Brotherhood – as it incites to hatred and violence even as it kills the even more hateful and violent – will never be moderate.

Then there are the Salafis, a word coined only recently in part as a pretense to pretend that the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate. But this also does describe a distinct set of groups, for example Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Egypt is the place where the Salafis developed in a most sophisticated fashion. But it’s important to understand why that happened.

Indeed, that point is central to comprehending what’s going on now.

In the 1970s, when president Anwar Sadat made the mistake of letting the Brotherhood return to public life in practice, he threw fear into them. Advocate violence in Egypt, come out too openly against the regime, even become too successful and back to the concentration camps you go! So the Brotherhood leadership, elderly and many of whom had been tortured and saw their colleagues hung, played it cool. They had no illusions about underestimating the strength of the regime. Yes, they said, the day of revolution will come, but meanwhile we are in a long-term stage of da’wa: organize and educate.

Patience is essential. Don’t make the regime too mad. Yes, hooray for killing Israelis and Americans! But at home keep the murders to a few tooboldly- open secularists.

There were, of course, young men who were too impatient. Our leaders are cowards. They have betrayed the true word of Islam! Let us organize for a more imminent revolution, maybe even take up arms right now and shoot down the evil regime’s officials. And they even gunned down Sadat himself.

There were many such groups – one, Islamic Jihad, joined up with al- Qaida – but they had different views, mixes of strategies, and leaders. Some were almost sects with charismatic sheikhs.

Now they have blossomed forth, eager for violence and instant revolution.

Their al-Nour party – which only represents part of this complex mix of groups that may or may not cooperate – got about 20 percent of the parliamentary vote.

Is the Brotherhood their friend or enemy? Should they raid police stations and blow up pipelines or not? Should they set up morality patrols and beat up young men walking with women and also women who aren’t dressed as the Salafis wish? There are many different views.

Sometimes the Brotherhood uses the Salafis as a convenient excuse. If Islamic Jihad lobs rockets and mortars at Israel, well – wink, wink, nudge, nudge – that isn’t the fault of Hamas, is it? At times, the Salafis can furnish the Brotherhood with the needed stormtroopers, though I would not suggest for a moment that the Brotherhood owns the Salafis.

They are definitely two different groupings, but their interests can blend and the “radical” Salafis provide the “moderate” Brotherhood with a convenient excuse when one is needed.

One thing is clear though: the Salafis’ goal is exactly the same as that of the Brotherhood. The only question is how fast to go, how radical to talk, and how much violence to use.

And another thing is also clear: neither in Egypt, nor in Tunisia, nor in Gaza (where the Brotherhood is called Hamas) will the Salafis overthrow the Brotherhood people. We can be less sure about Syria where the balance of forces is not yet so clear.

Finally, we come to the Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood is the Communist Party of Islamism. And you don’t have to take it from me; that was an idea expressed by the moderate, anti-Islamist brother of the Brotherhood’s founder.

The Brotherhood wants a Sharia state. It would like a caliphate (run by itself, of course). It wants Israel wiped off the map and America kicked out of the Middle East. It wants women put into second-class citizenship and gays put into their graves. It wants Christians subordinated or thrown out.

And it will pursue these goals with patience and strategic cleverness.

One step forward, one step back; tell the Western reporters and politicians what they want to hear. Pretend to be moderate in English while screaming death curses in Arabic.

These are the people who are coming to power. They hate their Shia counterparts generally and will kill them, too, at times. They will drag down their countries’ economies.

Ironically, they will succeed in making Israel relatively stronger as they beat and burn and tear down, as they set back their countries’ economic advancement, as they kick half the population (the female half) down the stairs.

They will lose. Just as the Communists did, just as the Nazis did, just as the Fascists and Japanese militarists did. But how many decades will it take? How many millions of people dead and injured? How much human potential and natural resources wasted? And will Western policy make easier the ultimate triumph of moderation, moderation that includes millions of anti-Islamist Muslims and also includes lots of Middle Eastern Berbers, Kurds, Turks, Iranians, Druse, Christians and – yes – Israel.

Or will the West make things harder, longer and worse.

Of victory, I have no doubt. Of Western good sense, all too much uncertainty.

The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) journal. His latest books areThe Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). GLORIA Center is at www.gloriacenter.org.