Ayman al-Zawahiri, the chief ideologue and for a decade leader of al-Qaeda, was finally killed, 21 years after the terror strikes of September 11, 2001. This is certainly welcome news, if only because someone like al-Zawahiri deserved his fate.
But while we can all celebrate, his death will, unfortunately, and despite Joe Biden’s August 1 speech, have zero impact on the global jihad. This dismal prognostication is fortified by the fact that, for nearly 17 years now, every time an Islamic terror leader has been killed, politicians and media exulted, portraying the death as a “major blow” to the jihad; and, for nearly 17 years now, I have responded by recycling an article that I first wrote in 2006, titled “The West’s Multi-Headed Monster.”
Although I changed the names of the jihadi leaders killed to suit the occasion—first Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, then Abu Hamza al-Masri, then Abu Laith al-Libi, then Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayub al-Misri, then Osama bin Laden, then Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and now Ayman al-Zawahiri—my conclusion always remained the same:
The West’s plight vis-à-vis radical Islam is therefore akin to Hercules’ epic encounter with the multi-headed Hydra-monster. Every time the mythical strongman lopped off one of the monster’s heads, two new ones grew in its place. To slay the beast once and for all, Hercules learned to cauterize the stumps with fire, thereby preventing any more heads from sprouting out. Similarly, while the West continues to lop off monster heads like figurehead Zarqawi [or Zawahiri, bin Laden, al-Baghdadi, et al] it is imperative to treat the malady—radical Islam—in order to ultimately prevail. Victory can only come when the violent ideologies of Islam are cauterized with fire. But alas, the Hydra-monster is myth, while radical Islam is stark reality.
Consider, for instance, all the exultation that took place in 2006 after al-Zarqawi—the forefather of the Islamic State, or “Al-Qaeda Second Generation”—was killed. Then, almost every major politician, including President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki, gave some sort of victory speech. The New York Times called his death a “major watershed in the war.”
Similarly, in 2008, after Abu Laith al-Libi was killed, Congressman Peter Hoekstra issued a statement saying that his death “clearly will have an impact on the radical jihadist movement.”
More myopic triumphalism was in the air after Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayub al-Masri were killed in 2010 during a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation. Then, none other than Joe Biden, serving as vice president, said the “deaths are potentially devastating blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq [the embryonic form of the Islamic State],” adding “This operation is evidence in my view, that the future of Iraq will not be shaped by those who would seek to destroy that country”—a prediction that proved to be woefully wrong.
Similarly, U.S. commander Gen. Raymond Odierno asserted that “The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to al-Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency,” adding that it would be “very difficult” for the al Qaeda network to replace the two men.
And who could forget all the media triumphalism, if not hysteria, surrounding the 2011 death of Osama bin Laden? Then, CNN security analyst Peter Bergen declared that “Killing bin Laden is the end of the war on terror. We can just sort of announce that right now.” Insisting that the “iconic nature of bin Laden’s persona” cannot be replaced, Bergen further suggested that “It’s time to move on.”
Another CNN analyst, Fareed Zakaria, assured us that “this is a huge, devastating blow to al-Qaeda, which had already been crippled by the Arab Spring. It is not an exaggeration to say that this is the end of al-Qaeda in any meaningful sense of the word.”
In retrospect, surely all these assertions and assurances have proven to be immensely puerile—even for “mainstream media analysts.” The only significant development following the killing of bin Laden was the birth, spread, and subsequent hegemony of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (“ISIS”)—an organization that made al-Qaeda pale in comparison when it came to savagery and atrocities.
To recap, for years, Americans were repeatedly told that al-Qaeda was suffering “devastating blows”; that the killing of individual jihadis were “major watersheds in the war”; that “the end of the war on terror” occurred in 2011, when bin Laden died (“it’s time to move on,” counseled Peter Bergen); and “that the future of Iraq will not be shaped by those who would seek to destroy that country,” according to Biden.
Yet, lo and behold: an Islamic State, a caliphate engaged in the worst atrocities of the twenty-first century, was born—despite the deaths of individual jihadi leaders, including the notorious bin Laden.
In light of this, should one expect the jihad to disappear, or even slow down in the least, now that al-Zawahiri is dead? Joe Biden seems to think—or rather want Americans to think—so. During his recent victory speech, and after opening with a typical contradiction—“You know, al-Zawahiri was bin Laden’s leader. He was with him all the — the whole time. He was his number-two man—the U.S. president said: “He [Zawahiri] will never again—never again allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist safe haven because he is gone.” Newsflash: with or without al-Zawahiri, Afghanistan has been and continues to be a “terrorist safe haven.”
When it comes to the significance of the killing of this or that jihadi leader, the most accurate prediction I have ever read—one that has proven too true—comes not from U.S. politicians, “experts,” or media. It comes, rather ironically, from Ayman al-Zawahiri himself. Asked in a 2005 interview about the status of bin Laden and the Taliban’s Mullah Omar, he confidently replied:
Jihad in the path of Allah is greater than any individual or organization. It is a struggle between Truth and Falsehood, until Allah Almighty inherits the earth and those who live in it. Mullah Muhammad Omar and Sheikh Osama bin Laden—may Allah protect them from all evil—are merely two soldiers of Islam in the journey of jihad, while the struggle between Truth [Islam] and Falsehood [non-Islam] transcends time (The Al Qaeda Reader, p.182, emphasis added).
And there it sadly is: jihad “transcends time” and is not predicated on this or that leader. Muslim warlords, ideologues, emirs, sultans, caliphs—even the prophet of Islam himself—have come and gone for nearly 1,400 years, but the jihad continues.
So, by all means, let the West kill all the terrorists it can, for they deserve it. At the same time, however—and to return to the aforementioned Hercules/Hydra analogy of 2006—while the West continues to lop off “monster heads,” most recently al-Zawahiri, it must also comprehend that to achieve true and lasting victory over Islamic terrorism, nothing less than the admittedly herculean task of cauterizing those Muslim doctrines/ideologies that give birth to jihadis will ever do.
You are entirely right, Raymond. It is painful, but true. Your last paragraph sums-up the reality we face. We must not only face this predicament, we must soldier-on in the effort to erase the ideology that is Islam. If we lose heart for the battle or fail in the long term relentless war to present the truth, change hearts and minds and “kill the hydra”, then we lose everything… and I mean EVERYTHING.
Thank you for a wonderful “level set”, as always.
So true! Thanks, Raymond!
Brilliant analysis by Raymond, as usual. Destroying the IRGC, Iran’s Waffen SS, eliminating the Mullahs and effecting regime change in Iran, thereby liberating Persia from the Jihadis, will go far to eliminating the sources of political Islamism. Something will need to be done in Pakistan and once again in Afghanistan. Crushing Hamas, Hezbollah and the PA (not just decapitating their leaders) is also necessary. One problem not so easy to solve is the establishment of Eurabia on the continent and the influx of Jihadists into the U.S.
We don’t go after the ones teaching islam (islam is about jihad), stop the flow of zakat, and just allow Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate all our instittuions, along with any other moslem who thinks that taking oaths of office on the koran is a-ok when it is not since it says to lie to us about their goals. And as for the violent jihadists – well, there are millions willing to take up their dead leader’s places who they think are martyrs (shahid)! And it isn’t only the shia, it is the sunni and sufi, etc. Oh, Dr. Oz demanded his opponent obey sharia and shut up concerning any hint of discussion of anything islamic.
The only way to eradicate “radical” Islam is to use the same techniques that they themselves used to pervert Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Persia, all the way to Indonesia.
But we are now collectively too civilized to do such things while they are not.
Karl Popper’s warning on tolerating intolerance needs to be heeded.
At heart, those who rule the West encourage Muslim fanatics in a multitude of ways.
The West bans everything that is in its interest; and if it allows large Islamic bases on its territory, it is because of some interest they have.
Otherwise, I am not sure about the planning of the 9/11 attacks by Al Qaeda. It was too complicated in its execution.
Thanks Raymond. Your analysis is right. We need to question the doctrine and the ideology behind Islamic terrorism but unfortunately world political leaders and religious uninformed are looking away and keeping quiet. Illegal immigrants are a great threat.
Thx Raymond. Stark reality. I may have mentioned before, a young Muslim migrant who fled the fighting in Syria was asked in Sweden, “Why don’t you go back and fight for your country?”
The young man explained nothing would stop the fighting. It will just keep going. when he was pressed for his opinion on some a possible solution, he said, “an atom bomb”.
He knew the depth of the problem you are describing in this article, as did Hillaire Belloc in one of your previous articles.
So well said, Raymond. And so true. But if the West, including the USA, are so near-totally brainwashed re Islamophobia and The Religion of Peace, things are not looking good. They have the upper hand. Thank you for your efforts.
Md Zubair above sums it perfectly. We must use Islam’s own tenets to rinse the brainwash out of Islamists.
I don’t think you’re alone in your reasoning Raymond. You always have the right words to temper misplaced or immature enthusiasm in claims that Islamists are done. Unfortunately, you are one of few who read and understand what al-Zawahiri meant discussing how Islamists’ efforts are ongoing.
Our so called leaders don’t want to get their hands dirty. They don’t want to close borders. They don’t want to be tough. They send social workers instead of police. They build shanties instead of deportations.
Death, deportations, deprogramming. These are the three D’s that are as important to curing Islamists as the three R’s are to elementary students moving on to higher education.
In this case, fences don’t make good neighbors. Until we make changes in how we deal with Islamists, we can’t expect the Islamists to do anything different either.
If I may add something here. Back in the early stages of Gulf War II or W Bush’s Folly, I remember religious rehabilitation programs applied to captured Iraqi POW’s.
It involved muslim imams teaching a different kind of Islam. It seemed to be having success although how much wasn’t publicized.
What is your opinion? Did it work? Would you recommend a reconstituted form be utilized again? How could it be implemented without causing the media to meltdown or having radical Islamists defame and derail it before it gets going?