Fighting Terrorism by Benjamin Netanyahu

Author:Benjamin Netanyahu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2011-05-24T04:00:00+00:00

IV

The 1990s: The Rise of Militant Islam in America and the World

Or had it?

As with any form of aggression, deterring terrorist violence requires constant vigilance. There is no one-step solution available in which the democracies take forceful action against the sources of terror and then proceed to forget about the problem. For the problem as such will not go away. Terrorism is rooted in the deepest nature of the dictatorial regimes and organizations that practice it. That they are prone to violent coercion, including terror, is not an incidental characteristic of dictatorships; it is their quintessential, defining attribute. And as long as they retain their dictatorial nature, they will retain their proclivity for terror. Unless constantly checked and suppressed, this tendency will manifest itself again and again. Of course, when a regime like Soviet Communism is replaced by a democratically elected government, this has an immediate effect. Post-Communist Russia is no longer in the business of supporting international terror, and no action is required to ensure that this remains the case. But barring such a dramatic revolution in political philosophy and policy, the basic inclination toward terrorism remains deeply embedded in its chief practitioners and sponsors, and they must be constantly reminded that they will pay dearly for such conduct if they practice it against other societies.

Yet it is precisely this message, potently delivered by the United States and its allies in the second half of the 1980s, that has been obscured and enfeebled in the 1990s. After their impressive victories, some of the Western security services quickly relaxed their anti-terror posture in the pursuit of terrorist cells on their home turf. For example, in Germany the authorities let up the pressure on neo-Nazi groups, with the result that they began to have a renaissance of sorts. Equally, the all-out effort to deter naked aggression in the Gulf War convinced some in the West that they had resolutely defused the potential for aggression from the Middle East. But this was not the case. The results of the Gulf War were hardly decisive in discouraging terror from the Middle East.

First, while the conquest of Kuwait by Iraq was a clear act of aggression for the entire world to see (and punish), terrorism is invariably secretive, relying on its deniability for impunity. The deterrent effect that applies to aggression carried out in broad daylight does not necessarily apply to aggression carried out in the dark.

Second, that very deterrent effect with regard to Iraq was itself eroded by the inconclusive end of the Gulf War. The punishment meted out to Saddam Hussein was not, as it transpires, that severe after all; a monumental American blunder at the end of an otherwise brilliantly executed war left the fifty-one-year-old tyrant in power in Iraq, sparing him to rise and possibly fight another day.

Third, Iraq’s enemy to the east, Iran, a terrorist state par excellence, paid no price whatsoever in the Gulf War and was even accorded considerable legitimacy as a tacit ally.

Fourth, Iraq’s enemy to the west, Syria, another classic terrorist state, also benefited enormously from the war.

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