Asia Security
Monitor
No. 76, April 21, 2004 Backlash from Iraq spreads across AsiaEditor:
Al Santoli |
| Editor's Note: One of Asia's foremost experts on terrorist organizations, Dr. Ajai Sahni of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi has written a strong warning in the April 19, 2004 South Asia Intelligence Review. Sahni warns that a virulent spread of terrorist groups across Asia is being fomented by the growing violence in Iraq, consequently causing the degradation of the image of American power, particularly as security in Iraq further unravels. Dr. Sahni's critical analysis is summarized below. For a full report, please visit:
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/sair The US Coalition's growing troubles in Iraq are bad news for South Asia, writes Dr. Ajai Sahni. The growing disarray in Iraq creates an imminent danger of escalating and widening Islamist terrorist activities across Asia. The resurgence is created by two factors. The first is based on the nature of terrorism as a method. If terror succeeds against the world's greatest military and economic power in Iraq, it will be estimated to have far greater probabilities of success against weaker state powers in South Asia. The second factor relates to the diminished international focus on terrorist movements in Pakistan and the Indian subcontinent, as events in Iraq exhaust Western attention. This creates opportunities and incentives for terrorists and their state sponsors in South Asia to intensify. It was the neglect of developments in South Asia - particularly the assembly lines of jihad in Pakistan and the then Taliban-controlled Afghanistan - that contributed directly to the current mushrooming of global Islamist terrorism and the planning and execution of 9/11. While the armies and infrastructure of terrorism in Afghanistan were substantially eroded by the US-led campaign, many of these groups simply shifted across the border into Pakistan. They have joined forces with a number of like-minded terrorist groups - most of whom were created and directly supported by Pakistani covert state agencies. Considerable American pressure on the Musharraf regime had at least resulted in some cosmetic curbs on these organizations, as well as a marginal decline in their visible activities. Such trends are now in danger of reversal as American prestige suffers blow after blow in Iraq. There is, today, a growing assessment among radical Islamist groups that, while America does have the unquestionable power and technology to blow any country out of existence, it does not have the capacity or comprehension to manage even a mid-sized nation - such as Afghanistan or Iraq. America, moreover, is assessed to have no effective defense against sustained and determined terrorist campaigns, and is consequently perceived to be immensely vulnerable, despite its apparent strength. America's unilateralism and mismanagement of overall policy have alienated many natural allies in the war against terrorism. The delusionary constructs under which the US Administration continues to act, do not suggest any trends towards increased executive competence, and consequently, there is little prospect of greater international participation. The US Administration has expressed some expectations that India and Bangladesh would send Forces to Iraq after the 'handover of sovereignty' on June 30, but this is sheer fantasy. No country would send in its Forces to Iraq unless the present administrative and political incoherence is brought to an end. There is, moreover, an enormous multiplicity of terrorist actors and organizations across South Asia - drawn from diverse ideological streams, including Islamism, ethnic fundamentalism and Left Wing extremism - who will derive great encouragement from America's discomfiture in Iraq. Events in Iraq are directly impacting the potential, not only for Islamist terrorism, but for all forms of terrorism in South Asia, and the diminishing potential for the stabilization of both Afghanistan and Pakistan in the foreseeable future. |
|
Copyright
© 2004, American Foreign Policy Council.
|
