Animosity toward the United States

This week’s reading build on our discussion from the previous two weeks—first on Iran then on the 9/11 attacks—to explore some of the historical roots of Al Qaeda’s animosity toward the United States. You also read a piece on the emergence of ISIS including its similarities and differences with Al Qaeda. The first piece you read was a chapter on “The War of Points” from Daniel Immerwahr’s terrific new book How to Hide an Empire. Immerwahr details the long relationship between the Saudi Arabian monarchy and the United States extending back to the establishment of a settlement at Dhahram that was built in the 1930s to support an US-led oil conglomerate Aramco. Among the men who worked as a contractor for the settlement was an entrepreneur named Mohamed bin Laden who would eventually become one of the wealthiest men in Saudi Arabia through his construction company. After his death some of his fifty-four children became enthusiastic supporters of the United States. One of them Osama bin Laden became its chief enemy building a complex transnational terrorist network that brought down the Twin Towers on 9/11. Bin Laden’s hatred of the United States was rooted in religious ideology not nationalism—he resented the military bases established during the Gulf War because he saw the Americans as infidels who should not step foot on the Arabian Peninsula. As early as the 1950s the United States and its allies in Saudi Arabia’s government worked to avoid the appearance of an occupation. Saudi Arabia was not a US colony.

It simply allowed the United States to use land for military bases in exchange for protection from a potential invasion by Saddam Hussein. Immerwahr argues that if we take a step back the arrangement with Saudi Arabia reflects the changing geographies of war trade and diplomacy. Power in the late twentieth century was becoming rooted in networks and supply chains rather than territory. The United States didn’t need to occupy Saudi Arabia to get what it wanted: a centrally located airfield to add to its global network of bases. Almost every conflict since 1898 had left the United States with snippets of land through diplomatic arrangement or lease. Its most critical nodes include bases in Japan Germany Korea and Qatar as well as its sprawling empire of island territories in the Pacific and Caribbean and the semi-sovereign enclave in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay. Why was it so useful for the United States to have access to a network of dots on a map? How did this reflect the nature of modern military and economic power? What were some ways that Osama bin Laden’s own terrorist network embraced a similar logic of harnessing power through access to dots on a map rather than seizing national governments? How did this help him hide in Pakistan for nine years? You also watched a chilling 1997 interview with Osama bin Laden in which he explains his rational for declaring jihad against the United States as well as an article “What ISIS Really Wants” that outlined the group’s ideology.

Both Al Qaeda and ISIS were comprised of brutal religious fanatics willing to spread terror to support their ideologies. But considered in light of Immerwahr’s argument about the changing nature of power in the modern world where networks seemingly matter more than territory what do you see as the fundamental differences between the two groups? Both groups are now largely defeated and decapitated but the support for their varieties of extremism lingers on around the world. Which model of terrorism poses the greater threat to the world today: state-based entities such as ISIS and North Korea or diffuse networks like Al Qaeda? Finally I would like to loop back to our discussion of Iran a few weeks ago. The activities of the CIA in organizing a coup to overthrow the Iranian democracy might make more sense now as part of a coherent strategy to build a network of friendly leaders that would allow the US access to oil and military bases. Iran has indeed provided financial support for Hezbollah which has sought political legitimacy despite its history of violence much the IRA in Northern Ireland or Hamas in Palestine. Iran has also refrained from an outright invasion of another country since the 1795 conquest of Georgia during the Persian Qajar dynasty.

It was invaded many times including by Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war and has lent support to international conflicts including the defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria and the Shia insurgency during the US invasion of Iraq. But it has not carried out the wars of territorial conquest that characterized neighboring states such as ISIS and the regime of Saddam Hussein. This certainly might change. But it is important to draw distinctions between terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda and the government of Iran which continues to hold hotly contested democratic elections including the 2013 defeat of the far-right Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by moderate Hassan Rouhani which laid the foundation for the nuclear accords two years later.(600+) words to the articles.

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