The victory of the Taliban and the end of the era of September 11

In a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001, just 9 days after the bombings of the Twin Towers in New York, US President George W. Bush announced a new type of war: the “war on terror.”

In a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001, just nine days after the twin towers bombings in New York, US President George W. Bush announced a new type of war: the "war on terror."

He laid out its terms: "We will direct every resource under our command: every diplomatic instrument, every intelligence tool, every law enforcement tool, every financial influence, every necessary weapon of war, to defeat the global terrorist network," then describe what that defeat might look like: We will deprive the terrorists of funding, … and chase them from place to place until there is no sanctuary or rest.”

If Bush's words defined the goals of the United States in its war on terrorism, this era that extended for two decades (2001-2021) has created a comprehensive perspective or approach that governs many of the world's interactions internally and externally, that is, within and between countries, especially the relationship The world of Islam in the world in general and the West in particular.

Anti-Muslim propaganda and conspiracy theories that eventually coalesced into the narrative of the Great Replacement—the replacement of Westerners by Muslims and immigrants—were in many cases inadvertently backed by counterterrorism policies that distorted the distinction between Islamic-backed terrorism and Islam, and between ordinary Muslims and terrorists.

6 characteristics of this era:

Obsession with Islam

The topics: Islam, Muslims, terrorism, jihad, violent extremism and immigrants have become the focus of global focus and attention, as there is no distinction between these names or distinctions between them, but rather they are all considered as one whole, the essence of which is “Islamic danger” or “Islamic terrorism,” which is an existential and civilized threat to values and ideals. Western social system.

The well-resourced "Islamophobia" industry has taken to business, using a variety of intimidation tactics to generate hysteria about the looming threat.

In this environment, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment became more prevalent, as far-right political parties and organizations embraced the idea of the Islamic threat, using metaphors and iconography from the Christian Crusades and 15th century pogroms in Europe targeting Muslims and Jews.

Such practices have asserted that Islam itself is an existential and civilizational threat, and such methods have paved the way for more explicitly discriminatory ideas, such as Trump’s musings during the 2016 presidential campaign on building a national database of Muslims, similar to the Japanese in War II, and his promise to ban all Muslims. from entering the United States.

2. Eternal wars whose primary manifestation is the excessive use of military intervention throughout our Islamic world:

For 20 years, counterterrorism has been the primary national security policy priority of the United States and its allies, its apparatus has been redesigned and restructured to fight endless war at home and abroad, and core functions—from managing immigration to building government facilities to community policing—are slated to serve this goal. , as with aspects of daily life: travel, banking, identity cards...etc.

The United States and its allies have used military force in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia, Yemen and a number of other countries, and terrorism has become a prominent issue in almost all countries' relations - especially Washington - bilateral and multilateral.

Ben Rhodes ends in his important assessment published in Foreign Affairs these days in a file entitled "Who won the war of terror" that after September 11, the Bush administration directed the ship at A new trend and generated a tremendous amount of momentum.

The national security apparatus was refocused on fighting terrorism, vast new bureaucracies were created, organizational charts redrawn, new powers were given, budgets rewritten, and priorities changed.

He adds: The costs of the post-9/11 wars were staggering, as more than 7,000 American soldiers died in Afghanistan and Iraq, more than 50,000 were wounded in the fighting, and more than 30,000 American veterans and hundreds of thousands of American soldiers were left behind. Afghans and Iraqis lost their lives, and 37 million people were displaced, according to Brown University's Costs of War Project.

Meanwhile, the cost of those wars and caring for those who fought them are close to $7 trillion.

3. The decline of democracy and support for authoritarian regimes:

Over the past two decades, during which the war on terror has escalated, democracies have declined in the world, as Freedom House has monitored in its successive indicators.

In the direct relationship between the war on terrorism and the rise of dictatorships, we can refer to the alliance that has become important with the authoritarian regimes in the Islamic world in return for their participation in these wars. It has always been at war with itself. The “liberal” Western countries, led by the United States, support oppression and tyrannical regimes, while they pay lip service to democratic values. The world has also become more willing to increase surveillance systems and violate privacy under various pretexts, the essence of which is fear and dismay at the mythical being called terrorism.

One expert who has access to the evidence that courts use in this type of case asserts: “What I have learned is that once a surveillance state targets someone, that person no longer retains even a tiny bit of real privacy.”

4. The Greater Middle East

It is the vital field in which the interactions of the war on terrorism take place, and its peoples are the ones who pay the price. This price has been exacerbated by the fact that the global alliance to combat terrorism has focused on direct battles and seemingly great victories (eliminating the Taliban regime and overthrowing Saddam), in which it succeeded to a large extent. However, he was unable to deal with the repercussions of these battles/victories, such as building the state, collapsing its central authorities, and sustainable economic development…etc.

Among the rulings on all these wars is that she knows what she does not want, but she has been unable to draw features for what she wants.

5. The escalation of the role of non-governmental bodies and organizations:

After the opening of the 21st century with September in which the strength of the weak and the weakness of the strong is one of the manifestations of the conventional wisdom that non-state actors will prove to be the world's greatest national security threat, this expectation has come true, but not in the way most people expected.

Non-state actors have put national security at risk, not by attacking the United States but by diverting their attention away from state actors such as China and Russia.

6. Right mounting

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the emergence of violent “jihad” reshaped American politics in ways that created a breeding ground for right-wing extremism.

The attacks were a boon to mongers of xenophobia, white supremacy, and Christian nationalism, but it wasn't just terrorists who gave right-wing extremists a boost, so did the US-led War on Terror, involving the near-total focus of intelligence, security and law enforcement on the "Islamic threat," leaving Right-wing extremism is growing unfettered.

Connecting the components of the far-right is a conspiratorial worldview, a shared commitment to undemocratic and illiberal ideas, and a subset of it, at least in theory, supports the use of mass violence against civilian and governmental targets.

At this point, right-wing terrorist attacks were treated as fringe incidents, rather than as an ongoing and growing national security risk, a risk that now outweighs Islamic-backed terrorism in terms of casualties to Western societies.

Post-September era

Although there are limits imposed by the structures, structures and strategies that were built in the previous stage around the concept of the war on terrorism on the transition to the post-September era - meaning that implementing policies, building structures and agreeing on new strategies from the West and around the world will face great challenges related to the weight of the previous stage - The new era takes its impetus from five characteristics:

Coexistence with terrorism

It is no longer the primary threat. Whoever reads the report of the US intelligence community on global strategic trends until 2040 does not find a mention of terrorism, and this may be explained by the decline in its threat at the global level, as deaths from it decreased in 2019 for the fifth year in a row. While acknowledging that the threat posed by these groups will remain manageable, preventing attacks will require sustained counterterrorism efforts, these efforts have fundamentally changed their nature for the United States, no longer based on expanded military intervention but through local forces, with public support waning. For such efforts, and the proliferation of jihadist groups in many countries, US military and intelligence agencies often now turn to training and equipping local forces that can serve as the spearhead of counterterrorism.

A point worth noting here is that despite 20 years of limited terrorist violence in the United States, polls show that the number of Americans who are "very" or "somewhat" concerned about terrorism remains high and has even increased in recent years. Any major terrorist operation at home or abroad in which a large number of American victims fall, would make the threat of terrorism with all its components escalate once again to reshape US national security priorities with its impact on the world.

The summary of this feature is the transition in the war on terrorism from eternal wars to wars of choice, and from eliminating terrorism to coexisting with it, and coexistence with Corona has also been proposed.

The hostility with China raises many questions that the world will be affected by from multiple sides, and what concerns us in this article is: Have the Chinese become the new “them” versus the continuous “we”, meaning replacing the Chinese with Muslims, or will the hostility towards Islam and Muslims continue and be added to its neighborhood? Or mixed with him new enemies?

A question worth pursuing in the coming days.

2. From September 11 to January 6

In the sense of realizing the danger of the extreme right, the increase in its violence culminated in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, a brutal attack fueled by the ideas of the extreme right that have become prevalent.

In North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, in 2010 only one far-right terrorist attack was recorded in those places, but in 2019, there were 49 attacks, which is nearly half of all terrorist attacks in those places, resulting in 82 % of all terrorism-related deaths there.

Changes are underway in the United States as well;

In October 2020, the Department of Homeland Security's annual threat assessment declared domestic (ie, right-wing) violent extremism the most pressing and deadly threat facing the country.

But the question remains: Does fighting the extreme right abolish the clash of civilizations that was launched in the September era, or does it fuel the conflict of identities that is expected to escalate in the next two decades for many reasons?

In other words, is the civilized logic that encouraged the war on terror - sometimes consciously, sometimes unintentionally?

And should counterterrorism authorities get rid of policies and messages based on the idea that Islam is a threat to Western civilization, which has helped create the kind of ideological levers on which the far right has built its movement?

3. From green danger to yellow danger

Hostility with China is a bipartisan priority in the United States now, according to which many internal priorities, such as investment in technology and review of supply chains, and external ones such as attention to Asia, the Pacific and Indo-Pacific, as well as the patterns of alliances will be reformulated.

The hostility with China raises many questions that the world will be affected by from multiple aspects, and what concerns us in this article is: Have the Chinese become the new “them” versus the continuing “we”, meaning replacing the Chinese with Muslims, or will the hostility towards Islam and Muslims continue and be added to it or Mixed with him new enemies?

A question worth pursuing in the coming days.

In other words, one of the pillars of September is "them" and "us": Fustat, as Bush and Bin Laden said it. Will this perspective still exist in the new international conflict?

4. A new global security agenda

Washington's global agenda looked similar to the one Biden described in his speech to the G7 last April: organizing the world to combat climate change, strengthening global health systems, focusing on Asia while containing Russia, adding to it an alliance of democracies and supporting them at the international level, except The revitalization of global democracy is incompatible with a permanent global war on terrorism, which was previously based on supporting tyranny and systematic violations of human rights.

In other words, the balance of tradeoffs in the international framework must change, and US military assistance must be conditioned on respect for human rights. Can we witness this in the new era?

5. Repositioning of the Greater Middle East

In Global Strategies: The United States has indicated its choice to rebalance resources and commitments abroad and away from the region (the withdrawal from Afghanistan is one manifestation of this).

This option changed the regional balance of power and ultimately challenged the effectiveness of the United States as an outside provider of security in the region, creating a power and influence vacuum that other players have sought to fill.

The competition has gradually - but steadily expanded - across the region to include a much wider range of players than in the past.

The American option to reduce involvement in the region has paved the way for Russia's return and an increase in China's presence from an economic, not a security, approach.

Despite clear Russian interests in the region, it does not appear that Moscow is ready or willing to shoulder the burden of hegemony in the region.

Russia has a strong interest in maintaining diverse foreign policies that provide flexibility and additional bargaining power with its opponents, as well as various platforms for the use of hard and soft power in the region and beyond.

Russia is seen as a powerful broker committed to stability in the Middle East, while its economic, military, and diplomatic capacity may limit its ability to fulfill this role.

The United States is seen as scaling back its commitments in the region despite its continued interests, investments, and superior capacity to ensure regional security.

Although the Middle East is not China's primary geopolitical sphere of influence (a distinction reserved for the East South China Sea and Asia), the region is of greater importance to Beijing than ever before.

China now views the Middle East as an extension of its parties, and seeks to develop relations with the countries of the region to secure energy imports, and secure exports through the roads that pass through the region, and in the long run, it wants to increase its regional influence at the expense of the United States.

The logic of maintaining the status quo governed the relationship of the major powers in the region after the end of the Cold War, and the intervention of Presidents Bush Jr. after the September 2001 attacks, and Obama during the Arab Spring uprisings, represented an exception to that. In other words, there is a demand from all international actors for stability in the region, but they could not focus on promoting a new security architecture in the Middle East, but rather on the geographical containment of regional insecurity. In other words, they have to accept the ongoing Middle Eastern "time of turmoil" as a predetermined historical phenomenon on which outsiders have very little, if any, influence. Their goal became not to try to "reform" the region, but to limit the negative effects of the problems of the Middle East on other regions of the world.

There are no external factors that can significantly influence the fundamental social, economic and political changes in the Middle East since the beginning of the Arab Spring, and the region is likely to be at the beginning of a long transformation, in which the internal and regional dynamics are much more decisive than the external influences.

The perspective of the major powers at this point in the region’s crisis is multifaceted and multidimensional: it would be counterproductive to search for a comprehensive solution to regional problems, a “one-size-fits-all” approach is unlikely to succeed, and it seems more productive for the major powers to take a search for solutions Specific to each dispute case separately.