20 years after 9/11, the American colossus has gone and the Middle East remains strife-torn

[CEZAYIRLI]

20 years after 9/11, the American colossus has gone and the Middle East remains strife-torn

After 20 years that cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, America’s engagement in the Middle East appears to be over. So what happens now?

theconversation.com

20 years after 9/11, the American colossus has gone and the Middle East remains strife-torn​

September 9, 2021 4.13pm EDT

Author​

1. Tony Walker
   Tony Walker is a Friend of The Conversation.
   Vice-chancellor's fellow, La Trobe University

Disclosure statement​

Tony Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington carries with it two punctuation marks.
The first are the attacks themselves on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. These shocked a country that was both psychologically and physically unprepared for such a brazen assault on American soil.
The second are the chaotic events of the past several weeks, in which America was forced to admit its two-decade mission in Afghanistan was, to all intents and purposes, an expensive – more than US$2 trillion ($A2.68 trillion) – failure.
The merciless truck bombing on August 26 near Kabul airport, in which 13 US military personnel died as well as scores of Afghan civilians, underscored the futility of an unwinnable conflict in a country that has resisted outside influence for thousands of years.

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Read more: Kabul bombings a dark day for Afghanistan and Joe Biden — and a harbinger of worse to come

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One of the most pressing issues now is where America stands in the Middle East, where its power and influence have receded as a consequence of its ill-fated decision to invade Iraq before completing its mission in Afghanistan.
The two disasters cannot be separated, since they were driven by a global policy enacted by the George W. Bush administration under the rubric of the “war on terror”.
This was used to justify a series of decisions that led to American forces and their allies being mired in post-9/11 conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere. Together, they have cost more than 7,000 American lives, an estimated 900,000 war dead and expenditure of US$8 trillion (A$10.73 trillion).
This does not include 30-40 million refugees who have been displaced in various conflicts across the Middle East and beyond. There are more to come judging by the rush in Afghanistan to escape the Taliban.
William Galston of the Brookings Institution puts the case colourfully for the degree of self-harm America has inflicted on itself as a consequence of flawed decisions made two decades ago in the heat of the moment.

In his long war against America, Osama bin Laden has won a sweeping if posthumous victory. The US reaction to the 9/11 attack he masterminded is like the cytokine storm that can occur when COVID-19 attacks us: the defensive measures our bodies mount go too far and damage the vital organs our antibodies were meant to protect.

So to what extent will a battered America will step back from the region, and what this might imply for shifting balances of power in a combustible part of the world?
The short answer is: we don’t know. However, it is clear the era of American engagement in the volatile Middle East has run its course.

The era of US engagement in the Middle East appears to be over. Karim Kadim/AP/AAP

Why the US will be reluctant to re-engage on the Middle East​

America invaded Afghanistan in 2001 in partnership with its NATO allies and countries like Australia. The aim was to eradicate al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Twenty years later, the Taliban is back, although its control of a tribalised and inherently unstable country will be tenuous at best.
Various terrorism franchises like al-Qaeda and Islamic State, in the guise of its local affiliate ISIS-K, will inevitably find a home amid the likely chaos.

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Read more: Remaining and expanding: what the Taliban's return will mean for jihadi terrorism

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America’s strategic interests in the region, and its ability to influence events, will be pared back. These security imperatives, driven partly by its economic interests, could be briefly summarised as follows.

1. stability in the Gulf, through which two-thirds of the world’s tradeable oil passes each day
2. maintenance of an uneasy status quo in the eastern Mediterranean, where the American Sixth Fleet is positioned and Russian naval influence is growing
3. guarantor of Israel’s security
4. a commitment to prevent Iran gaining a nuclear capability.

Beyond these imperatives, it is hard to see America becoming involved on the ground again in the Middle East unless there was no other choice from a national security standpoint.
No American president would savour the task of making the case for a recommitment of ground forces that would again put his citizens’ lives in harm’s way.

US President Joe Biden is unlikely to recommit troops to the Middle East, given how many lives have been lost in the past 20 years and the extortionate costs involved. Luis M. Alvarez/AP/AAP

So, what does this mean for American authority in the region?​

The question then becomes: what are the implications for the wider Middle East of a paring back of American engagement and a further erosion in Washington’s authority?
This is the new post-9/11 Middle East in which various players are asserting themselves.
Iran emerged as the main beneficiary of the Iraq misadventure. Its Shiite surrogates are now in power in Baghdad and its influence regionally has spread.
Russia and China are taking advantage of America’s failures to assert themselves.
Moscow’s custodial relationship with Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria enabled Russia to extend its sphere of influence down into the Mediterranean, where it has been granted naval facilities at the Syrian port of Tartous.
China has its own commercial and strategic interests in the region. It is, for example, a significant importer of Iranian crude oil. Both Russia and China have engaged in naval exercises with Iran in the Gulf region as an affront to the US presence there.
Where this leaves the Gulf states is unpredictable. While an American security umbrella remains in place against more egregious pressures from Iran, hereditary rulers will be discomforted by indications of dwindling American power in the region.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has begun to balance its strategic options by drawing closer to Russia.
This might all be described in years to come as part of a new great game.
In the meantime, the biggest challenge in the Middle East for the bruised Biden administration is to persuade Iran, under its new hard-line president, to return to the negotiating table to revive the nuclear deal of 2015, which then US President Donald Trump abandoned in 2019.
Early indications are that Iran is reluctant to go back to the terms of the 2015 agreement. Instead, it would favour one that accommodates progress it has made in enriching weapons-grade uranium in its nuclear program since Trump rescinded America’s participation.
Reviving the nuclear deal is critical to forestall Iran’s continuing progress towards a nuclear capability. The last thing the world needs right now is a Middle East nuclear arms race, or an Israeli pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.

A region that continues to be volatile, at great cost to its people​

These are just some of the more pressing global challenges in the Middle East, but there are many others of a lesser order. These remain a threat to regional stability and present risks of further refugee exoduses.
Syria’s long-running civil war is not over; the Israel-Palestine issue remains a festering sore; Lebanon has taken on many of the characteristics of a failed state; Yemen stands as an affront to the world’s humanitarian conscience; Libya remains in the grip of internal conflict; and Iraq is hardly stable.
In other words, the Middle East two decades on from 9/11 is far from achieving the sort of ideals laid out by those promoting the “war on terror” and its “nation-building” aspirations.
As Galston writes in his Brookings essay:

At the end of the 20th century, the United States bestrode the world like a colossus. September 11 changed all this. Our excessive focus on the Middle East diverted us from the geopolitical forces that were reshaping the world. Now we must face the consequences with a weakened hand.

That conclusion puts things in perspective from an American point of view in a volatile post-9/11 Middle East.

• Middle East
• Iraq
• September 11 attacks
• Afghanistan War

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[Saithan]

0 years after 9/11: The evolving transnational militant Islamist threat landscape​

08 SEPTEMBER 2021

by Janes Terrorism and Insurgency Centre



Two decades have now passed since Al-Qaeda militants targeted the United States mainland on 11 September 2001. Since the attacks, the fight against transnational militant Islamism has dominated security agendas in the US, Europe, and beyond, costing the US alone over USD 5.4 trillion and claiming the lives of more than 7,000 US military personnel globally. Despite these costs, the threat from militant Islamism has persisted – and indeed proliferated – since September 2001.

At this 20-year mark, Janes Terrorism & Insurgency Centre (JTIC) data offers insights on past trends and future forecasts for transnational militant Islamist activity.

Operational trends​

Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State represent the most active transnational militant Islamist groups since 2001. According to JTIC data, these groups and their affiliates conducted at least 27,258 attacks between 2009 and 2020, resulting in over 61,124 non-militant fatalities. These attacks have largely targeted conflict theatres in the Middle East – with more than two-thirds of attacks taking place in Syria and Iraq – as well as in East Africa and West Africa. Transnational Islamist violence has targeted security forces in over half of all attacks, and militants have demonstrated a tactical preference for close-quarters engagement between forces on open ground and stand-off/area attacks involving explosives or indirect fire attacks.

When comparing the operational profiles of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda has conducted far fewer attacks and its tempo of violence has been steadier than that of its rival. Wilayat Gharb Afriqiyya (West Africa province) was the Islamic State’s most operationally active affiliate in 2020, while Harakat al-Shabaab al- Mujahideen was the Al-Qaeda affiliate that conducted the most attacks in that year.

At least 127 inter-group clashes between Islamic State and Al-Qaeda forces were recorded between 2009 and 2020, with the majority taking place in Syria in 2014 and 2015. With 37 lone actor attacks recorded between 2009 and 2020, JTIC data indicates that the Islamic State inspired far more of these attacks than Al-Qaeda, and that most of this activity has been conducted in Europe with edged or improvised weapons.

Regional forecasts​

Based on JTIC data for the first half of 2021, JTIC presents the following regional forecasts for the remainder of 2021:
Lake Chad/Sahel: Attacks and non-militant fatalities are likely to increase because of factors including the 24 May coup in Mali, drawdown of French military forces, the death of Chadian President Idris Déby, and the likely reconciliation of dissident and mainstream factions of Wilayat Gharb Afriqiyya after the death of dissident leader Abubakar Shekau.

Mozambique: A lower tempo of violence is likely to continue in the short term, with Wilayat Wasat Afriqiyya (Central Africa province) attacks having decreased significantly in Cabo Delgado province in early 2021 in contrast to 2020. Smaller-scale raids are likely following the recapture of Mocimboa da Praia by security forces in August, though militants may exploit security gaps after the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) withdrawal in October.

Syria: Islamic State attacks in 2021 appear set to outpace those recorded in 2020, with militants having already conducted 80% of the total number of 2020 attacks in the first half of 2021 alone. Recent operational trends indicate that attacks will continue to target security forces, with an increasing focus on ambush tactics.
Iraq: Islamic State militants are likely to continue to conduct asymmetric, low-casualty attacks in rural areas and – in future summers – will likely continue to exploit high temperatures to disrupt essential services, provoke popular unrest, and undermine the government in Iraq through sabotage attacks.

Policy implications

Counter-terrorism priorities today are starkly different to those immediately after the September 2001 attacks, when there was a surge of counter-terrorism investment in the US, Europe, and beyond. US counter-terrorism activities focused on long-term overseas operations, militarised responses, and leadership decapitation, with a lesser focus on tackling the drivers of militant recruitment and radicalisation. In the early 2020s there has been a marked shift toward reducing military commitments overseas, with US forces withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan, and France signalling a drawdown of its military presence in the Sahel. While boots remain on the ground in key conflict zones, the US and its Western partners are increasingly seeking to support, rather than lead, overseas counter-terrorism efforts.

An analysis of security responses since September 2001 offers insights for policy and practice. As the 20-year anniversary of the September 2001 attacks approaches, counter-terrorism professionals face a diversified threat landscape and an expanded set of policy priorities. Despite shrinking counter-terrorism budgets, there is a continued need to support overseas partners to preserve the gains of the last two decades and prevent the emergence of future transnational threats. The last 20 years have signalled that over-reliance on short-term, militarised responses without commitment to strengthening local governance and addressing underlying drivers of radicalisation can limit the effectiveness of security responses. Technological advances and high volumes of open-source information also call for streamlined inter-agency coordination, investment in artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, and continuous monitoring of the threat environment.

This forms the executive summary of our terrorism and insurgency centre's deep dive into the evolving transnational militant Islamist threat landscape. For the full report, subscribers can log in here.

20 years after 9/11: The evolving transnational militant Islamist threat landscape

Since 11 September 2001, the fight against transnational militant Islamism has dominated security agendas in the US, Europe, and beyond. Janes data offers insights on past trends and future forecasts for transnational militant Islamist activity.

www.janes.com