U.S. vs the Growing Turbulence
in Muslim Countries

 
When the United States declared a "war" on international terrorism, President George W. Bush went out of his way to declare that America's fight is not with Islam. There is little doubt that he meant every word every time he said it, and he has repeated himself often in the national and international media since Sept. 11.

Bush had to reiterate the U.S. position regarding Islam because the highjackers of the four airplanes were Muslims. Then, the United States declared its war on two Muslim targets: Osama bin Laden, the alleged chief mastermind of terror attacks on the United States for the past several years; and the Taliban regime of Afghanistan, bin Laden's chief supporter and backer. Bush's statement on Islam notwithstanding, the United States will be deeply embroiled in the turbulent world of Islam in the coming years, and chances of 'winning friends and influencing people' there are slim.

Two chief partners of America's war on Afghanistan are also Muslim countries - Pakistan and Uzbekistan. Both are non-democratic states; both have witnessed the growing activism of Islamist groups in different ways. The political stability of both these countries in the coming years remains under a heavy cloud of uncertainty.

Pakistan not only played an important role in the emergence of the Taliban as the rulers of Afghanistan, but it also has used the Islamist groups in its attempts to destabilize the Indian-administered Kashmir. Then, there is the continued symbiotic relationship between the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) — Pakistan's intelligence agency — and its indigenous Islamist groups. In fact, it is well nigh impossible to make reasonable estimates about what portion of the ISI comprises Islamists (as opposed to merely Islamist sympathizers). To underscore how much alarm the ISI-Islamist nexus is causing in American decision-making circles, there were reports that the U.S. government has made contingency plans to extricate nuclear weapons from Pakistan, if President Pervez Musharraf is ousted as a result of a coup. According to one report, U.S. Special Forces have already conducted "dry runs" in collaboration with Israeli forces.

Needless to say, Pakistanis are also reading these reports. It will not be known anytime soon how well these reports are being received by the pro-U.S. groups in Pakistan. More ominously, one can only imagine what preventive steps the Pakistani authorities are taking to undermine any such contingency operations by American forces.

The future stability of Uzbekistan is also cloudy, unless the United States carries out security guarantees that it has reportedly proffered the tyrannical regime of Islam Karimov as a quid pro quo for using Uzbek territory for military operations against the Taliban. If this is indeed true - and there is no reason to assume otherwise - three possibilities come to mind. First, the United States will continue its military presence long after the Afghan military campaign is over. Russia and China will not be at all happy about such a development. After all, Central Asia falls in the heartland of the Russian sphere of influence. This is also an area where the PRC aspires to enhance its own strategic influence. The last meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO-which was previously known as "Shanghai Five") was an occasion when it became clear that China would not be willing to play second fiddle to Russia in Central Asia.

The second alternative is that the United States will commit itself to selling a variety of weapons to Uzbekistan. While this option is potentially in conflict with the strategic perspectives of China and Russia, it provides no guarantee that Uzbekistan indeed will become a stable place. The third option is for the United States to consider letting Uzbekistan become a member of NATO, a scenario that is too fantastic to consider even in the unusual international environment of post-Sept. 11.

Then, there are reports that the Saudi government has put the Bush administration on notice that it will "reconsider its relationship with the United States" if the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not resolved. The Saudi rulers are becoming increasingly wary of the escalating anti-Americanism in the region and envision the resolution of the Palestinian issue as a way of earning the good grace of Islamic radicals of their region.

Egypt, another major American friend in the Middle East, is also becoming nervous about the implications of America's war on Afghanistan for the continuation of its own domestic tranquility and order. The government of Hosni Mubarak has been enjoying a ceasefire with the indigenous Islamist forces, one of whose former leaders, Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, has emerged as the real brain behind al Qaeda's terror attacks. It seems that Mubarak's political clout among nation states is in competition with the growing popularity of Al-Zawahiri among the anti-status quo Islamists of the Middle East. This is also a development the Bush administration should be watching carefully.

The terrorist incidents of Sept. 11 have created a situation in which the United States is likely to unwittingly find itself heavily embroiled in (if not pitted against) the Muslim world. A number of Muslim countries are siding with the United States now. What is sorely missing is a realization in Washington that it is not likely to win an all-out war against terrorism and still maintain the political status quo in a number of Muslim countries of the Middle East and South, West, and even Central Asia. Once Islamist radicals oust one or more governments as an unintended consequence of the U.S. war on terrorism, one can only imagine how explosive those regions would become.

The Bush administration is right about one thing: the war on terrorism will not end for many years. An inescapable, though not necessarily incorrect, conclusion is that the world of Islam may be edging toward more turbulence and instability.

End Note:

¹  Seymour M. Hersh, "Watching the Warheads: The Risks to Pakistan," The New Yorker, Nov. 5, 2001, electronic version. Also, Ben Fenton, "U.S. Special Unit 'Stands by to Steal Atomic Warheads'," London Daily Telegraph, October 29, 2001, electronic version, Early Bird, Oct. 29, 2001

By Ehsan Ahrari Independent Security Analyst shahr@livenet.net

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