Went to see Jean-Pierre Filiu, author of “The Nine Lives of Al Qaeda” speak at the New American Foundation. Filiu a professor at Sciences Po in Paris, is a thin sensitive-looking man who devotes much of his life to studying communications and strategies of the amorphous terror organization whose 9/11 attack helped lure America into Iraq.
He believes Al Qaeda is on the wane (in its ninth life) and suffers from serious and possibly irremediable weaknesses: notably its lack of any serious religious legitimacy in the Muslim world, an absence of any accomplished and Islamic scholars associated with the organization. Secondly its failure to acquire and maintain a territorial or even a tribal base in the Arab world: it remains a grouping of individuals, pledged to Osama bin Laden.
This was, of course, encouraging to hear.
During the question period I asked whether Al Qaeda had much of point of view on the standoff over the West and Iran over the latter’s nuclear activities. Ah, an easy question, Filiu responded. “They pray every night for a war between the West and Iran.” It would create endless chaos in the Gulf, and provide perhaps their only vehicle to get back into Saudi Arabia, which is a main goal. (Unnoticed by most Americans, the Saudis won a major counterinsurgency campaign against Al Qaeda during the last decade.) A battle between the crusaders and the [Shi’ite] heretics, it’s their dream—and major hope to revive their movement."
Not that anybody needed to state the obvious, but it appears that once again Osama bin Laden is finding the government of Israel and its American echo chamber a very useful tactical ally.
