How Al-Qaeda Will Perish
"There really is a broad rethink sweeping the Muslim world about the practical utility -- and moral defensibility -- of terrorism, particularly since al Qaeda began targeting fellow Sunni Muslims, as it did with the 2005 suicide bombings of three hotels in Amman, Jordan. Al Qaeda knows this. Osama bin Laden is no longer quite the folk hero he was in 2001. Reports of al Qaeda's torture chambers in Iraq have also percolated through Arab consciousness, replacing, to some extent, the images of Abu Ghraib."
"[Muslims] have come to know al Qaeda as fundamentally a radical movement -- the antithesis of the traditional social order represented by the local sovereign, the religious establishment."
It appears that there is a counter al-Qaeda movement throughout the Muslim world, especially amongst the Sunni Muslims because the tactics of al-Qaeda (torture and bombing/killing of fellow Sunnis) has pushed them away from bin Laden's and al-Zawahiri's radical interpretation of Islam. It appears that the pendulum is swinging towards our favor (rather away from al-Qaeda). This can be viewed as a decline for al-Qaeda, similar to one described by Heymann. Eventually, al-Qaeda will perish.
~Greg
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2 comments:
i think the view that this will be the end-all of al-Qaeda is a bit too simplistic. fortunately more Muslims are viewing the violence that al-Qaeda commits as abhorrent; however, this had been the general feeling among mainstream Muslims for some time now. unfortunately, many would rather support al-Qaeda with their questionable tactics than turn against a major movement that uses religion as its justification. many in the middle east feel that violence is preferable to denouncing a group that fights for the rights of Muslims, regardless of their violence. al-Qaeda may become less popular, but the dis banning of such a widespread organization is not likely to come from a sudden revolution of the public.
I also want to continue what Alex was saying. To start with, I agree that Al-Qaeda is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of their constituent public and I agree that they may be driving the overall Sunni population away from their organization and even from supporting/sympathizing with them. However, I do not think that these radical/disenfranchised Sunni's will be running into American arms. I think if anything what we may see happen in Iraq is a burgeoning of more Sunni militant groups because like Alex said, they support (read: mainstream Muslims abroad and Sunni’s in specific) what Al-Qaeda is trying to do – they just do not support the way Al-Qaeda is going about it anymore (the targeting of fellow Sunni’s, targeting of Muslim’s in general, etc.).
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