Radical Islam: A Growing Cancer

Without a doubt, the events of September 11, 2001 marked the initiation of the efforts to fight terrorism. We did not know the enemy’s nature, short and long term capabilities, vested commitment to destroy our nation, and what strategy to use to neutralize, control, and eliminate the threat of the enemy.
The good thing is that we were conscious enough to understand that terrorists meant business and that their commitment goes beyond seriousness and extremism. The bad thing is that after more than 10 years of war shifted from Iraqi to Afghani territory, the leader of Al Q’aeda, Osama bin Laden still is at large. The war has affected also our allies and their compromise to team up in the fight against terrorism. By the time America understood the significance and popularity of the growth and danger of Radical Islam, European nations’ power has long since faded due to the expansion of the cancerous virus called Radical Islam. An ongoing mistake America embraces from one administration to the next is to see the Middle East as cleanly divided between two arenas: a moderate, pro-American that ought to be bolstered and a militant, pro-Iranian one that needs to be contained. That conception is not the reality and we must not continue seeing this as such because it does not allow intelligence strategists to counter attack the threat efficiently. America still ignores the role of new prominent elements at the door of terror such as Turkey as a clear sign of not realizing the changes in the composition of the Middle East. If we ignore those changes, we are making it more complicated to understand the political changes in the region. How are we going to assess Saudi Arabia’s resumed dialogue with the terrorist organization Hamas? How are we going to assess the Saudi ties with Syria? How are we going to asses Damascus’ regime involved in the shipment of armament and explosives to the terrorist organization Hezbollah? How are going to assess the strength and rapid alliance of Iran with Syria, Yemen, and Damascus? And, how are we going to assess the relations with Turkey when this nation has developed strong ties with Syria, mediating a nuclear deal with Iran, and proven to have strong ties with the terrorist organization Hamas?
We started the war on terror by invading the wrong country; that’s a fact. However, the capture of Saddam Hussein created the curtain to disregard negative comments about this erroneous first step and the invasion became the masterpiece of the entire strategy. The problem was that we failed to maintain a strong and direct defined objective as we did during Desert Storm during the George H.W. Bush administration by forcing Iraq out of Kuwait territory in 1991. Consequently, the assembly of multi-national forces maintained strong political ties for years to come, as it did, better than before, the results of the peace conference in Madrid to improve the relations Arab-Israeli. The Clinton administration contained Iran and Iraq while managing the Arab-Israeli everlasting conflict through diplomacy. Between 1991 until the end of the Clinton administration, America was able to neutralize the region’s three most critical arenas of conflict: the Arab-Persian fault line, the occupied Palestinian territories, and the time-bomb called Lebanon. During the George W. Bush administration, the handling of the crystal ball of the Israeli-Arab affairs shifted more to the Israeli side and the Intifada of 2000 put the Palestinians and all the terrorist groups they support in a situation that only grew more and throw the pendulum to the opposite side of the political relations in the region.
The George W. Bush policy of “with us or against us” to fight terrorism created animosity toward the United States and it promptly became widespread. We were at war and we needed to deal with animosity as in any other military intervention. The results of the war 10 years later reflect the total destruction of the sanguinary regime in Iraq but it allowed Iran spread its influence beyond its borders toward the Arab world. Hezbollah has strengthen its forces and commitment to annihilate anti-Muslims, and the bankruptcy of peace processes boosted Hamas and gave the terrorists the clear arena to adhere to the fatwa issued in 1998 by Osama bin Laden. What have we done wrong to allow Syria its continuance in relations with Radical Islamist terrorist organizations? What have we done wrong to allow Hezbollah infiltrate the political hemisphere in Lebanon? What have we done wrong when trying to sit in the same table Israel, Saudi-Arabia, and Iraq if these critical chess-pieces never shared neither values nor interests? What have we done right or maybe we think is right but it is just an invisible strategy from Syria to be willing to negotiate peace relations with Israel while Iran has openly called for its destruction? Practically, no country in the Middle East has a positive agenda or is in a position to successfully advance one as long as Radical Islam heart still beating.
It won’t be easy for the United States to undertake strong, effective, and lethal measures against Radical Islam. It may increase regional divisions, increase more tension, and increase the chances of more conflicts in different territories. President Barack Hussein Obama started his administration with the unmistakable decision and ambition of reversing the results of the war on terrorism but he has forgotten to close the book on failed policies and strategies of the past, and design a strong arrow that carries the strongest venom to the heart of Radical Islam.