Former President George W. Bush once referred to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 as “[the] most devastating attack[s America has experienced] since Pearl Harbor.” Last week was the twelfth anniversary of 9/11, and by interesting coincidence, that day also saw a United States governmental official’s confirmation to CNN that weapons funded and organized by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency have begun flowing to the Syrian rebels.
Everyone is aware of the current situation of political instability that exists in the Middle East, particularly in Syria. The series of events that was set into motion in Egypt in late 2010 resulted in the deposition of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and uprisings in other Middle Eastern and North African countries. Western countries, the United States in particular, have become involved in these conflicts, to one extent or another and have had to make various choices. In the future, the world will have to deal with the ramifications of these decisions. There is a question that must be asked now: Will the ultimate price of any decision be worth its immediate advantage?
It has been asserted that understanding the past can help us predict the future; at the very least, it should be possible for us in the present to use the past in order to understand what not to do. The outcome of the current situation in the Middle East could completely reshape the modern world and it is frightening that the Western world does not seem to be taking into account past events while intervening in the current Middle Eastern conflict.
The recent assertion that the United States government has begun to fund the Syrian rebels is hardly surprising, as the United States has a well-known penchant for interfering in the affairs of the international community. In 2011, it was alleged that the United States secretly armed insurgents in Libya, in order to attempt to ensure the success of their revolution. Both this state of affairs and the current situation in Syria are frighteningly familiar: in the late 1980s, a similar state of affairs led to the creation of an international menace, Al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda came into existence in the late 1980s because of two factors: escalating tension between citizens of Afghanistan and the invading Soviet troops and the strain in the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, taking control over all government, military and media centers in an attempt to rid Afghanistan of the influence of the mujahidin, the Islamic “holy warriors”.
The mujahidin immediately retaliated, resulting in a war that lasted for close to ten years. The United States provided the mujahidin with financial and military aid, in order to support the anti-Soviet jihad and thus weaken the Soviet Union. The funds and weapons belonging to the United States were used to create “Al Qaeda”, literally translated as “the base”- a training facility near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. After the mujahidin won the war in February 1989, the United States government’s failure to properly oversee the disbanding of the “Al Qaeda” training facility led to many of the weapons and funds appropriation by the ‘mujahidin generals’, Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden.
Since 1989, Al Qaeda has become a militant Islamist network that functions as both a multinational stateless army and a radicalized Sunni Muslim movement. Al Qaeda is responsible for perpetrating many catastrophic attacks around the globe. The organization became well known in 1993, following an attack on the World Trade Center in New York. This attack, which utilized United States resources left over from the Afghani mujahidin’s victory over the Soviet Union, was the first in a string of attacks that severely crippled Western morale. The most well known attack, as was previously mentioned, occurred on September 11, 2001.
The creation of Al Qaeda is a clear-cut example of a situation in which the intervention of a foreign power resulted in the creation of a global monstrosity, and it is frightening to note the potential that the current situation in Syria has to turn into a similar situation. The current state of affairs in the Middle East will have long-term ramifications on the geopolitics of the region. The examples discussed clearly show the detrimental effect that can be wrought by foreign intervention in domestic affairs. The United States fails time and time again to take adequate account the fact that its actions now could create another Al Qaeda at some point in the future. In May 2011, Osama bin Laden, leader of Al Qaeda, was assassinated by the United States military via targeted strike. In a speech given following the successful strike, President Obama stated, “The American people did not choose [its] fight [with Al Qaeda]. It came to our shores, and started with the senseless slaughter of our citizens.” Yet, to a certain extent, the United States itself contributed to the rise of its own enemy. So, in closing: should the Western world be involved in the situation in Syria? Should it have been involved in the situation in Libya? In the situations in other parts of the Middle East? I do not have the answers to these questions, but the bottom line is that when deciding how to act, politicians can’t afford not to think about the following question: Will the ultimate price be worth the immediate advantage?
Eliana Glogauer is a student at IDC Herzliya.
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