The West worsened the terrorist threat

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2014/May-31/258337-the-west-worsened-the-terrorist-threat.ashx#axzz33XtOIAL6

The West worsened the terrorist threat
May 31, 2014 12:09 AM
By Rami G. Khouri
The Daily Star

There was much irony, confusion and incompetence in President Barack Obama’s speech at West Point earlier this week.

The president said that “For the foreseeable future, the most direct threat to America at home and abroad remains terrorism,” especially from “decentralized Al-Qaeda affiliates and extremists” who might attack American targets. Obama particularly mentioned Syria as a dangerous new arena where militants were gathering for training, indoctrination and fighting.This reflects irony, confusion and incompetence on the part of the United States, the United Kingdom and other Western governments because the continued growth of these militant Islamists, especially the most virulent Salafist-takfiris among them, can be traced directly to recent Anglo-American policies in Iraq and other parts of the Arab world. Obama may defeat these people, but he should recognize them as his country’s own progeny that was, and still is, midwifed by its policies.

If Obama is really concerned about this, he should convene an honest, dispassionate commission of enquiry into the full consequences of the 2003 war on Iraq that was energetically led by President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. That war, by removing the government and armed forces of the Iraqi state, created a security vacuum in large swaths of the country. This, in turn, provided the most fertile and welcoming environment for Al-Qaeda militants such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who carried out murderous, sectarian-based warfare against Shiites and fellow Sunnis whom they considered apostates.

Only when Bush and Blair provided Al-Qaeda with this golden opportunity to establish a strong base of operations in the heart of the Arab world did the threat from Salafist-takfiris become operationally indigenized in a territorial base under their control. They then spread rapidly to Syria and other parts of the region.