Trump Doubles Down on Failed Counterterror Policy
Trump Doubles Down on Failed Counterterror Policy by Katherine Zimmerman – Wall Street Journal
The U.S. and allies need to deal with local grievances, which give Salafi-jihadi groups their opening.
President Trump’s counterterrorism strategy has amounted to doubling down on past failure. He has promised a full withdrawal of troops from Syria and a partial withdrawal from Afghanistan, the better to focus on directly attacking terror cells. That narrow definition of counterterrorism misses the real threat: the Salafi-jihadi movement, which continues to gain strength across the globe.
Salafi-jihadi groups—including al Qaeda, Islamic State, Boko Haram and al-Shabaab—are no longer the terror factions we recognize. While terrorism is a tactic they deploy effectively and consistently, no straightforward counterterrorism policy will defeat them. Their aim is first to rule the Sunni world, and then, in Osama bin Laden’s words, to “send a call to all the people of the world to . . . embrace Islam.”
They have used lessons from past failures to transform their strategy and tactics. Al Qaeda now avoids declaring an “emirate,” because the word triggers the West, provoking military interventions al Qaeda can’t win. The term also raises local expectations that the group will provide services as if it were a state.
By 2011 many Salafi-jihadi groups had learned to think locally. Local jihad—practiced in the Middle East and other parts of Africa and Asia—encompasses the community’s interests or grievances, with the added advantage that Western states, preoccupied with global jihad, ignore their activities. The Salafi-jihadists embed themselves in local Sunni communities, where they control resources and infrastructure and become integral to governance…