Wars without winners

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http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/wars-without-winners/article6210228.ece

Contrary to the view that extremism thrives when America is absent, empirical facts indicate that the opposite is truer. And each of the countries at the centre of global concerns over extremism is in fact one that has seen direct or indirect western intervention, not western absence

Wars without winners
Suhasini Haidar
Updated: July 15, 2014 04:21 IST

In her autobiographical work, based on her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton makes a startling statement while explaining the need for U.S. intervention around the world, despite the “dangers” to American lives. “While we can and must work to reduce the danger,” writes Ms. Clinton, “the only way to eliminate risk entirely is to retreat entirely and to accept the consequences of the void we leave behind. When America is absent, extremism takes root, our interests suffer, and our security at home is threatened” (Hard Choices, p.387, Simon & Schuster, 2014).

It is curious that Ms. Clinton thinks that extremism thrives when America is absent, as empirical facts and the patterns one can glean from them indicate that the opposite is truer. While Iraq and ISIS’ brutal advance on Baghdad is at the top of the news now, it must be remembered that each of the countries today at the centre of the world’s concerns over extremism is in fact a country that has seen direct or indirect western intervention, not western absence — Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Iraq.

Authoritarian yet secular regimes

There are other patterns to these interventions. In each of these countries, what the United States, along with allies sought to oust were authoritarian regimes that were secular. The Soviet-backed regimes of President Najibullah in Afghanistan, President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Qadhafi in Libya. The movements these leaders set up were dictatorial; they controlled their people through stifling intelligence agencies, and crushed all political Islamic movements where they could. But a by-product of the secularism was that women and minorities had a more secure status under these regimes than under their Islamist and monarchist neighbours like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. Unlike them, Mr. Assad, Qadhafi, Saddam and Najibullah had women and minorities in their cabinets, and a sense of Arab/Afghan nationalism overshadowed the sectarian divide in their countries.

When the West has tried to intervene to oust them, it has always strengthened the opposition to these leaders, which by definition includes groups that are anti-secular, jihadi extremists. Whether it is by design or otherwise, it is these groups that have eventually taken control of the entire opposition. Finally, this intervention has led to a carving up of the country on sectarian lines; along bitter, historic, ethnic and communal lines.