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Dr. Walid Phares
Africa’s Terror Threat Real
July 21, 2009
Over the past months, the narrative of Washington's "new direction" in
world affairs blurred the clarity of the confrontation with the terror
forces worldwide. Are we at conflict with a global threat?
The administration, insisting on treating the issue locally, claimed
otherwise. But during President Barack Obama’s July 11 speech in Accra,
he said that "when there's a genocide in Darfur or terrorists in
Somalia, these are not simply African problems — they are global
security challenges, and they demand a global response."
This zigzag between local and global risk is confusing not only to the
public but to strategists as well. If terrorism in Somalia is a global
security challenge, then it is a global threat. And thus it is a global
confrontation, call it war or call it anything else. Therefore, the
response has to be global, security, military, political, economic, and
ideological.
Responding to the jihadi threat throughout Africa must be continental
and integrated with international efforts. The president should have
drawn the attention of his audience to the trans-African jihadi threat
commencing in Somalia with the al-Shabab, and thrusting through the
immensity of the Sahel via Chad, Niger, Mali, and Mauritania. The menace
is even wider as the Salafists (al-Qaida-like jihadists) threaten
northern Africa via Algeria, Morocco, and even Egypt.
Unfortunately, neither the Cairo nor the Accra speeches described the
terror threat in full. In the next few years, 50 percent of the
continent will be involved in a full-fledged war with terror. That is
not a little detail obstructing development; that is the main threat
against social, economic, and democratic progress across Africa. The
jihadists aren’t just some extremists with local demand: they have an
all-out agenda diametrically opposed to the modern democratic agenda and
to U.S. efforts in international development.
In his speech Obama raised another point of confusion created by the
administration: The ideology of the global threat. Since early 2009,
(but also under the last two years of the George W. Bush administration)
all reference to the existence of "an” ideology, doctrine, or school of
thought of the foe, let alone its name, was scrapped out of the lexicon.
The "J” word (jihad) was banned along with all "I” words (Islamism,
etc).
Until the Accra address, the Obama speech writers wanted the public to
digest the idea that there is no ideological battle. But in front of an
all-African legislative audience in Ghana, Obama resuscitated the
unavoidable conclusion: "That is why we must stand up to inhumanity in
our midst. It is never justified, never justifiable to target innocents
in the name of ideology.”
So, is it or is it not an ideology, regardless of what one wishes to
call it? In Africa, we cannot convince the people subjected to Wahabi,
Salafi, or Khomeinist propaganda that ideology has nothing to do with
the massacre of black men, women, and children. But in Cairo, we didn’t
raise the issue. In Washington, we act as if we want it to go away by
changing our lexicon. In the end, Africa knows all too well the nature
of the ideological menace. It knows its name, its goals, and it has seen
its work. The U.S. must catch up with the continent’s deep and dramatic
knowledge of the roots of "evil.”
Twice in his speech, Obama asserted that "we must start from the simple
premise that Africa's future is up to Africans.” Indeed, after the
receding of Western colonialism during the last decades of the 20th
century, who is obstructing Africa’s global independence? What regional
and international organizations are controlling the African vote at the
United Nations, paralyzing the African Union when it decides to
intervene against ethnic cleansing in Darfur, southern Sudan, and
Biafra, or to solve civil wars in Cote d’Ivoire and Somalia?
The Arab League controls 10 of Africa’s countries and the Organization
of the Islamic Conference covers half of the continent. Both
organizations are essentially commanded by oil-producing regimes and
jointly "colonize” the African Union. NATO, the EU, the CIS, and the OAS
have no membership in Africa. But OPEC’s big boys determine at what
price Nigerians, Ghanaians, and others must sell their oil. What I have
coined as "oil imperialism” in my last book has been devastating third
world independence since 1973, when petrodollars pushed back against the
West and intimidated weaker nations.
If oil regimes can exert influence in the world’s most powerful
capitals, how can poor African nations resist their domination? |
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