Nowadays when you want to refer to 9/11, you have to clarify that you actually are referring to the real one that happened on September 11, 2001. Apparently, there are many counterfeit versions of it. Many countries have their own 9/11 now.
When American 9/11 happened, some imbeciles blamed the uncivilised barbarians in the caves of Afghanistan for hating the western values of freedom and democracy. Some genuine scholars like Lawrence Wright reminded the US of the policies it had been practising in the world, precisely in the Middle East and Afghanistan, which led to 9/11. But even then propagandists such as Steve Coll told the history and the events leading up to 9/11 from the year 1979.
The current attack that Hamas made against Israel is a result of interconnected facts that have been unfolding in global politics for more than a century. It is sort of Hollywood movie Babel, where one event leads to another, in a different part of the world. The people and the mistakes they make are totally distant and ignorant of each other yet connected in amazing ways.
Let me begin the story from the 1917 Russian Revolution, which brought to power the Bolsheviks. The rise of the Bolsheviks inside the Soviet Union created this friction with the other major power on the horizon called the USA. The Cold War was born. The American strategy of tackling the Soviet expansion of communist thought was to support Islamist and Jihadist thoughts.
In fact, I was once listening to a talk by the former CIA chief, Michael Hayden here in Houston. One of the interesting things he said was that the US strategy during the Cold War was to strengthen the shock troops, mainly the Islamist parties, inside any country where there would be a communist strongman ruling. The aim was to weaken the strongman. Hayden said that the strategy after 9/11 was turned around and now “we support the strongmen around the world” so that they can weaken the Jihadists and the Islamists.
The fight between the communist thought and the Jihadist thought was manifested militarily in its extreme form on the soil of Afghanistan during much of the 80s. But here is the next step in this domino effect story: the year 1979 is quite rich for global politics. That is the year when the Iranian revolution happened and the Iranians expelled the Americans from their country. That is also the year when the Soviet tanks rolled over the soil of Afghanistan and the invasion began. There was a gap of a few weeks between those two events.
When the Iranian revolution happened, the rise of the Shiite Islam around the world earned this grandeur because adherents of this sect of Islam stood up to the mighty America and even expelled it out of their country and their political fate. The Sunni world led by Saudi Arabia could not tolerate this new competitor and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan presented the perfect opportunity. Jihad became the most potent booster of the Saudi supported Sunni Islam. They teamed up with the Americans and injected Jihad and Stingers into Sunni Islam, which expelled the Soviets from Afghan soil, thus equating the score. The friction between the Saudis and the Iranians would play a major role in abandoning the Palestinian cause later.
Israel and Saudi Arabia through the years came to despise and fear Iran. And so this idea of the enemy of my enemy was born, which brought the Sunni and the Jewish states close, though clandestinely. The fear of Iran was more vivid for the Saudis than the passion for the cause of the Palestinians. The recognition of Israel was only a matter of time, not intention.
And that convinced Hamas that the only meaningful supporters of the cause of Palestine were going to abandon that cause. And that led to what we saw early this month.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 19th, 2023.
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