Why Al Qaeda Is Losing the War on Terror

Because the Middle East is catching up to - and connecting with - the
rest of the world. And no matter how much peace Osama bin Laden's No. 2
tries to offer Barack Obama, there is no stopping globalization's power
over extremism.
By: Thomas P.M. Barnett, Esquire, August 6, 2009

On Monday, the latest video surfaced from Osama bin Laden's longtime
deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, featuring his usual sermon on the state of
the radical Islamic struggle against the United States. The gist: Al
Qaeda is winning hands-down, natch. Trouble is, it's not.

The message wouldn't have attracted any more media attention than his
thirty-or-so similar videos from the past three-and-a-half years except,
of course, for his affirmation that a truce with President Obama is
still on the table: If America is willing to "concede" radical Islam's
"victory" throughout the greater Middle East by withdrawing all of its
troops, then Al Qaeda will stop targeting Americans.

Some offer.

And in making it, al-Zawahiri accuses Obama, upon whom he conferred the
title of "house negro" soon after his election win, of being nothing
more than "the new face of the same old crimes" - namely, "a
relationship with [Islamic lands] based on suppression." But that's just
putting a familiar face on Al Qaeda's deeper fears: America certainly
does its best to suppress radical Islam, but that's not what scares
al-Zawahiri and bin Laden - having to integrate with the rest of the
world does. Career opportunities and a better life, after all, means
fewer young people driven to extremism.

And that's exactly what's happening: Radical Islam has overplayed its
hand again, creating popular resentment escalating to political
backlash. We're the ones winning this struggle across the board, and not
only should Obama ignore the offer of a truce as we press forward in
Afghanistan and Pakistan (it would only allow Asia to step in for the
oil money) - he should make explicitly clear to Al Qaeda that we'll
never acquiesce to their desire for civilizational apartheid between the
West and the Arab world, even as isolationists and defeatists on our
side would just as soon erect a fence around the whole Islamic world to
let them fight it out amongst themselves. Why? Because the penetrating
embrace of globalization is doing the truly profound damage to Al Qaeda,
and we are globalization's bodyguard. The flow of proliferating networks
that offer ideas and conversations and products and expressions of
individualistic ambition - especially with regard to women - offer
radical Islamic groups no hope of gaining permanent political control.

As if al-Zawahiri's smoke-blowing video - as close to an admission of
strategic failure as we're likely to get out of Al Qaeda for the
foreseeable future - wasn't enough, poll after poll confirms the trend:
Al Qaeda's appeal - along with violent extremism in general - is waning
across the Islamic world while America's has been significantly improved
by Barack Obama's election and subsequent efforts at civilizational
dialogue (which clearly has Al Qaeda's leadership worried, as evidenced
by the amount of time al-Zawahiri spent in this last video attempting to
diminish it). As Thomas Friedman pointed out recently, radical Islam's
only successes as of late have involved stoking sectarian and ethnic
feuds - hardly the calling card of a successful international
ideological movement.

The Middle East currently suffers from a destabilizing youth bulge
around people between the ages of 15 and 30. In two decades time, the
region's demographic center of gravity will have shifted upward
commensurately, meaning the Middle East will hit "middle age." What do
we know from this shift in other parts of the world? That criminal
behavior wanes, meaning bin Laden and Al Qaeda do not have time on their
side.
That's not to diminish the economic challenge, because as that youth
bulge ages out into its natural earning years, roughly 100 million new
jobs will need to be created in the greater Middle East by 2030. If
those jobs aren't there, then we're looking at a double whammy: all
those unemployed thirty- and fortysomethings plus their disappointed
kids, who will form another, smaller (but not inconsequential) youth
bulge in the 2020s.
In America's persistent struggle against violent extremism triggered by
globalization's advance, there will always be the temptation to return
to history's sidelines, much like we did after World War I. But our now
decades-long success in creating and defending and expanding an
international liberal trade order (now known as globalization) has
created this larger, unpalatable reality: The United States is no longer
in control of this process and thus cannot "turn off" its resulting
challenges.

Globalization is not some elite conspiracy hatched in Manhattan or
Davos; it's now largely fueled by the ravenous demand for a decent
lifestyle by an emerging - and huge - global middle class located
overwhelmingly beyond our shores. That world-spanning force demands the
Islamic world's progressive integration into globalization's vast
universe.

And when it comes to that fundamental reformatting process, resistance -
be it radical Islam's or isolationist America's - is futile.

Esquire contributing editor Thomas P.M. Barnett is the author of Great
Powers: America and the World After Bush.