A SOLUTION TO TERRORISM

May 24, 2007

Wilmington Rotary Club

A SOLUTION TO TERRORISM

We can accomplish far more in the so-called “war on terror” by building up than by tearing down. Our current policies are increasing global terrorism instead.

We should focus this building up in places like Morocco, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Turkey--countries that are already on that tenuous path to political and economic democracy—because positive accomplishments in any Muslim nation will have good effect in all other Muslim nations. This will be especially true if it is accompanied by a resolution of the terrible dispute between Israel and Palestine, whatever that resolution is, since the inability to bring a resolution there is itself one of the prime contributors to global terrorism.

I have historically voted as a conservative, but there is nothing intrinsically conservative or Republican about this or any war. Since the invasion of Iraq, the price of oil has gone from $28 to over $60 a barrel, short term interest rates have risen by over 4.5%, and with the $1 trillion being spent on this war, our deficit is at record highs. This economic cost, and the much higher human cost, makes it incumbent on each of us, liberal and conservative, to assess the true value of this war very carefully.

Now, while some may think that terrorism is a primarily Islamic phenomenon, terrorism and terrorists have existed in essentially all historical eras, countries, and religions. In fact, in the period since World War II, there have been more occurrences of terrorism in stable democracies than in any other type of country—including the acts of White Supremacist in the United States, the Red Brigade in Germany, and the Red Army in Japan. But the influence of these terrorists is usually very limited and marginal.

So the key question becomes, why aren’t terrorists in these Middle Eastern countries equally marginal? What is it in these Middle Eastern countries that causes the broader population to respond supportively to terrorists? Whether you examine the past fifty years or the past thirty centuries the answer is the same: terrorists gain support where there is occupation or oppression.

By occupation, we mean like that of Ireland by England that led to the IRA, the French in Vietnam in the early twentieth century, and Napoleon’s French forces in Spain in the early 19th century—which each led to terrorism. By oppression, we mean like the dictatorship in Peru in that led to the terrorism of the Shining Path, and Tsarist Russia in the early 20th century that led to Bolshevik terrorism. Both these dictatorships were accompanied by the sure signs of oppression—-widespread poverty, corruption and the concentration of wealth among the few.

Throughout time and across the globe, people are not predisposed to follow the lead of terrorists. They instead want what people everywhere have always wanted—-meaning and purpose in their lives, sustenance and economic opportunity, family, friends and happiness. They want to matter and to have respect. For a population to respond to the overtures of terrorists, circumstances have to be extreme—which is the terrible case under occupation or oppression.

The common ground between oppression and occupation is that the people are deprived of any participation in government, and the key, basic obligations of a government to the governed are not met: especially the enforcement of property rights, safety, and access to opportunity. When this happens, the results are poverty and despair—the very things which make a population vulnerable to the overtures of terrorists and the alternative they present.

Terrorist are known for their acts, which are horrible, cruel, tragic, and murderous. But these acts are almost always the only military means the weak and out of power can afford to fight their oppressors—and thus recur throughout history.

Terrorist groups can be characterized by something else, too--they gain relevance by fulfilling those basic obligations of government that are so egregiously neglected. Those who study the terrorism were not surprised to learn that Hizbollah was building hospitals in Lebanon, and that the Taliban was establishing schools in Afghanistan. The governments of those countries were—and are--falling short of providing these things. Corruption and oppression had resulted in horrifying poverty and a gaping shortfall in these and other basic needs. And where a void exists and despair results, an alternative arises to fill it. People respond to those that provide for what they genuinely need.

It follows, then, that terrorism exists among Muslims because so many Muslim countries have been subject to occupation and oppression. Of the 6.7 billion people in the world today, 1.3 billion are Muslim. 45 of the world's 193 countries are predominantly Muslim. Of these 45, 41 are former colonies or subsumed Soviet states—harshly excluded from economic opportunity and subjected to servitude, imprisonment and worse. This gutted the development of political and economic leadership within these countries—so much so that we should not be surprised at tenuous state of development in their leadership and institutions--and their resulting propensity toward dictatorships. In fact, among these 45, 37 (by our imperfect count) are still not bona fide democracies.

Given the size of this population, if even the tiniest fraction of them are terrorists, the problem is large. In contrast, it was almost impossible for the impact of IRA terrorists to be felt much beyond Northern Ireland, since the population of Northern Ireland was less than a million.

Allow me to make a crucial additional observation. Because Islamic fundamentalism is so intertwined with Muslim terrorism, it is critical to understand fundamentalism. Fundamentalism, whether in Islam, or Judaism, or Christianity, is a reaction great stress or rapid change within a society or country. Where you have great stress or change, where the moorings of life have come loose, whether from war, pogroms, oppression, rapid economic, social or moral dislocation, where there is fear about the future--fundamentalism has flourished. Fundamentalism is a grasping for certainty in the shadow of great uncertainty.

The presence of fundamentalism in these countries, rather than being a sign of a backslide, is instead evidence of how fast they are being pulled forward.

The best way to reduce terrorism is by addressing situations of oppression or occupation. We clearly need to track terrorists in order to prevent future attacks, and to find those that have attacked us in the past so that they can do no more harm. We also need to identify, secure and protect all nuclear materials so that they do not fall into the hands of terrorists. Still, to get to the underlying causes of terrorism, and to prevent the ranks of terrorists from increasing, we must focus on occupation and oppression.

Oppression and occupation can only be overcome by returning power to the governed--to the broad population. This was to strong contention of the Bush administration, and they were correct. But, crucially, democracy cannot take root, the distribution or decentralization of power cannot move forward, unless it is accompanied an equally vigorous distribution of wealth and economic opportunity among the broad population. Power cannot be held by the broad population unless it can afford to hold that power. The Bush administration failed to grasp the essential role of broadened economic opportunity in building democracies—and its lack of spending in this area reflected this. And in Iraq, the Bush administration failed by making its most visible attempt at building a democracy in the very place where a virulent civil war was about to break out—more on this in a moment.

Here’s an example where the introduction of economic and political democracy quelled the terrorists : In Peru in the 1980s and 1990s, the Shining Path was a murderous terrorist group violently opposed to Peru’s corrupt and autocratic government. Today, the Shining Path essentially no longer exists. One of the largest reasons was the property rights reform championed by Hernando DeSoto. The majority of Peruvians were in fact very poor, and were thus open to the communist message of the Shining Path.

DeSoto’s observation was that the hundreds of thousands of Peruvians who lived in the burgeoning shantytowns surrounding Lima and other cities could take a giant economic step forward if they were given legal title to the land on which they already lived, comparable to what was done in homestead acts in America during the 1800s, and land distribution in Japan after World War II—both of which had profoundly benefitted both the economic and political systems of those countries. This wasn’t charity. It was instead empowerment--a distribution to people who were already living on the land, and who had already built homes and businesses there, and it was one of the keys to creating a large middle class in the United States and Japan. And once distributed and properly titled, this property could be leveraged towards the establishment of even more businesses and investment—providing a boost to the economic vitality of those individuals and communities. DeSoto points out that there is $9.3 trillion globally in similarly untitled property of the poor, and where legal titling could bring similar benefit.

There are a great number of additional ways to improve the economy and distribute opportunity in a poor country—they range from trade to microlending to education. All must be considered.

Peru’s land reform occurred in conjunction with Peru’s movement to democracy—and both benefitted from that movement and helped insure its success. Together, they made the Shining Path terrorists irrelevant.

Thus, the most central question in terrorism isn't how to stop terrorists. It is instead how to broadly distribute both power and the economic opportunity in countries where oppression or occupation now prevail—to create both economic and political democracy. This is the central foreign policy question of our age.

In Iraq, this formula will also work, but only after the enormous challenge of dealing with of Iraq’s civil war.

In Iraq, we've inadvertently taken sides in a civil war. In 1919, there were three separate provinces of the defeated Ottoman Empire--Baghdad, Basra and Mosul—that were adjacent to each other, but had decidedly different Sunni, Shiite and Kurd ethnic and religious majorities. A British foreign service official ill-advisedly recommended they be combined into a single country. Almost immediately the British found themselves bombing villages to quiet the rapidly growing unrest.

Fast forward to the reign of Saddam Hussein and the reality was that Saddam and his ruling Sunni brethren spent thirty years or more in a brutal subjugation of the Shiite majority--subjugation that included jailings, torture, murder and worse. If we knew nothing else, and we saw this 30-year period come to an end--and further saw the invading Americans take the weapons out of the hands of the Sunnis and cede proportionate power to the Shiites, we would have expected nothing less than that the Shiites would have sought their revenge. It now has emerged with a vengeance, and they have already gained most of the power in Iraq, while the Kurds, protecting their own interests, have already effectively created their own separate state.

Studies of ethnic and religious civil wars over the last fifty years point strongly to the conclusion that one of only three outcomes is possible. Either one side will win completely, or the conflict will fester unresolved, or a third party will enter the picture and separate the factions. Under this third outcome, combat can cease and the path toward economic stability can begin—as happened to bring peace to Bosnia under the Dayton accords. Three federations can be created within Iraq--one Shiite, one Sunni, and one Kurd-- the “soft partition” plan articulated well by Leslie Gelb, Joe Biden, and others. The central government would have very limited powers, while most power, including military power, would reside in the separate federations, and oil revenue would be shared. An international peace-keeping force would serve to maintain separation and preserve peace. It has worked before and it can work here—and with it we can largely withdraw. Any thought that we can induce cooperation between Shiites and Sunnis without first having this kind of separation defies any historical precedent.

Invading Iraq has increased global terrorism. If the $1 trillion being spent on the Iraq War—or any small fraction thereof--had instead been spent building up, global terrorism would have decreased instead.

The people of America have enormous common sense, decency, fairness and generosity of Americans, and I cannot therefore help but be optimistic.

We have unparalleled opportunity to help others--yet it is in our own self-interest to act. And while it is our duty, it is also our great honor to strive to be a light when so much is in shadows.