Is Bush Seeking A Truce With Al Qaeda?

by Franz Schurmann

Of the three wars America has been fighting since 9/11 -- the War on Terror, the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War -- the first is by far the most dangerous. The time spacing between terrorist strikes recently appears to be shrinking.

Al Qaeda, which began as a benevolent foundation that built roads and orphanages in the Sudan and Somalia, now is the central entity of a worldwide network of terrorist sub-organizations, most of which call themselves Jama'ah al-Islamiya, meaning "Islamic Group." Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside Al-Qaeda" and now based in Singapore, said in an interview to the Australian Broadcasting Company that Al Qaeda is "lying in wait even in the heart of America and the West."

But some information has recently come out of Egypt that suggests America is downplaying Osama bin Laden. In its Aug. 20 issue, the top Egyptian daily Al-Ahram published a commentary entitled "Has America withdrawn Osama bin Laden from its number one wanted list?" Al-Ahram is a government medium, and so the piece by news analyst Iman Arif can be construed as voicing the concern of Egypt, America's premier military ally in the Arab world, over so radical a policy change.

Iman Arif writes about the changing missions of a top American special forces unit called "TF 20." Not long after 9/11, the 800 TF Rangers were assigned to capture bin Laden in Afghanistan. Then, with the same mission, they were assigned to the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands. But earlier this year, the TF 20 was ordered back to Washington. Soon afterwards the TF Rangers were assigned to Iraq to join in the search for Saddam Hussein. However, their replacements assigned to the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands had no experience and therefore no luck in tracking down bin Laden.

Iman Arif says repeatedly that the White House, which had direct command over TF 20, made a clear policy shift on America's most wanted fugitive list from Osama to Saddam. Rohin Gunaratna implies the same in the cited interview: "The pressure the U.S. maintained on Al Qaeda could not be sustained during the U.S. invasion of Iraq."

Both Iman Arif and Gunaratna believe that the most spectacular terrorist actions during this year were committed by Al Qaeda or its Jama'ah sub-groups: Bali, Casablanca, Riyadh, the Jordanian Embassy and then the UN Headquarters (both in Baghdad), Bombay and just recently the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf. Like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the death and injury tolls overwhelmingly consist of civilians. The difference is that the Americans drop their bombs from high altitudes, while Al Qaeda launches theirs from the streets. The two wars go on, but with no sight of victory for either side.

Iman Arif quotes Rohan Gunaratna: "Even if America captures some high level members of Al Qaeda, it cannot escape the truth that it can't control events."

If secret contacts between Al Qaeda and America do happen -- if they aren't already going on -- then it's not impossible that a truce could be agreed on. If that happens, the key person on Al Qaeda's side will be bin Laden's second-in-command, al-Zuwaheri. Many Middle Eastern observers and international terrorism experts believe that he was the real planner of 9/11. Bin Laden is a visionary, but Al-Zuwaheri is a master of detail.

Al-Zuwaheri, the leader of Egypt's banned Jama'ah al-Islamiya, spent four years in an Egyptian prison as an accomplice in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Now he is emerging from being in the shadows for many years. A few weeks ago he unexpectedly spoke to a Gulf TV station.

America is bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it also realizes that it cannot control events like the recent bloody terrorist attacks. On the other hand, Al Qaeda has almost zero chances of toppling any Muslim state anywhere in the world. The reason is that while their internationalism gives them great terrorist power, when it comes to toppling national states that power turns into political impotence.

There is no way these two antagonists can ever prevail against each other. But there is a good chance they can work out a truce. After all, the truce worked out in the Korean War has lasted 50 years without any serious break.