The Arab Spring, Socio-Economics Dynamics, and al-Qaida's Strategy: The Missing Link?

Abstract

1 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXVI, No.3, Spring 2013 The Arab Spring, Socio-Economics Dynamics, and al-Qaida’s Strategy: The Missing Link? Norman Cigar* Introduction The Arab Spring has changed the Middle Eastern political landscape in many ways and Al-Qaida, like other external and internal political actors, has faced the challenge of understanding and adapting to the new realities. Al-Qaida, in its pursuit of far-reaching objectives, sees itself as a vanguard and has always believed that the mobilization of popular support within the Umma, or Islamic community, is the key to success. Not surprisingly, AlQaida has viewed its information and outreach program (dac wa) as on a par with that of combat in conducting the jihad and has devoted a considerable effort to promote well-established objectives over the years using a combination of ideological/religious and Realpolitik arguments. In the past, Al-Qaida focused its message largely on religious, cultural, and political issues, while paying little, if any, attention to socio-economic grievances. However, this study will argue that, in the wake of the manifest prominence of socio-economic dynamics as the wellspring for the forces unleashed by the Arab Spring, Al-Qaida has become aware of the salience of such issues for the majority of the population and has concluded that it is necessary and useful to also incorporate such grievances into its program and outreach effort. Al-Qaida’s traditional approach to socio-economic issues will be contrasted to that since the outbreak of the Arab Spring, as *Norman Cigar is Director of Regional Studies and the Minerva Research Chair at the Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia. He has also taught at the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College and the Marine Corps School of Advanced Warfighting, and served as a senior Middle East political-military staff officer on the Army Staff in the Pentagon. He holds a D. Phil. from Oxford (St Antony’s College); an M.I.A. from the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; and an M.S. from the National Intelligence University. He is the author of Al-Qaida, the Tribes, and the Government: Lessons and Prospects for Iraq's Unstable Triangle. 2 expressed by the organization’s leadership and analysts both at the center and in Al-Qaida’s branches, and the study will draw some implications of the evolving process for the longer term. al-Qaida’s Traditional Approach Al-Qaida has produced a vast number of analytical studies, statements, communiques, and interviews over the years in printed, audio-visual, and electronic formats. However, this outreach effort has focused almost exclusively on geo-political issues, military strategy, and religious/legal issues, and there has been virtually nothing comparable on economics, and especially as the latter affects ordinary people. Even when denouncing local regimes, the thrust was to accuse the latter of such misdeeds as cooperation with the West and Israel, secularism, and repression of the jihad and jihadist movements, with attention to economic grievances focused on the regimes’ collaboration with the West. Traditionally, Al-Qaida has largely adhered to a laissez faire approach to socio-economic issues, either ignoring them altogether or—more rarely—if it did address them, doing so from a perspective that often could be expected to provide only limited resonance among intended audiences. Social justice was never designated as a significant objective of the jihad. While, of course, Al-Qaida often railed against such aspects of society as tribal traditions or folk religion, it appeared intent only on ensuring the observance of what it interpreted as the appropriate application of Islam rather than offering options for restructuring the economic system or advocating any significant transformation in the socio-economic hierarchy. Al-Qaida’s Traditional Economic Focus In Al-Qaida’s early years—in the mid-1990s to be more precise— whenever Usama Bin Ladin did devote attention to socio-economic issues, he did so largely in terms of using a club against Saudi Arabia’s rulers. For example, in an open letter to Saudi Arabia’s then-King Fahd in August 1995, Bin Ladin accused the latter of implementing a “suicidal oil...