FROM THE ARCHIVES: LONG MARCH...SHORT ATTENTION SPAN:

Al-Qaeda's long march to war (Michael Scheuer, 5/31/06, Asia Times)

Al-Qaeda believes that it and its allies can only defeat the United States in a "long war", one that allows the Islamists to capitalize on their extraordinary patience, as well as on their enemies' lack thereof. Before his death in a firefight with Saudi security forces, the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Abu Hajar Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin, wrote extensively about how al-Qaeda believed the military fight against the US and its allies would unfold. He envisioned a point at which the mujahideen would have to develop semi-conventional forces. He identified this period as the "Decisive Stage".

Muqrin told his insurgent readers that the power of the US precluded any expectation of a quick victory. He wrote that the war would progress slowly through such phases as initial manpower mobilization, political work among the populace to establish trust and support, the accumulation of weaponry and other supplies, the establishment of bases around the country and especially in the mountains, the initiation of attacks on individuals and then a gradual intensification of the latter until a countrywide insurgency was under way.

Each of these steps was essential and none could be skipped, Muqrin maintained; the steps would prolong the war, thereby allowing the mujahideen to grow in numbers, experience and combat power. "We should warn against rushing from one stage to the next," he wrote.

Instead, because of impetuous and strategically inept attacks on the US, Jordan, Egypt, the Shi'ites, etc., they brought America into the war at least a century too early, making it so they can't ever gather even semi-conventional forces in any significant number anywhere in the world, while destroying what little public support they ever had in the Islamic world.

[originally posted: 5/30/06]

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 11, 2010 12:10 AM
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