June 6, 2005, could be a remarkable day in the chronicle of the ongoing counterterrorism campaign – no less remarkable than July 29, 2005, or September 12, 2007. Is there any relation between these dates? Yes, there is. The first date is as many days apart from September 11, 2001, as there were between Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and its capitulation aboard the battleship U.S.S. Missouri. The second date is separated from September 11 by as many days as there were in the period of time between Nazi Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union and the seizure of Berlin. The third date is six years and one day apart from September 11 – the duration of World War II, the bloodiest war in human history.

Today, however, there are few signs that the aggression against the Free World launched in 2001 has been rebuffed, not to mention its enemy defeated, as convincingly as it was at the end of WWII. On the contrary, terrorist attacks around the globe continue unabated: according to the annual Patterns of Global Terrorism reports published by the U.S. Department of State, there were 296 attacks in 1996, 274 in 1998, 426 in 2000, and 198 in 2002. In 1999, 940 people fell victim to terrorists. In the subsequent years, the death toll steadily rose: 1,211 people in 2000; 5,800 – a record high – in 2001; 2,688 in 2002; and 1,888 in 2003. Unfortunately, there is little hope that the number for 2004 will appear lower than for the previous years. These somber statistics do not include those servicemen and civilians who died in the course of counterterrorist operations.

Besides the human cost of terror, there is the financial cost. It is practically impossible to calculate the total expenditures in the fight against terror. But if one assumes that each participant of the “coalition of the willing” has spent 40 percent of its defense budget since 2001 for this purpose, the total amount for the last four years would easily surpass $400 billion. Each act of this historical drama has failed to convince mankind of the need to complete the fight; moreover, every time new doubts rise as to the sincerity of the coalition leaders.

Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to say warningly, “Unless things go too far…” Things have already gone too far. Thus, we must analyze what we have experienced, what we have already done and what chances there are for success in fighting those individuals whom we quickly labeled – and even quicker made – our enemies.

SHOW ME THE ENEMY

The first difficulty that confronts anyone who decides to address the problem of terrorism is the lack of a definition. Like almost any other widely used term, ‘terrorism’ has no clear interpretation. It is usually used to label any violent action against the civilian population, intended to provoke panic, destabilize social institutions and instill fear and vulnerability in society. According to U.S. Department of State experts, terrorism is “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence the audience.” But this interpretation is very rarely used to assess actual developments. Quite often, ‘terrorism’ is used to describe criminal acts that cannot and should not be considered manifestations of terrorist activity.
Let’s consider some examples. With each passing day, reports from Iraq or the North Caucasus detail terrorist car bombings or terrorist ambushes of military convoys. However, such actions cannot be considered terrorist in the strict meaning of the word. Similarly, guerrilla warfare against occupation troops has never been called ‘terrorism.’ Why, for example, was the assassination of Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov on May 9, 2004, labeled a terrorist act, whereas the May 27, 1942, killing of Reinhard Heydrich, the Reichs-Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, was described as a successful operation of the Resistance forces? And if it has become habitual to speak of the assassination of Russian Czar Alexander II by the members of the Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will) revolutionary organization as of an act of terror, then why does no one consider the assassination of President Lincoln a manifestation of rampant terrorism? The list of such contradictions could be extended at will.
As a rule, there are three types of political forces that resort to terrorism.

First, these are social movements that lack broad popular support and use terrorist methods to attract public attention. Russia’s Narodnaya Volya of the late 19th century, Italy’s Red Brigades of the 1970s, Peru’s Tupac Amaru of the 1990s were all of that kind. As was often the case, terrorist acts committed by activists of these movements did not win sympathies of their fellow citizens, and national governments successfully suppressed such groups.

The second kind of political forces is comprised of ethnic minorities or oppressed peoples seeking independence and self-determination. By means of terror, they try to force colonizers to leave their native lands. This was the usual practice of Algerian terrorists in France in the 1950s, Palestinian terrorists in the Middle East and throughout the world in the 1960s-1990s, and Chechen militants in Russian cities over the last decade. History has shown that, in the long run, governments have to meet the demands of such movements.

The third type is religious or ideological movements whose adherents may demand non-interference in their affairs, or try to secure a special status for their faith or ideology. These movements include, among others, Islamic terrorists organized into cells such as al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, or Ansar al-Islam. The “war on terror” has been declared, above all, on such groups and organizations.

The above three types of terrorism differ in the methods used to confront them. The first type requires the effective use of law enforcement and the usual mechanisms for combating serious crime. A terrorist organization planning to assassinate a well-known politician, for example, differs little from a criminal group planning to kill the leader of a rival gang.

The next case is more involved. On November 2, 1972, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution No. 2908, Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, which reiterated “the legitimacy of the struggle of colonial peoples and peoples under alien domination to exercise their right to self-determination and independence by all the necessary means at their disposal.” Today, it is hardly possible to differentiate between a legitimate struggle for self-determination and what is now called separatism. Negotiations with the political forces representing the terrorists are the main “weapon” in fighting against this source of terror. This was what Charles de Gaulle did in France, and what Tony Blair is now doing in Northern Ireland.

The third type is the least studied and understood. The only thing that is certain about it is that the struggle against terrorism of this type must rest on a fundamental understanding of the purposes and tasks of terrorists; meanwhile, most “fighters against terror” lack such an understanding.

Thus, armed struggle for self-determination and national independence, even if it involves methods not approved by conventions on the rules of warfare (as, for example, in the West Bank, Chechnya or Iraq), cannot be described as terrorism per se. Nor can attacks on the soldiers of occupying armies be considered examples of terrorism. It would not be right to label as terrorism even individual violent acts against military or political leaders of the “enemy” nation (for example, firing at the Baghdad hotel hosting U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz). Terrorism means violence aimed at those uninvolved in the political processes that provoke the acts of terror. In other words, terrorism is violence against people who have no relation to actions that have provoked the terrorists.

Proceeding from this definition, it seems that to wage a war – in the strict sense of this word – on terror is impossible; moreover, there is no need for it. Terrorists do not have a state on which one could declare a war, or standing armies that should be destroyed. Therefore, the war on terror is not the same thing as a struggle against terrorists – which deserves support. The war on terror is rather a myth created by policymakers seeking to justify their misdoings. The world needs not so much a counterterrorist war as an in-depth analysis of the nature of terrorist movements (again, as opposed to “terrorism,” since the majority of terrorist organizations define their tasks in different ways), the motives for terrorists’ attacks, and the conditions that could help eliminate them.

If one approaches this issue from such positions, the main “enemy” of the Western world seems to be Islamic terrorism perpetrated by organizations and groups which (at least, initially) did not set themselves any applied tasks, such as independence or political freedom. By attacking the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, members of al-Qaeda, quite possibly, wished to glorify almighty Allah by delivering strikes against symbolic centers from where economic and military aggression against all Muslims was believed to be managed. This is the reason why the U.S. security services failed to prevent those attacks. The absence of an understandable goal made it all but impossible to imagine the potential means for attaining it.

The consequences of 9/11 were precisely what the attackers had hoped for. The invasion of Afghanistan by coalition troops, and especially the U.S.-led aggression against Iraq, allowed al-Qaeda leaders to portray the war on terror as a war of the West against the Islamic world – and they had strong reasons for this. As George Soros wrote, “by declaring war on terror and invading Iraq, President Bush has played right into the terrorists’ hands,” and if the terrorists “wanted us to react the way we did, perhaps they understood us better than we understand ourselves.” [Soros, George. The Bubble of American Supremacy. Correcting the Misuse of American Power. New York: Public Affairs, 2004, pp. 13, 181.]

Another mistake was the recognition of the events in the North Caucasus and the Palestinian territories as an integral part of the worldwide war on terror. As a result, two basically different processes – the uncompromising struggle of Islamic fundamentalists against Western ones and the controversial yet obvious attempts of the Chechen and Palestinian peoples to attain autonomy and sovereignty – were intermingled. Strictly speaking, it was not so much the 9/11 tragedy as the subsequent actions of Western powers that created – almost out of nothing – the global “terrorist coalition” that the developed world can hardly withstand. It is this amorphous structure, this mass of vaguely interrelated semi-autonomous cells and groups known as the “enemy,” which the present “war” is being directed against.

Now we come face-to-face with perhaps the most important question that the apologists for the “war on terror” try very hard to evade: Who began this war and who is the victim of aggression? Even if we consider the most complex case of the Middle East conflict, any unbiased observer will agree that Israel was repeatedly attacked by neighboring Arab states, but acted as the actual aggressor toward the Palestinians. Today the Jewish state is combating not Egyptian or Jordanian, but Palestinian, fighters. Things are similar in Chechnya. A December 1994 decree sanctioned the introduction of Russian troops into the Chechen Republic, causing thousands of victims on both sides. With regard to al-Qaeda, it would not seem just to speak of aggressive actions on the part of the U.S.; at the same time, however, American military bases have been stationed in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and many other countries of the region since the mid-1970s, while there are no Arab military bases close to Washington, DC. Furthermore, the majority of attacks on American citizens in the Middle East were directed against military personnel or governmental officials.

The current outbreak of terror has been caused by the feeling – intensifying in the Arab world – that Western civilization is becoming increasingly hostile to Islam. The magnitude of this outbreak was predetermined by the Western reaction to 9/11 and the emergence of a “global antiterrorist front,” which encouraged the extremists to unite.

BEHIND THE OUTBREAK OF TERROR

Immediately after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC, Western politicians and experts began to search for the reasons that had caused al-Qaeda to demonstrate its strength in such a striking way. It did not take them long to relate the upsurge of terror to the increasing economic gap between the North and the South, to the nature and specific features of Islam, and to other factors.

However, the root of contemporary terrorism cannot be found in economic inequality. This becomes evident if one looks at the recent history of the least developed African continent, which is more characterized by bloody civil wars and ethnic cleansings than by terrorist activities. Of the 261 known terrorist or paramilitary organizations, Africa accounts for just 64. Out of this group, 30 operate in Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, nations torn by civil wars. Not a single African terrorist group is known to have committed acts of terror outside its country of origin. Nor have the impoverished countries of Latin America, where terrorist attacks reached their peak in the 1970s and 1980s, been linked to present-day international terrorism. At the same time, the Islamic world, which is now recognized as the main source of the terrorist threat, is a rather rich region, and the most wanted terrorists come from well-off social groups. Moreover, terrorist activity is believed to bring in high incomes (the so-called Economy of Terror is estimated at $1.5 trillion). Of course, one can argue that those who perform terrorist acts are recruited from the poorest areas of the Palestinian “state,” but there almost everyone has grounds of his own to become a terrorist, and money only simplifies the choice – not determines it.

The roots of contemporary terrorism are not to be found in the political confrontation between two parts of the globe. In the contemporary world, ‘politics’ means activities related to state institutions. Terrorist movements, on the contrary, have always emerged as non-state structures, and their attacks have usually been directed against states as the most significant symbols of power. As Noah Feldman has emphasized, the ongoing speculation about “state terrorism” “strongly suggests, as a descriptive manner, that our ordinary usage of the term ‘terrorism’ encompasses only non-state violence.” [Feldman, Noah. What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building. Princeton (NJ), London: Princeton Univ. Press, 2004, pp. 8-9.] This point of view is undoubtedly shared by a majority of the expert community. It seems certain that things will continue to be the same. In the ongoing “war on terror,” the non-state nature of terrorist groups gives them many advantages, and identifying a terrorist organization with a certain state may cause grave consequences for the latter (as confirmed by Afghanistan’s example).

In my view, the basic reasons for the present upsurge of terror lie not so much in the realities of our times as in its perception by popular masses inside the Islamic world. The West now dominates the globe, but in a highly peculiar way: by minimizing its contacts with countries that do not belong to it. Trade with African, Middle Eastern and Asian nations (excluding China and other ‘tigers’) accounts for a mere 9 percent of the trade turnover of the United States and the European Union. Oil constitutes two-thirds of this trade’s value. U.S. and EU investments in those regions are negligible – not more than 1.8 percent of all American overseas investments, and about 4 percent of all investments made by EU member-states.

Arab countries, whose modernization began in the 1960s, soon understood that there were prospects for an “easier” existence through oil exports. Nations that had previously been considered the more developed, such as Egypt and Syria, found themselves outsiders in this new situation. The West, above all the U.S., did nothing to support its potential allies in the region, preferring to use arm-twisting tactics. At the same time, American cultural influence in the region was as active as everywhere else in the world. Therefore, it was no wonder that the local population began to view the U.S. as a hostile force – a force which supported Israel, consolidated its military presence in the region and propagated a way of life that the majority of Arabs do not consider faithful. Finally, the U.S. sided with semi-feudal regimes lacking the support of their own subjects. In the eyes of Moslems, the West became an alien force – invincible militarily, unattainable economically, yet exploiting their natural wealth and leading them astray from the path chosen by their ancestors. Today, when one cites the famous fatwa of Osama bin Laden of February 23, 1998, one always singles out the part that reads: “To kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim;” people forget, however, that he declared war on Americans “in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.” [http://www.ict.org.il/articles/fatwah.htm] In this situation it would be naпve to hope for a reasonable choice by the Moslem people; most probably, the situation will give way to preferences of the mob, which has happened many times before in history.

The population of most Arab countries places collective self-identification higher than individual freedom. Whether this is connected with Islamic traditions, as many researchers insist, does not matter much in the context of this analysis. More importantly, in this self-identification the West is viewed as an “alien” force that unites Middle Eastern nations looking for a genuine national identity. Moreover, the more actively the West (above all, the U.S.) imposes the principles of personal autonomy and political democracy on the region, the stronger the Islamic opposition will be and the less chance there will be for Western values to win the hearts and minds of the local population.

Certainly, contemporary terrorism cannot force the Western world to revise its basic principles; certainly, it will not give rise to a “world caliphate,” as some Islamic preachers like to speak about. Terrorists do not set themselves such goals. Their aspirations are much more modest – first of all, they want the West to stop imposing its rules beyond its own boundaries. It is difficult to deny that these demands are justifiable, if not just.

In the present conditions, militarily powerful and economically developed countries, integrated into the established system of international relations, will not resort to terror, understanding how little they could gain and how much they would lose. Therefore, terror remains the weapon of the weak, and they began to use it at a time when America was at the apex of its power, which exceeded the might of the greatest empires of the past. However, the military might of this greatest “empire” has not yet produced any tangible results in the struggle against its principal enemy.
      
WHO STANDS TO WIN?

What results can the “war on terror” produce? Will the West be able to win this war? What consequences will the mutual escalation of “terrorist” and “antiterrorist” violence have for the Western world and for mankind as a whole? Will the present international institutions survive this struggle? These issues are extremely important, but the ideologists of the “war on terror” rarely raise them.

Why? First, until recently, the West has never encountered anything of this kind. Furthermore, Western experts so strongly believe in the inevitability of the worldwide spread of democracy, in the prevalence of liberalism, and in the triumph of the rational over the irrational, that it prevents them from embracing the entire set of problems that give rise to Islamic terrorism. Second, correct answers to acute problems are not in demand today. For modern politics, which has become utterly instrumentalized and void of strategic vision, the outburst of terrorism has become rather convenient, however blasphemous this may sound. Politicians thinking in a narrow time frame (that is, from election to election) and categorically (“Whoever is not with us is against us”) have taken avail of the terrorist threat to “discipline” the population and manipulate the voters. While no serious terrorist acts have been committed in their homelands, the struggle against abstract “international terrorism” remains an excellent means of convincing the population of the complexity of the tasks and “responsibility” of irresponsible leaders.
A serious analysis of these issues, however, reveals that there are very few reasons for optimism.

Let’s start with prospects for victory in the “war on terror.” It seems the West has few chances to emerge victorious. First, it must deal not so much with attacks from individual extremists as with a phenomenon based on civilizational values, and on peoples’ aspirations for national identity. The history of the second half of the 20th century shows that the West has lost every war where the enemy was fighting for its independence or for its survival as a cultural community.

The West operates by categories that are much more distant from reality than before. In the time of decolonization, it at least recognized the right of peripheral peoples to freedom and independence. Today, the majority of the Western public believes that liberal democracy must take root everywhere in the world. However, putting up with liberty enforced from outside means ceasing to be free, and it seems that the West does not understand this – nor does it want to understand this. Western leaders, who assert that terrorists are the enemies of freedom, are mistaken and mislead their followers. It must be remembered that terrorists do not fight against liberty but for the freedom to ignore somebody else’s advice.

An example comes to mind in this connection, which highlights the primitive thinking of the American political class, now leading the “war on terror.” In the 1960s, American Blacks began campaigning for their rights and for an end to racial segregation, arguing that they were equal to whites; the U.S. government agreed with them, and segregation was lifted. Forty years later, however, they began to insist on their “uniqueness,” not wishing to obey established rules and demanding special quotas at universities, tax breaks, additional funding, and so on. Why? Because they considered themselves different from the whites, and wanted to be treated in a special way. What happened next? The government introduced affirmative actions, which many sociologists believe undermines the fundamental principles of liberalism. Let’s compare all this with international developments. In the 1960s, newly independent countries wanted to be “like everybody else.” Today it is clear that they have failed. Now they speak of their “uniqueness.” But why were U.S. politicians ready to recognize the “uniqueness” of their black population but do not consider similar claims of the Arab world? 9/11 came as a terrible reminder for them, but they seem to have ignored this first lesson.

So the West has failed to grasp the terrorists’ goals, but in many other cases it finds similar claims quite legitimate. In other words, the terrorists have borrowed from the West not only the ends, but more importantly, the means. Western writings lament that the fight against terror is difficult because of its networked nature. Yes, this is really so. But was it not the same publications that only ten years ago discussed with enthusiasm the emergence of a networked economy in the U.S., which boosted the efficiency of transnational corporations? Didn’t they laud the long-awaited coming of a network society? Well, this society has arrived, so it is useless to grieve over it. The terrorists have not invented anything new; they have only used the same weapon against the Western world that the West itself has been using for years to ensure its own economic expansion. And nothing more.

Therefore, not only the goals of the terrorists, but also their means for attaining these goals have not been deeply understood. Yet there is an even more complicated problem, namely, the question of what motivates these people. Above, we spoke about possible goals of the terrorist movement. But acts of terror – which usually require personal self-sacrifice – are often not gestures of despair, but acts of personal salvation. Considering the psychology of the religious fanatics, it may be argued that suicide bombers actually act rationally, since they believe that killing “infidels” opens the doors to Heaven for them. This is much more than any cash rewards that could be promised to their families by terrorist leaders. Yet the majority of the “fighters against terror” keep repeating the stories about the “the giant sums” of money used to fund terror, about mercenaries crossing into Iraq or Chechnya en masse, and about their achievements in shutting down channels of terrorists’ funding. But let’s compare some figures: the destruction of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon cost the terrorists less than $500,000, while the opium trade now revived in Afghanistan is estimated at billions of dollars. Russia’s funding of now “legitimate” Chechen government amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars. Is it really any wonder then that terror continues to intensify?

The terrorists were either brought up in a situation of permanent cruelty and uncertainty about the future or they have voluntarily condemned themselves to such a life (this refers, above all, to their leaders). A well-known Palestinian extremist, Abu Mahaz, said in 1993, “We are terrorists; yes, we are terrorists, because it is our faith.” The intensification of the struggle against them can only embitter the adherents of this movement and enlarge their ranks, mostly due to religious and ethnic solidarity. In contrast, most citizens of Western countries will never sacrifice their personal freedoms or wellbeing; therefore, they will support the fight against terror only until it brings about serious political or economic upheavals. This is why terrorist attacks will increasingly serve to undermine the “coalition of the willing,” while attacks on the terrorists will only strengthen their ranks.

The four years that have passed since the beginning of the “war on terror” have proven that people in Western countries require tangible evidence of success. For the time being, the antiterrorist coalition can boast of the overthrow of the Taliban, the elimination of al-Qaeda camps, the liberation of Afghanistan, the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, and the occupation of Iraq. However, these measures have already cost the U.S. and its allies hundreds of billions of dollars, while the prospects for success are not yet evident. The flow of opium from Afghanistan is growing; Iraq is still a long way from stability; and American unilateralism understandably inspires other countries to gain access to nuclear weapons. The situation in Saudi Arabia, not to mention Pakistan, the only Moslem country to possess WMD, remains unstable.

The “war on terror” also has many indirect costs, from skyrocketing oil prices to the crisis in the air transportation and the tourist industry. Eventually, even American military contractors, now satisfied with their new defense orders and increasing government spending, will see that no one stands to gain from the reckless U.S.-initiated operation. Meanwhile, the terrorists only need to add fuel to the hysteria launched by Western leaders to see the collapse of their policy.
All this suggests the possible conclusion that a new round in the war against terror, like the previous attempts to counter international terrorism (not ultra-leftist terrorism within individual European countries), will end in defeat for the West.

Special mention should be made of the damage that the war against terror is doing to the unity of the Western world. Suffice it to recall the situation when the U.S. invaded Iraq in the spring of 2003. A long-awaited reform of the United Nations has recently been initiated. However, it is quite possible that it will fail because of the completely different attitudes to threats and challenges in the United States, Russia and, partly, Great Britain, on the one hand, and in continental European countries, on the other. The perception of one’s own country as a “besieged fortress” and the rest of the world as a combination of various kinds of “axes of evil” is unproductive and only broadens opportunities for conflicts.

WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT, AND WHAT MUST BE DONE?

The history of the “war on terror” suggests that this war was destined to begin because politicians around the world desperately needed an enemy that would meet certain criteria. This enemy had to be dangerous and not linked with major Western countries. It must be stationed in areas that could be attacked without retaliation; the enemy must remain invisible, while the struggle against it must continue for an indefinite period. The effectiveness of the fight should remain undeterminable. Finally, the need to counter this enemy must justify serious restrictions of citizens’ rights, and an increase in expenditures allocated to this struggle must not provoke popular objections.

“International terrorism” fits all these criteria ideally. In the politics of the last few years, this concept has played the same role as “globalization” played in economic practices of recent decades. Until the middle of the 20th century, interaction between Europe and the U.S., on the one hand, and the rest of the world, on the other, was called “Westernization,” which was believed to be universal in terms of time and geographical scope. Also, the model of technological society, with all its attributes, ranging from mass consumption to liberal democracy, was viewed as easily reproducible and therefore widely applicable. However, this “universal” model presupposed that the West would be responsible for its worldwide propagation. Champions of globalization do not care much about the unprecedented increase in the gap between rich and poor countries that has occurred in the last few decades. To them, it is more important that they can explain any economic problem as the “objective globalization process” and wash their hands of it. The notion of “international terrorism” has provided politicians with a convenient tool for evading reality (and responsibility), like the notion of “globalization” has allowed economists to do the same. It would be naпve to assume that politicians will not take avail of this new opportunity.

These considerations do not inspire much hope for an early end to the “war on terror.” Even if the present antiterrorist coalition ceases to exist, which I do not doubt, the “struggle” will continue, although perhaps in other forms, since the ruling elites of all the countries involved – the United States, Russia, Great Britain, Poland and many others – are vitally interested in it. Not the peoples of these countries, but their leaders. They are interested in exaggerating the terrorist threat and in destroying ever more terrorists – precisely in killing them, as Aslan Maskhadov’s case shows, rather than in bringing them to an open trial, as they had promised to their people. The ruling elites are also interested in building up defense spending, restricting civil rights, and many other things that cannot all be discussed in this brief article.
Does this mean that the murderous acts of terror may continue without retaliation? Of course not, but we must observe obvious and indisputable rules in the struggle against the terrorist threat.

First, it is necessary to draw a clear distinction between armed groups fighting for self-determination and independence and terrorists acting in the name of ideological and religious goals. In the first case the problems can be solved through negotiations. A positive example is provided by British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s efforts to achieve a political solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland through negotiations with the IRA’s “political wing.” Much progress has been made in Spain, as violence in the Basque areas has subsided over the last few years. Also, the Middle East peace process has been stepped up since Mahmoud Abbas’ election as Palestine’s president.

Of course, negotiations with religious fanatics are hardly possible; actually, there is no need for them, since the demands made by al-Qaeda and Islamic Jihad terrorists do not provide for any political arrangements. Islamic extremists are not a political force that is conducive to negotiations. They cannot assume reliable commitments, and there is no means to pressure them if they fail to respect agreements.

Second, even now that we have established that peace (the ultimate goal of all wars) cannot be achieved with some of the terrorists, against whom the notorious “war on terror” is now being waged, it would be a mistake to say that this war must be aimed at their complete extermination. As was mentioned above, the more actively individual terrorists are destroyed, the more their fellow coreligionists sympathize with the goals of their movement. By way of example one can cite the situation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Chechnya. Therefore, tactics of the struggle against terror must differ, depending on where this struggle is occurring, in Western countries or beyond.

In the first case, terrorist acts must be classified as grave crimes – murder or attempted murder with aggravating circumstances. Accordingly, those convicted of such deeds must be neutralized; agents must infiltrate these criminal organizations; channels through which criminals receive financial support and weapons must be shut down; the inflow of immigrants from countries where the “main forces” of major terrorist organizations are located must be restricted. The monitoring of immigrants from particular countries may be introduced as a necessary and, therefore, acceptable measure, albeit an unpleasant one. The above efforts will help reduce terrorist activities in Western countries. Strangely enough, the United States is the most successful example in this respect. Not a single terrorist act has been committed there since 9/11. This can be explained not by the decimation of al-Qaeda fighters hiding in Afghan mountains far from New York, but by the toughened security measures inside the U.S.

In the second case, it is necessary to adopt tough rules of conduct toward nations from which terrorist groups operate. These states, which include many Middle Eastern countries, must be denied any aid from the developed world; they must not be sold any weapon systems; they must be warned about the inadmissibility of possessing weapons of mass destruction (incidentally, this refers mostly to Pakistan, a close U.S. ally); trade and economic cooperation with these states must be reduced; and so on. If the peoples of these countries prefer to preserve their way of life, their traditions and religious “purity,” their aims should be respected. Moreover, a demonstrative “retreat” of the West from the region, coupled with tough measures against an extension of the Islamic jihad onto the territory of developed countries, would cause problems for Islamic extremists, who have neither a positive program nor the desire to work one out. As follows from the example of underdeveloped countries, the best way to discredit a populist movement is to let it try to achieve the goals it proclaims. Its true capabilities will become evident very soon. If we “leave the Islamic world to the mercy of fate,” we will by no means betray the ideals of freedom and humanism. Western values will be assimilated not where the West manages to bring them, but where there is a real and conscious demand for them. Liberty is not important per se; much more important is freedom hard won. Unless Moslem peoples feel the need for Western values and a yearning for freedom, it will be impossible – and needless – to impose these values and freedom on them.
Those who have declared the “war on terror” have no love lost for terrorists. And they have all grounds for that. But, unfortunately, they have forgotten an old truth: the opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference.