5 Reasons for the Rise of Al Qaeda

Borrowed liberally from this article by Victor Davis Hanson:

1). Afghanistan. The Afghans, with Western weapons and Gulf money, defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan. Of nearly 800,000 resistance fighters, there were rarely over 2,000 Arabs fighting at one time. But because of the Russian collapse, and Mullah Omar’s coddling of the multimillionaire bin Laden, al Qaeda was able to pose to Muslim youth as the saviors of Islam that had destroyed the Soviet Union.

2). Islam and globalization. In this period of globalization and Western-inspired modernism, Islam, autocratic tyrannies in the Middle East, and the languishing Arab Street have all come together to recreate another Islamic wave of jihadism.

3). American appeasement. That sad tale from the Iranian hostage taking of 1979 to the attack on the USS Cole is now well known. But in the words of the terrorists themselves, the image of a static, impotent America was fixed, and with it the invitation to hit our assets at will without fear of retribution.

4). The Wall. Before 9/11, petty jealousies and turf battles ensured that the NSA, CIA, and FBI stayed on parallel, quite separate tracks, and refused to share information that would have empowered all three agencies. Those walls are now hopefully, down.

5). Petroleum. Without petrodollars, there are no madrassas, no House of Saud cousins freelancing by pouring money to jihadists, no bought and paid for mullahs mouthing anti-Western drivel, and no chance to get weapons of mass destruction to kill us all.

Later, I may do a list about reasons for Al Qaeda's Decline and Fall. At the top of the list will likely be George Bush and David Petraeus!