Daily Times

A bunch of terrorists who belonged to the organisation that one’s own security and intelligence service helped raise held a city hostage killing hundreds of innocent people, and terrorised the whole world. That was 9/11 and this is Paris. And just when what happened in Paris should not be deemed unexpected, it opens a window to ask ourselves the right questions to understand and deal with the menace(s) we face. I intend to raise many questions here whose answers I believe all of us should seek through reflection, investigation and civic action. And just when I may have an opinion on quite a few of them, my opinion does not matter. For, like all truth, we should find it ourselves.
First and foremost are questions for and regarding the US. Will it ever come out of its conundrum of whether it wants to engage with the world or wants to be isolationist? If it wants to engage will the overarching guiding principle be American ideals or American self-interest? And if it will be self-interest, will it have the magnanimity to stop blowing the trumpet of ideals? Has it come out of confusion over whether we are living in an American world or a post-American world? Does it realise that the half-baked invasion of Iraq was a grave mistake but even graver was cutting and running, and in the process intensifying sectarian rifts by using Shia militias to counter a Sunni-insurgency against ‘occupation’? And if it is an American century and the US intends to engage, what is the rulebook to ensure the transparent and harmonic American era? And, above all, is the US ready to ask the question that its lobby-driven governance system has not only made the world a more dangerous place but has also crippled and paralysed the US?
Then come questions for and regarding Europe itself. Does Europe consider that the European Union may have turned into a fortification endeavour right after a plundering colonisation legacy of all of old Europe’s powers except Germany, and this combination of resource exploitation and fortification while trumpeting free trade may have contributed to the menace stemming out of most of the European colonies? Why had the old European powers of France and the UK been eager to jump for regime change in Libya and Syria when it was evident that there is no succession plan in place and the outcome would be chaos, a power vacuum and bloodshed? And why did this happen after the European regimes of Sarkozy, Blair, Berlusconi, etc, were going head over heels to woo Gaddafi and company not so long ago? Is it mere opportunism, bad judgment, malice or the indication of ever-decaying statecraft and policy-making framework in Europe? And why do most old European regimes sound more accommodating towards non-westerners in public while seeking a tougher approach to them in their private conversations with Americans? What if the fortification of Europe in a geographic continuation that is a Eurasian island is not a sustainable strategy?
And then come even more critical questions for the Muslim world. The question is not whether Facebook, a for-profit corporation, feels for Paris and not for Beirut, Peshawar or Syria. The real question is why anyone who is blowing himself up from Paris to Beirut to Peshawar to Syria is a Muslim. What is inherently wrong with Muslim societies that make violence acceptable and makes people justify it based on their sectarian or religious affiliations? How can Muslims object to the French regulation of mosques when Ahmedis praying are suppressed by state and society alike in Pakistan and Sunni rituals in Iran and Shia rituals in Saudi Arabia face oppression and scrutiny? Do Muslims even realise the double standards they live by? And what is it that makes them indulge deeper in this victim mindset when they claim to have a massive representation of 1.5 billion people on the planet? Why is it so that almost all Muslim societies have political alternatives between a hegemonic autocrat and a theocratic mass movement (the exceptions may be a handful)? Do they realise that modernity is a take all or leave all package and so the decision they face is of either to take it or leave it? Do they realise that either at the behest of the clergy or for lack of reform, their religion has reached a point where it has become a tool to incite violence across the globe? Do they even realise that such an ideology may not be sustainable in the long-term?
And then comes the most pressing question: what to do of the entities known as secret services? Here is what I posted on Twitter after the Paris attack and I think it is relevant to understand the question: the CIA, MI6 and ISI created the mujahideen that led to the Taliban and al Qaeda wreaking havoc in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East and the west. Mossad is linked to nurturing Hamas in its early days to counter the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). MI6, the Directorate General for External Security (DGSE) of France and CIA armed and funded elements in Syria, Iraq and Libya that then became Islamic State (IS) and al Nusra. The DGSE and MI6 boosted the ayatollahs from the 1950s till the late 1970s to counter leftist movements in Iran. There is something seriously wrong with intelligence agencies and their tactical warfare. Not that any of these agencies desired these splinters to go the way they did but they could not foresee where it would lead. And this inability itself merits reigning in the secret services and making them more accountable. It is some men’s overconfidence to indulge in social and political engineering experiments that has caused more havoc than anyone could have imagined. And for peace in the world this needs to be addressed first up. Without addressing it, what if we end up creating a monster more lethal than IS while eradicating IS?
With all these questions I wonder whether the best solution to sort out the Middle East is to leave it on its own. And whether with an Iran run by ayatollahs, a sectarian IS and autocratic crony-capitalist regimes, this really is workable.

The author can be reached on twitter at @aalimalik