Raymond Ibrahim: Placing Zarqawi’s death in perspective
[Raymond Ibrahim is a Language Specialty Assistant at the Library of Congress's Near East Section of the African and Middle Eastern Division.]
... will the assassination of an Islamist leader yield anything greater than satisfaction at seeing justice served?
History provides an answer to these questions.
Consider the progress of the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and oldest Islamic fundamentalist organization today, once joined by a fourteen-year-old Aymin al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda’s number two man. Founded in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in 1928, it originally boasted only six members. In the following decades, in part thanks to the radical writings of one of its premiere ideologues, Sayyid Qutb — whom al-Qaeda liberally quotes — the Brotherhood, though constantly clashing with Egypt’s government, grew steadily.
Both leaders, Banna and Qutb, were eventually targeted and killed by Egypt’s secular government — the former assassinated, the latter executed. Far from dying out, however, the Brotherhood continued to thrive underground for many more decades. Then, to the world’s surprise, the partially-banned constantly-harassed Brotherhood managed to win 88 out of 454 seats in Egypt’s 2005 parliamentary elections — making them the largest opposition bloc in the government.
After two of its most prominent leaders were killed, after thousands of its members have been harassed, jailed, and sometimes tortured, today the Brotherhood is stronger, more influential, and securer than at any other time in its turbulent history.
Palestine’s Hamas, itself an offshoot of the Brotherhood, is another case in point. Founded in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas has since been labeled a terrorist organization by several nations, including the U.S., most notably for its many suicide-operations against Israel. Due to Yassin’s figurehead status of Hamas, the Israeli government targeted him for assassination: on March 22 2004, while the quadriplegic Yassin was being wheeled out of a mosque after morning prayers, an Israeli helicopter launched two hellfire missiles that hit and killed him instantly.
The result? Far from waning or demoralizing, Hamas, like the Brotherhood before them and also to international consternation, went on to win in a landslide the January 2006 Palestinian elections, officially representing the Palestinian people.
Then there is the Ayatollah Khomeini, the original poster-boy of radical Islam. Overthrowing a secular government and coming to power in Iran’s Islamic revolution of 1979, Khomeini transformed Iran into a theocratic state — precisely what al-Qaeda yearns to see happen for the rest of the Islamic world. For one decade he was the West’s bane, from instigating the American hostage crisis, to issuing a fatwa condemning a novelist to death, to taunting the U.S., for which he coined the term “the Great Satan."
Today, nearly 20 years after the death of the Iranian cleric, not much has changed in Iran. Sharia law still governs; Sharia endorsed enmity towards the West still thrives. In fact, the only real difference is that the Islamic theocracy’s aspiration for nuclear armaments is nearly realized....
Read entire article at Website of Victor Davis Hanson
... will the assassination of an Islamist leader yield anything greater than satisfaction at seeing justice served?
History provides an answer to these questions.
Consider the progress of the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and oldest Islamic fundamentalist organization today, once joined by a fourteen-year-old Aymin al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda’s number two man. Founded in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in 1928, it originally boasted only six members. In the following decades, in part thanks to the radical writings of one of its premiere ideologues, Sayyid Qutb — whom al-Qaeda liberally quotes — the Brotherhood, though constantly clashing with Egypt’s government, grew steadily.
Both leaders, Banna and Qutb, were eventually targeted and killed by Egypt’s secular government — the former assassinated, the latter executed. Far from dying out, however, the Brotherhood continued to thrive underground for many more decades. Then, to the world’s surprise, the partially-banned constantly-harassed Brotherhood managed to win 88 out of 454 seats in Egypt’s 2005 parliamentary elections — making them the largest opposition bloc in the government.
After two of its most prominent leaders were killed, after thousands of its members have been harassed, jailed, and sometimes tortured, today the Brotherhood is stronger, more influential, and securer than at any other time in its turbulent history.
Palestine’s Hamas, itself an offshoot of the Brotherhood, is another case in point. Founded in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas has since been labeled a terrorist organization by several nations, including the U.S., most notably for its many suicide-operations against Israel. Due to Yassin’s figurehead status of Hamas, the Israeli government targeted him for assassination: on March 22 2004, while the quadriplegic Yassin was being wheeled out of a mosque after morning prayers, an Israeli helicopter launched two hellfire missiles that hit and killed him instantly.
The result? Far from waning or demoralizing, Hamas, like the Brotherhood before them and also to international consternation, went on to win in a landslide the January 2006 Palestinian elections, officially representing the Palestinian people.
Then there is the Ayatollah Khomeini, the original poster-boy of radical Islam. Overthrowing a secular government and coming to power in Iran’s Islamic revolution of 1979, Khomeini transformed Iran into a theocratic state — precisely what al-Qaeda yearns to see happen for the rest of the Islamic world. For one decade he was the West’s bane, from instigating the American hostage crisis, to issuing a fatwa condemning a novelist to death, to taunting the U.S., for which he coined the term “the Great Satan."
Today, nearly 20 years after the death of the Iranian cleric, not much has changed in Iran. Sharia law still governs; Sharia endorsed enmity towards the West still thrives. In fact, the only real difference is that the Islamic theocracy’s aspiration for nuclear armaments is nearly realized....