Causes of Terrorism? The Roots

¶ … Causes of Terrorism?

The roots of terrorism in the Middle East are deep and ancient. They can be traced all the way back to the struggles of the western world with the Ottoman Empire some 1300 years ago and it shows no sign of finding any relief. Through Western policies, embargos, fear and greed, the Middle East has been caught in a continuous cycle of oppression and restriction with very little hope of escaping. The current U.S. policies and efforts in the "war against terrorism" have been, so far, ineffective in halting, or even slowing, terrorist activity, In fact, the policies and interests that the Western world has in the Middle East's natural resources generate frustration, fear, and poverty, which, in turn, generates a highly fertile environment for the violence and deliberate aggression of terrorism.

The struggles of the Ottoman Empire against the Western world are well documented all the way back through the conflicts with the Roman Empire. Even then the focus was on the resources that the Middle East, such as silk and spices, that were sorely missed in Europe. Not only were the resources a major issue, but the struggle for Christian domination over Islam was a major goal as well. Constant clashes over trade routes and control in then independent countries laid the foundation for centuries of conflict.

Moving forward several hundred years, these conflicts set the stage for much of World War I. Turkey, being humbled by many defeats from the Russian empire in the 19th century, looked to the major European powers to help them "come of age" and begin building modern infrastructures that would enable them to better use their own resources and therefore increase their capital as well as their political position. Seeing that the Middle East being self-reliant and able to acquire substantial capital would cause a dramatic power shift from Western to Eastern, The Western nations offered their help at a heavy price. Iran received this help, but only at the expense of massive foreign interests in the resources they were given as well as their natural resources, specifically the oil. This interest and ownership abroad enabled the Western nations to seize economic control of the region, thereby increasing their own capital while keeping the Middle East submissive to their restrictions. The Middle East made an attempt at freedom during World War I, but this move simply put the country in debt, and when they lost the war, they were put under even more economic strain.

After World War I, the Arab nations were split up among the victorious powers, mostly Britain and France, and subject to colonial rule until World War II. At the conference of San Remo in April of 1920, Britain and France finalized a deal that would monopolize the entire output of oil from the Middle East and be split between them.

Since the Ottoman Empire had threatened the whole of Christian Europe for centuries before World War I, it was only natural for these countries to have an eye on keeping the Arab nations from reforming and threatening them again. Breaking this once great Empire up into smaller, weaker states benefited the Allied forces both financially and militarily, but the independence each nation perceived they had now acquired made it almost impossible for them to band together into one nation again because the leaders of these countries would find it difficult to give up their individual power, even if for the "greater good" of a rebirth of the Ottoman Empire. Not only this, but the Western power over the trade and economy kept these small "independent" countries weak and mostly in poverty (Everest 22).

Though President Wilson attempted to thwart the partition of the Arab nations with an eye toward world peace, Lloyd George (the British negotiator and the designer of the partition agreement) was able to parry his every move, and domestic situations and elections wound up keeping Wilson from joining and leading the League of Nations to this end. Eventually World War II broke up the control of Western Europe over the Arab nations, allowing their leaders to gain more autonomy or for the "puppets" to be overthrown.

Essentially most of this maneuvering stemmed from the fear that if Russia, who shared a long border with the Middle East, were to join forces with the Arab nations, they would then have the potential to become a major world power, possibly overshadowing any power of the West. This potential comes from the fact that the majority of the world's oil resources can be found in the Middle East and in Russia. If these two nations were to join forces then the Middle East would then have the means to protect itself, their means together would be comparable to the means of the West, and they would then control the market on oil, potentially driving up prices to dramatically tip the scale of political control to the East (Everest 57).

In 1951, Iranian government, and the majority of the Iranian people, viewed the United States as "still the only major power capable of making a positive contribution to the reshaping of the world in favor of those nations which had long suffered from European imperialism" (Taheri, 22). However, what the nations of the Middle East and the American public didn't know is that the American foreign policy at the time was designed to deny independence for any nation that aligned itself with the East (Hartung 45).

After two years of hoping for the help they needed while the whole of the Western world enforced an embargo on Iran's oil, Iran finally had enough and threatened to begin trading negotiations with the Soviet bloc. This caused the United State to join forces with Britain and replace the Iranian independent government with the feudal Shah instead of helping Iran break the oppressive bonds that Britain and France had placed on the country. Now having control over the country again, the Western countries removed the embargo and began reaping the benefits of the trade agreement, once again thwarting the rise of an Eastern power.

Later, when OPEC was born, oil prices again rose and the control over the region was waning. At this time Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security advisor suggested "massive arms sales to Middle East oil states as a way of recycling the petrodollars that were rapidly flowing out of the United States" (Hartung 7).

No matter how much we are directed to accept the suggestion of compassion for an impoverished country, it is the fundamental purpose of most foreign policies of those in power to prevent any accumulation of capital to compete with the their own. This capital that Middle East was building had to be retuned to the Western powers otherwise it could be used for development of industry that could seriously affect the delicate balance of resources and global markets. Essentially, the Middle East has the advantage of the raw materials, and if they were allowed to develop capital from this product then they would quickly overpower the control of the nations whose only claim to the oil is their ability to refine the raw materials. If allowed to develop that capital then the Middle East would clearly be able to establish their own refineries and take complete control over this market and therefore the world.

Because of the brief taste of freedom Iran had tasted before the United States joined forces with Britain to repress the country again, Iran became a dangerous enemy to the Western powers -- especially the United States, whom Iran had once viewed as a friend. In 1979 Muslim fundamentalists regained full control of Iran, which caused a serious loss in Western power and therefore Iran was advertised and seen as the enemy in these countries in return. It is important at this point to explicitly explain that all of the Middle East is seen as one country by most Arabs. It's a logical conclusion considering the size and geographic relationship that each country has with one another.

Having reviewed this history of oppression and aggression it is easy to see how the Middle East has been sunk into poverty. It is this poverty that seems to provide the fertile soil from which terrorism is grown and cultivated. In just ten years of sanctions from the Western powers, Iraq, who used to have one of the best measures in the world for quality of living, has been sunk to the bottom 20% (Chomskey, 96). Out of this downfall and loss of power to the Western world comes the frustration and anxiety that is a logical conclusion for these kinds of troubles. If these volatile emotions go unchecked, violence erupts and so is born terrorism.

One unfortunate element of this situation is the biased and limited media coverage of these situations. The American government has made no move to distinguish between Islam and terrorism (Scheuer, 12). Islam has been presented as a threat to democracy with no attempt to offer the caveat that terrorists come from an extreme extension of Islam, and their aggression has very little to do with their faith.

However, despite this sweeping generalization offered by the government, U.S. foreign policy has always been clear and direct about its stance against terrorism. Even President Clinton, far prior to the tragedy of 9/11 addressed the United Nations General Assembly about the importance of the prevention of international terrorism and identified it as a major priority in the world arena (Chomsky, 84).

What must be stressed at this point is that terrorism is about the frustrations of a voiceless country -- one that feels that it will not be heard through conventional political or military means. Since the root of the problem is political, the solution is more of a political issue than a security issue because the solution is not in counterstrikes, or fighting fire with fire, but in finding a way to restore the country's voice so that the frustration is relieved instead of stoked (Scheuer, 88). So far it has become clear that the U.S. policies on terrorism are generating nothing but retaliatory action and escalating the violence of terrorism, not reducing it.

What will inevitably stop terrorist acts is the implementation of strong policies of economic, social and cultural rights that are acknowledged and upheld in national political arenas such as the UN and NATO (Chomsky, 63). Although the United States and Britain have espoused a policy of humanitarian motives to help the Middle East establish itself as a democracy, both of these countries have built a telling record of violent imperialism abroad while enjoying model democracies within their home countries. In this vein the actions these countries have taken in this situation have been military in nature as opposed to political with no real indication that there has been or will ever be any interest in diplomatic political solutions.

What the American public must ask itself is how can a government propose that their interests are purely humanitarian in one country while entering into clearly aggressive activities in another? Unfortunately most of the citizens who could affect change in these kinds of situations are too busy enjoying the spoils of such aggressive capitalism to really investigate the matters any deeper than what CNN offers as facts.

Clearly, U.S. foreign polices have done nothing to reduce the threat of terrorism in the Middle East. Their "eye for an eye" tactics and political bullying has generated more of the same conditions that generate terrorism to start with. Unless polices are changed to reflect a genuine interest in humanitarian efforts, the war on terrorism will not only continue, but it will likely escalate to include events without the United States by those who feel as voiceless and frustrated as those in the Middle East.

Annotated Bibliography

Taheri, A. (1988). Nest of Spies. New York: Pantheon Books. Discusses how American polices in Iran have failed since World War II. It provides the history of post-WWII foreign policies with the Middle East and plainly details Kissinger's role in the downfall of positive relations with the country. Offers little in the way of solutions except for being an advocate of the truth in media and the education of the American public on its own foreign affairs and other government workings.