Public opinion and violent political movements

There is a human impulse to "Don't just stand there, do something!"

This impulse plays into the hands of terrorists.

Terrorism is commonly defined by several features:

1) Politically motivated violence by non-state actors (as opposed to profit-based criminal motives, or state-based warfare)
2) directly targeting civilians (as opposed to 'collateral damage' when targeting infrastructure, as in the mass areal bombings of WW2)
3) with the goal of inspiring dread (as opposed to simply degrading the enemies capacity to continue fighting a war by killing their soldiers and destroying infrastructure).

But there is one more feature that gets little attention:

4) The primary objective of terrorism is to motivate the target country to over-react and plunge itself into a self-destructive war.

In 1914, Serbian terrorists assassinated the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, plunging Europe into the the First World War. This led to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Mission accomplished.

In 1916, Irish rebels took over government offices in Dublin in a rebellion that was very unpopular with the Irish people. When the British flattened much of the city, and then executed defeated rebels without much concern for legitimate trials, public opinion among the Irish turned toward the rebels, which led to independence. That was the IRA's (suicidal) plan all along.

Mission accomplished.

The collapse of the Soviet Union has been attributed to so many actors in the West -- Reagan, Thatcher, the Pope. Realistically, the Soviet economy and social fabric began to unravel in the 1960s, and its primary problems were internal.

But in the Muslim world, it was widely believed that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan brought down the USSR. With this in mind, elements of Al Qaeda allied themselves with elements in the Taliban in a plot to lure the US into Afghanistan in a war that would destroy the US. Hence, the 9-11 attacks.

But the American reaction was not only to invade Afghanistan, but Iraq as well, in two wars that the US essentially lost. But this did not lead to the fall of the US. (It did lead to the end of the sympathy for the West that had resulted from the 9-11 attacks.)
 

Mission accomplished -- more than the terrorists could have dreamed (albeit, without any long-term success on their part).

ISIS is now carrying out vast atrocities throughout the Middle East, and terror attacks within Europe and the US.

 

What should be the response?
 

Perhaps, the slogan "Don't just do something, stand there!" might be instructive.

I read a couple of days ago that 90% of Muslims are alienated with ISIS.
 

Also, I read months ago that Muslims are ashamed that Europe is letting in Muslim migrants, but Middle Eastern countries, especially in wealthy Gulf states, have closed their doors to such migrants.
 

Politics is all about public opinion. The West is now winning the war for public opinion ... by accident.

That elements of Al Qaeda mutated their ideology to become even more violent and ruthless (and enterprising and flexible) is a disaster caused by the invasion of Iraq. Also, that Germany's leader Merkel would allow a tidal wave of migrants into Germany was a spur-of-the-moment mistake. But these developments have had public-relation benefits.

When things seem to be going wrong from an emotional perspective, they are sometimes going well from a strategic point of view.
 

A rational response to these events might be to:
 

1) establish refugee centers in Turkey, funded by Europe and the US;

2) support the peace process in Syria and Iraq;

3) contain ISIS militarily.
 

But should the US exterminate ISIS?
 

Logically, ISIS is a public relations gift to the West. The rise of ISIS means a long-term curtailment of Islamic terrorism -- unless the West over-reacts militarily.
 

Again, the whole purpose of a political movement is to win over public opinion, not to attract the lowest elements in society.
 

There is no non-violent civil rights movement in the Muslim world, and there may never be one. (It has been said that it might be a public relations disaster for Israel if one emerged among Palestinians.) This insures more stagnation within the Muslim world.

In fact, there have never really been political movements in the Muslim and Arab world worth supporting. (The so-called 'Arab Spring' turned out to be not-so pro-democracy. The rebels simply wanted new forms of dictatorship.)

So all we can do is resist political movements from the Muslim world, unfortunately.

But by not over-reacting to terrorism by political movements that turn violent, the West can at least better contain extremism. Emotionally, however, that is difficult.