WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- The full text of the July 9 letter from Osama bin Laden's associate Ayman al-Zawahiri to the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has now been published on the Web site of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The letter exudes confidence that American forces will soon leave Iraq. After this, Zawahiri hopes for an Islamic state to be created at least in the Sunni areas of Iraq, and jihad to be extended to "the secular countries neighboring Iraq" (i.e., Syria and Jordan), and then to Israel itself.
But the letter also points to several serious problems al-Qaida will face even if this happens.
One of the first Zawahiri mentions is the continuing competition with the secular "Arab nationalists," which include the remnants of Saddam Hussein's Baath party. But unlike the Islamist opponents of Arab nationalist regimes in Egypt and Syria previously, Zawahiri believes that the Islamists now have the advantage over these forces in Iraq. Still, the jihadists in Iraq must not let down their guard after the Americans leave or else, "We will return to having the secularists and traitors holding sway over us."
Zawahiri is especially concerned about the level of public support for the jihadist movement. In the event of a popular war, "popular support would be a decisive factor between victory and defeat." Without such support, Zawahiri warns, the jihadists "would be crushed in the shadows." He warns against "secular, apostate forces" driving a wedge between the jihadists and the "frightened Muslim masses."
Zawahiri appears to be telling Zarqawi not to exacerbate this problem. Zawahiri sees Muslim public opinion supporting attacks on Jewish and American targets, but not on most Muslim ones.
He advises the creation of an Islamic state after the Americans leave "does not depend on force alone." Zawahiri calls for "an appeasement of Muslims and a sharing with them in governance," and even for elections. He warns Zarqawi not to "repeat the mistake of the Taliban" who restricted participation in governance to Islamic students and the people of Kandahar. It was this policy which resulted in "even devout ones" doing nothing to defend the Taliban against the October 2001 American intervention.
Zawahiri also warns against divisions among jihadist groups as well as among the different Sunni schools of jurisprudence. He advocates instead tolerance among Sunnis "even if there may be some heresy or fault in them that is not blasphemous." Now is not the time to engage in disputes that detract from the battle against their main adversaries.
Zawahiri makes clear that he has no love for the Shiites, especially the Iranians, whom he says "cooperated with the Americans in the invasion of Afghanistan, [former Iranian President] Rafsanjani himself confessed to it, and they cooperated with them in the overthrow of Saddam and the occupation of Iraq in exchange for the Shia's assumption of power and their turning a blind eye to the American military presence in Iraq."
He further predicts a "collision ... with the Shia is a matter that will happen sooner or later." But Zawahiri warns Zarqawi against engaging in this fight now since most Sunni Muslims disapprove of his attacks on ordinary Shiites, as well as on their mosques and holy sites. But in addition to how bad this looks to the Muslim public, there is another, more practical, reason Zawahiri cites for not engaging in a fight with the Shiites now: there are over a hundred al-Qaida "prisoners -- many of whom are from the leadership...in the custody of the Iranians."
Zawahiri then advises Zarqawi that Muslim public opinion "will never find palatable ... scenes of slaughtering the hostages." He emphasizes al-Qaida is "in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds" of the Muslim public. Besides, he notes, "we can kill the captives by bullet," presumably without broadcasting images that disturb fellow Muslims.
Finally, Zawahiri raises the issue of whether Iraqis (including Sunnis) resent the leadership of jihadist movements by non-Iraqis. This is especially sensitive because Zarqawi himself is not an Iraqi, but a Jordanian. Zawahiri does not offer a solution to this concern, but asks Zarqawi how he plans to deal with it.
In addition to all the issues that Zawahiri mentioned explicitly, there are some extremely important ones that he did not but which the letter raises implicitly: Who will ultimately be in charge of the "Islamic state" in Iraq that they hope to create -- bin Laden and Zawahiri, or Zarqawi? And if there is any disagreement over this (as there surely will be), how will this affect the jihadist movement elsewhere? Will there be a split between the bin Laden/Zawahiri and the Zarqawi factions throughout the Sunni revolutionary movement, much like how the Sino-Soviet rift split the entire Marxist-Leninist movement decades ago?
What this letter shows is that even if U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq, al-Qaida will face enormous challenges afterward which will be extremely difficult, or even impossible, for it to overcome. The letter also suggests that though the war in Iraq was ignited by the U.S.-led intervention and occupation, it is not so much a war between Americans and Muslims as it is one among numerous Muslim groups that is likely to continue raging whether U.S. forces stay in Iraq or not.
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Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University.
