The infamous 9/11 attacks took many Americans completely by surprise and seemed to come out of the “clear blue sky.” These attacks appeared random, senseless, and incongruous with the “peaceful” 1990s. However, on September 12, 2001, libertarian activist and former presidential candidate, Harry Browne, was not surprised. He knew what many Americans either didn’t know or had ignored to their detriment—the foreign policy history of the previous decade, the 1990s, and beyond. In an essay entitled “When will we learn? – part 1,” Brown wrote,
The terrorist attacks against America comprise a horrible tragedy. But they shouldn’t be a surprise….
Our foreign policy has been insane for decades. It was only a matter of time until Americans would have to suffer personally for it. It is a terrible tragedy of life that the innocent so often have to suffer for the sins of the guilty….
President Bush has authorized continued bombing of innocent people in Iraq. President Clinton bombed innocent people in the Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Serbia. President Bush, senior, invaded Iraq and Panama. President Reagan bombed innocent people in Libya and invaded Grenada. And on and on it goes.
Suicide Terrorism
The LTTE (Tamil Tigers)—a secular, Marxist-Leninist, culturally Hindu terrorist organization—were the world’s most prolific users of suicide terror until the early 2000s, but in the early 21st century jihadist groups—such as al-Qaeda and its affiliates—surpassed them in both frequency and scale of suicide terrorism. While political Islam and ideology came into new focus, Islamic suicide terrorism was relatively unheard of until the 1980s. However, until a few years after 9/11, no one had done the research to gather comprehensive data on patterns of suicide terror attacks.
Thankfully, Robert A. Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, is best known for his pioneering research on suicide terrorism and his leadership of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST). In the early 2000s, he created the Database on Suicide Attacks (DSAT)—the first comprehensive dataset cataloging such attacks worldwide from 1980 onward, later extended back to 1974 and updated through 2019. According to his research, what is the single great predictor of suicide terrorism?
Pape argued in his academic paper “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism” (2003), his influential book Dying to Win (2005), and subsequent works that suicide terrorism is primarily a strategic tool of coercion, used mainly against democracies to compel the withdrawal of military forces from what attackers regard as their homeland. Contrary to the common view that suicide terrorism stems chiefly from religious extremism, his analysis shows that the predominant driver is resistance to foreign military occupation. His follow-up book Cutting the Fuse (2010, with James Feldman) expanded the data and reinforced this conclusion, recommending policies that reduce reliance on large-scale occupations while strengthening local resilience. The DSAT remains a leading scholarly database in the field, setting the standard for empirical study of terrorism. He and Feldman wrote (p. 20),
Examination of the universe of suicide terrorism around the world from 1980 to 2003 shows that the principal cause of suicide terrorism is resistance to foreign occupation, not Islamic fundamentalism. Even when religion matters, moreover, it functions mainly as a recruiting tool in the context of national resistance.
Foreign occupation was defined as the exertion of political control over a territory by an outside group. The occupying power’s political control involves “employing coercive assets” that are “controlled from outside the occupied territory” (pp. 20-21). This worsens when the foreign occupier does not understand the culture, speaks another language, and/or is of another religion. Since the power balance is asymmetrical—the local resistance cannot win a war on conventional grounds—suicide terror is used to coerce concessions from modern democracies, namely, their exit of the occupied territory. In Dying to Win, Pape writes (pp. 80-81),
Suicide terrorism is an extreme strategy for national liberation. Although isolated incidents do occur, the overwhelming majority of suicide terrorist attacks take place as part of organized, coherent campaigns in which individual after individual, or team after team, voluntarily kill themselves as a means to kill the maximum number of people in the target society in order to compel that state to end a foreign occupation of their homeland. (emphasis added)
For why this is the best explanation, Pape and others provide detailed evidence and carefully weigh alternative answers. Surprisingly, it took as long as it did for someone to come up with the simple but important idea to count and categorize suicide terror attacks. Ron Paul—in his famous 2008 slapdown of Rudy Giuliani—unflinchingly used similar argumentation. In fact, Dying to Win is listed in “A Reading List for a Free and Prosperous America” (p. 190) at the end of Ron Paul’s The Revolution: A Manifesto.
In short, it is not that “we have to fight them over there so that we don’t have to fight them over here,” rather, it is the opposite—we continue to have to fight them over here because of years of occupying and fighting them over there. Fighting them over there was exactly what Osama bin Laden wanted. As with the USSR, bin Laden wanted to provoke the US government to overreact, damage itself through a long, costly, unwinnable war in Afghanistan, remove secular dictators through regime change, destabilize the region, and clear the way for an Islamic caliphate. John Miller, who sat down with Osama bin Laden in 1998, said, “From the moment bin Laden declared war on America, one of his frustrations seemed to be that he couldn’t get America to declare war back. Not until the loudest and bloodiest alarm sounded on September 11 did the giant finally awake.”
Bin Laden would recruit suicide terrorists, support, and sympathy, primarily—not through sermons about America’s decadence and corruption—but through appealing on the basis of tangible political grievances that resonated with the Muslim world: 1) the US stationing its forces in Saudi Arabia; 2) destroying Iraq with punitive economic sanctions; 3) occupying Iraq under the guise of fighting terrorism; 4) supporting Israel in its war against the Palestinians; 5) killing Muslims around the world; 6) condoning international atrocities against Muslims; 7) propping up corrupt Muslim governments; 8) exploiting Muslim oil. As to whether these motivations are actually the motivations of bin Laden and others, see here.
In 1997, even the US Department of Defense issued a study entitled Defense Science Board 1997 Summer Study Task Force on DOD Responses to Transnational Threats, October 1997, Final Report, Vol. 1 (p. 31),
As part of its global super power position, the United States is called upon frequently to respond to international causes and deploy forces around the world. America’s position in the world invites attack simply because of its presence. Historical data show a strong correlation between US involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States. In addition, the military asymmetry that denies nation states the ability to engage in overt attacks against the United States drives the use of transnational actors. (emphasis added)
George H.W. Bush & Iraq War I (1990-1991)
In terms of US foreign policy, the years 1990 to 1991 are certainly associated with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, however, it was also the time of a paradigmatic shift in US policy in the Arabian Peninsula—from interventionism to occupation. Many considered the Gulf War a brief, successful war—only a few months, from 1990 to 1991—but many also fail to realize that, despite previous promises, the US never left the Arabian Peninsula and, for many in the region, especially in Iraq, the war never ended.
Following the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)—during which the United States tilted heavily toward Saddam Hussein, overlooking his use of chemical weapons, while also covertly selling arms to Iran through the Iran-Contra affair (1985-1986)—Saddam Hussein’s forces soon invaded Kuwait over war debts, regional conflict, and oil. Weakened from the recent Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), which had indirectly benefited Kuwait by shielding them from Iran, Hussein decided to invade Kuwait after several disputes. This prompted the government elites of Saudi Arabia to consider inviting the US military into the region in order to drive back Hussein. This was vigorously protested and offensive to many Muslims in the region because it became viewed as a permanent foreign occupation of a Western power with a different religion, language, and culture. This invitation was part of bin Laden’s further radicalization and his messaging.
Desert Storm, the Gulf War, or Iraq War I brought a foreign military presence into the Arabian Peninsula that was unprecedented since World War II. While to many Americans the conflict was a simple and easy victory for the US, to many in the region itself and sympathizers with families and friends in the region, it represented a shift of control. Feldman and Pape, explain (p. 23),
It is important to recall that 1990 was a benchmark year in America’s military deployment to the Persian Gulf. Before this point, the United States had only tiny numbers of troops stationed in Muslim countries (mostly guards protecting embassies), but no tank, armor, or tactical aircraft combat units since World War II. The United States deployed large numbers of combat forces to the region starting in August 1990 to deal with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and has kept tens of thousands of combat forces there ever since; Al Qaeda’s attacks began in 1995. Foreign occupation also accounts for the motives of individual suicide terrorists from 1980 to 2003.
Then-president George H. W. Bush stated after the war on March 1, 1991, “It’s a proud day for America. By God, we’ve kicked Vietnam syndrome once and for all!”
But the US—with 800 bases in 135 different countries—never left the Arabian Peninsula. Following the Carter doctrine, the Reagan administration and beyond began a build up of bases on the Arabian Peninsula. This, of course, increased when the US prepared to wage the first Iraq war, including American contractors and military advisers. It was then in December of 1991 that Osama bin Laden began orchestrating attacks against Saudi-based American targets.
What is commonly unknown is that—in order to protect the Muslim holy land of Saudi Arabia from the possible aggressions of Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi army—Osama bin Laden wanted Saudi royal permission to fight a jihad against Saddam Hussein and his forces. Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were enemies. By the fall of 1990, Osama bin Laden was so concerned about the potential threat facing Saudi Arabia because of the Iraqi army invasion and occupation of Kuwait in August that he wanted to lead a holy war against the Iraqis and violently objected to the notion that the Saudi royal family would invite American troops to defend the kingdom. He said, “I want to fight against Saddam, an infidel. I want to establish a guerrilla war against Iraq.” After his plan was rejected by the house of Saud in favor of inviting the United States military to the region, Osama bin Laden was disillusioned with the royal Saudi elites and was further radicalized, concluding, “You listen to America—your master!” This would lead to his further radicalization, terror attacks during the 1990s, and the 9/11 attacks.
It is also worth mentioning briefly that Jimmy Carter signed a finding on July 3, 1979, authoring the beginning of covert CIA aid to the Afghan mujahideen to provoke a Soviet invasion—their “Vietnam.” Abdullah Yusuf Azzam—one of the principal ideological and administrative leaders of recruitment, and bin Laden’s later mentor—told American reporter, Eric Margolis, “When we have finished driving the Soviet imperialists from Afghanistan, we mujahedin will then go and drive the American imperialists from Arabia, and then liberate Palestine.” In short, provoking a larger power into a costly war in Afghanistan became partial inspiration and template for bin Laden’s strategy against the US.
Iraq War I ½—The Clinton Years
Throughout the 1990s, the United States enacted a policy of economic sanctions and bombing against Iraq. These were targeted to pressure the government elites of Iraq, but were hardest on the civilian populations, especially children. It is estimated that the Iraq sanctions, whether directly or indirectly, resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in the region. Conservatively, it is estimated that approximately 200,000 died from sanctions, but the number could be much higher. This drew further resentment toward the United States government and its allies. Even after encouraging, then abandoning, an uprising against Saddam’s government after Iraq War I, the position of the US government was that the sanctions and bombings against the Iraqi people would continue until they overthrew their government.
The sanctions regime and bombing of Iraq continued throughout the 1990s—sometimes bombing three to four times a week. These more tangible political grievances would be a key aspect in the messaging of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda as they began to justify their terrorist actions on these grievances rather than abstract religious principles. This messaging would prove to be much more effective in attracting supporters or at least sympathy from those in the region or those somehow intimately connected to it. Al-Qaeda’s attacks against the United States began in earnest in 1995, during the Clinton administration.
Throughout the 1990s, al-Qaeda and affiliated militants escalated their attacks against US and allied targets, moving from isolated incidents to coordinated international terrorism. In 1990, an al-Qaeda-linked Egyptian militant assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York, followed three years later by the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, which killed six and injured over a thousand. By the mid-1990s, the group had shifted focus to US forces abroad: a 1995 car bombing in Riyadh targeted an American military training facility. In 1996, the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia killed 19 US servicemen (though Washington officially blamed Iranian-backed militants, bin Laden praised the attack). The campaign expanded into Africa in August 1998, when truck bombs devastated the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing over 200 and injuring thousands. Finally, in October 2000, al-Qaeda operatives struck the USS Cole in Aden harbor, Yemen, killing 17 American sailors. Together, these operations marked the progression of al-Qaeda’s strategy of targeting US symbols and personnel, setting the stage for the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Meanwhile, in the face of growing al Qaeda attacks against America and bin Laden’s statements, the Clinton administration apparently believed the mujahideen—Islamic freedom fighters—could be useful in accomplishing other foreign policy goals. The US government covertly favored al Qaeda’s allies in Chechnya against the Russians, mujahideen affiliates and allies in Bosnia—where the mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was involved, and the al Qaeda-tied Kosovo Liberation Army in 1999. Apparently, following 9/11—despite all this—Clinton was surprised that al Qaeda would attack the US since the US had sided with Muslims in the Balkan wars.
While proponents of the later War on Terror often like to take a “victory lap” and turn their failures into success by triumphantly claiming that there hasn’t been “another 9/11” since, this overlooks the facts that terrorism, especially suicide terrorism, rapidly increased during the War on Terror and that al-Qaeda and other such groups swelled their ranks (though al Qaeda is often rebranded, as in Libya, Syria, and Yemen when the US wants to fund and support them). Americans had their freedoms restricted while foreign policy interventionism increased, making them less free and less safe.
From September 12, 2001—armed with a simple knowledge of the publicly-available foreign policy history—9/11 was a tragedy, and a terrible crime that demands justice, but it should not have been a surprise.
