Tigerhawk posted today a must read summary of Michael Scott Doran’s 3/28/05 Princeton lecture on "Al Qaeda’s Grand Strategy". By taking copius notes of the lecture Tigerhawk has offered us some serious journalism - including links to two Foreign Affairs articles by Doran that I had missed, and some excellent Q&A following the lecture. Good work and thanks to Tigerhawk. Excerpts from the Q&A segment follow:
Q: What advice does Doran have to a U.S. policy maker that has to balance the interests of democratic civil society with the risk that some of these organizations are fronts for radicals? [A smart question. - ed.]
A: “I’ve been surprised how little work has been done on clerical politics in Saudi Arabia. We need to have a much more textured understanding of the domestic map of politics in these countries.”
Q: Can changes in American policy influence this situation?
A: “I fight against the argument that solving the Arab-Isreali problem will make all of this go away. However, I am more confident than a lot of people about Iraq because of this Sunni-Shiite division. I find it hard to believe that radicalism will take root there.”
Q: Has there been a change in American attitudes toward the House of Saud?
A: “Everything has changed, and nothing has changed. The relationship will always been defined by shared strategic interests. The importance of the region for the global economy is such that we will still care very much about Saudi Arabia’s policies.
"They didn’t lift a finger against al Qaeda until the bombs started going off, but I’ve been surprised at how effective they have been since. Al Qaeda is significantly weakened there.
The Saudi leadership is pragmatic at the top levels.”
Q: Is Osama bin Laden any longer a central figure? Is his capture or non-capture a sideshow?
A: “I don’t know. I don’t think he is insignificant. I think he has a pretty direct connection to the radicals in Saudi Arabia. His relationship with al Zarqawi in Iraq is more tenuous. In one sense he is irrelevant. There is an ideology out there that has a sense of its own. It tells everybody what to do."
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