The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global

by Fawaz A. Gerges

Since September 11, Al Qaeda has been portrayed as an Islamist front united in armed struggle, or jihad, against the Christian West. However, as the historian and commentator Fawaz A. Gerges argues, the reality is rather different and more complex. In fact, Al Qaeda represents a minority within the jihadist movement, and its strategies have been vehemently criticized and opposed by religious nationalists among the jihadis, who prefer to concentrate on changing the Muslim world rather than taking the fight global. It is this rift that led to the events of September 11 and that has dominated subsequent developments. Through several years of primary field research, the author unravels the story of the jihadist movement and explores how it came into being, the philosophies of its founding fathers, its structure, the rifts and tensions that split its ranks, and why some members, like Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, favored international over local strategies in taking the war to the West. This is an articulate and original book that sheds light on the tactics used by the jihadis in the last three decades. As more alienated young Muslims are seduced into joining, the author asks where the jihadist movement is going and whether it can survive and shed its violent character. Fawaz A. Gerges holds the Christian A. Johnson Chair in International Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies at Sarah Lawrence College.He was educated at Oxford University and the London School of Economics and has previously been a Research Fellow at Harvard and Princeton universities. He is also a senior analyst and regular commentator for ABC television news. His books include America and Political Islam: Clash of Interests or Clash of Cultures? (Cambridge,1999) and The Journey of the Jihadis: A Biography of a State of Mind (Harcourt Press, 2006). He has written extensively on Arab and Muslim politics, Islamist movements, American foreign policy, and relations between the world of Islam and the West. His articles have appeared in several of the most prestigious journals and newspapers in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.

Genres: Terrorism, Islam, History, Politics, Middle East, Nonfiction, Religion

358 pages, Hardcover

First published May 9, 2005

Reviews

[John Vettese · Rating 2 out of 5]

One thing I learned from the class I'm taking this semester is that political scientists have no freaking clue how to write. What better way to convey complex political / idealogical issues than though hundreds of pages of rambly, chapter-long sentences with unnecessary asides and superfluous footnotes? Better still, repeat yourself copiously in the process! And bring up key, essential players in your narrative with minimal introduction! I've read many books and watched many films about the current goings-on in the middle east, the war on terror and whatnot, and this possibly does the poorest job I've seen of analyzing it all. Basically, the author argues that the jihadist movement was never meant to be an international phenomenon; it was focused primarily on the "near enemy" (eg. within Egypt, Iran and other middle eastern countries) and only took aim at the "far enemy" (U.S., U.K.) when it realized that it was the only way to keep its local operations afloat. And it justified this moral shift through lots of propaganda and spin that amounts to not nearly the looming threat we percieve it to be. The insights and are there, certainly, and it's a point of view that challenges the conventional wisdom regarding U.S. foreign policy. But it's poorly presented. The dreck you have to wade through to reach those insights is almost not worth it.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was very interesting and useful as a way to think about global jihadist terrorism in a way that doesn't center US perspectives. Gerges frames the rise of AQ's vision of global jihad in the context of the jihadist movement as a whole since the 1980s. Most jihadist groups in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Afghanistan were focused on defeating "near enemies;" corrupt individual regimes that permitted foreign influence and often suppressed Salafi Islamic activism. Jihadists fought in these areas (and Palestine/Lebanon) in what they believed were defensive jihads against foreign occupations and apostate regimes.

The early 1990s, however, marked a crisis point for jihadists in the region. In Algeria, Egypt, and elsewhere, state security services crushed terrorist cells and uprisings, putting the jihadist movement in crisis and prompting many to reject violence at a tactical level. Bin Laden and Zawahiri, however, formulated a new strategy that identified the United States as the "far enemy" that propped up and interfered in the regimes of the Middle East. They argued that spectacular attacks against US targets around the world, including the US homeland itself, would drive the US out of the region and allow jihadist groups to seize power from infidel governments.

Thus Gerges explains AQ and 9/11 as a result of schisms within the jihadist movement. AQ's vision was to internationalize the struggle to shake up the embedded regimes of the region. Gerges (like many scholars of AQ) believes that AQ didn't really expect the US to respond so decisively to 9/11. He saw the US as a decadent "paper tiger" that would retreat from the region after a few major blows. AQ operatives later said they intended to draw the US into quagmires that would eventually exhaust it and lead to it departing from the ME, but to some extent this was a post-hoc rationalization for the defeat of core AQ in Afghanistan in 2001-2002.

The larger point for Gerges is that AQ was the fringe of a fringe, and that the US should understand that it is actually quite unpopular within the jihadist movement itself. He shows many jihadist theorists and radical clerics criticizing OBL for egotism, the killing of civilians, the provocation of the US, and for declaring that jihad is an individual duty rather than a collective one subject to greater regulation and restraint. All of these folks are illiberal and anti-democratic, but Gerges' discussion of their critiques does show that AQ was isolated within the jihadist movement, and even more so in the larger Islamic world. The popularity that AQ did enjoy among some segments of the Islamic world was less an agreement with their ideology and more a result of vast US overreach like the IRaq War, which allowed the radicals to pose as protectors of the faith against foreign aggressors. Iraq was indeed a disaster for the War on Terror that gave new life to jihadist groups, including AQ, and crushed sympathy for hte US in the Islamic world. For Gerges, therefore, the GWOT's purpose should be to attack core AQ and its truly global franchises while encouraging forces within the Islamic world, even within jihadism, that can further isolate and discredit AQ.

Still, I have critiques of a few aspects of this book. First, Gerges' books have an odd style. This book isn't terribly long, but it takes him a while to get into his argument, and then he repeats his argument a whole lot. There's an intro chapter and then basically a second intro chapter that just expands on the first intro, so you are about 50 pages in by the time you get to the historical narrative. The upside is that you come away with a very clear idea of the argument, but the downside is that it could have been maybe 40 pages shorter.

Second, while I think that Gerges' approach to the GWOT was much better than what we actually did, I am a little skeptic about what he means by "moderate" and the extent to which the US can support moderates in the ME. My sense of ME politics is that it is a very different spectrum than our own and that when you scratch the surface, "moderate" becomes a relative term. People talked about "moderates" in Iraq or Syria who turned out to be pretty darn sectarian, illiberal, and violent. I like the idea of splitting off AQ from other radical jihadists, but then you are still stuck with a whole lot of radical jihadists who still hate the US and its allies. There just don't seem to be a lot of liberal, truly moderate political forces in the region to support, in part because the authoritarian regimes there (including US allies) are so thorough in wiping out those kinds of opponents. And even Muslims' support for AQ (high in many polls in the 2000s) is largely a result of a backlash to US aggression, there is still a ton of conspiracism and extremism in MIddle Eastern political culture, as well as disturbing views about women, Jews, and violence in politics. I can't quite put my finger on my sense that Gerges' argument was incomplete, but I think the heart of it is that the ME is so profoundly messed up that there is little the US can do to repair things.

[Aaron Curmi · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book took me quite a long time to finish - much longer than any book of similar length has taken me - it is not a reflection of its content, but rather the fact that it is a purely academic book which makes for a very dry experience.

Gerges does an incredible job of providing the past, present, and, to some extent, the future of the jihadi movement. Through the use of extensive interviews and primary source documents, he tracks the beginning, rise, stagnation, and ultimate decline of jihadis both globally and locally and the myriad factors which fed each stage. His analysis is thorough and illuminating and brings focus to an often muddied picture of the reality of the politics of global terrorism. In particular, I really enjoyed his analysis of Western media perceptions/portrayals of the fight vs. the reality of the situation. It becomes quite clear that in Western society many major points were overlooked. Points which could have done a great deal in shaping the way we perceive the jihadi movement and its reality. Whether this was by design or not, it is hard to say. It could be convenient for one to reach the conclusion that the U.S. was seeing red and only wanted echo chamber-type news clips of murderous jihadi groups on the rise and with wide support. This, as evidenced heavily by Gerges, was simply not the case.

I found this book to be incredibly well-sourced and supported, though dry, as academic books tend to be. However, after having finished it, I do feel like I learned a wealth of knowledge about what can easily be viewed as a cloudy, amorphous conflict in a far-flung corner of the world. I would highly recommend this book, or even sections of it, to anyone wishing to better understand the difference between the jihadi movement and true Islam (which, to be honest, should be everyone.).

[John Strohl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a good bridge for understanding what jihad was like in the decade preceding 9/11 and the divides it created afterwards. It also provides a good background on the diversity of jihad and Islamists. However, the author tends to repeat himself a great deal in paragraphs and chapters, making the book significantly (fifty pages or so) longer than it had to be.

The first half of the book was a summary of violent jihad's evolution from Egypt to Afghanistan to Iraq (08). It also covers the influence of al-Zawahiri on Al Qaeda during its founding. If you're familiar with this, most of Gerges's writing will bore you.

The second half covers the aftermath of the Iraq invasion and the schism in the overall jihad movement. Dr. Gerges is most effective here because he provides a great deal of information on the rise and fall of AQIM and the conditions that led, inadvertently, to the rise of ISIS. The last chapter is an addendum, written after Barack Obama's election in 2008.

[Yas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have a problem with the way this book was structured and written. there is a lot of coming and forth and alot of repetitions as well. In my opinion, the 4th chapter was the best one in terms of analysis and information.

[vanessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't capable to read the second half of the book: so tautological and superfluous. It takes a true genius to make such an interesting topic so boring. The intro was good though: concise, readable and sufficiently elaborate.

[Jamie Norris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on al Qaeda and it's internal struggles against the Far Enemy.

[Jroos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great to read a background on Jihad that does not lump all organizations into the same mindset. Would like to see an exploration of 2008 to present.

[Luna Selene · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book did not lose its points with me because of its content; it defines the rise and fall of (the lesser, external) jihad as a political tool and its influences through interviews with and documents belonging to leaders and cohorts of historically significant groups like Jama'at al-Islamiyya and Al Qaeda in a very frank, open, and interesting (at least to me) manner. It pulls apart the transformation of jihad from the Afghan War to the disastrous relationship between Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawihiri (now first in command of what's left of Al Qaeda) and the U.S.'s unintended consequences to the switch from the "near"to "far" enemy. It's a lot to take in, but a worthwhile read to understanding the terms so often thrown around.

However, the structure of the book was a little dizzying; Gerges constantly jumps back and forth between groups, time periods, and concepts. He reiterates earlier points and sometimes presents evidence in an untimely manner that made the book hard to keep up with in some places and an experience of deja-vu in others. It sometimes seemed the puzzle pieces were slightly out of order. Then again, political scholars aren't usually poets.

The Far Enemy overall did have a lot to contribute and I imagine I will be revisiting it in the future.

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this book is now considered a bit dated, I would still recommend it for any reader studying al Qaeda, terrorism, and US foreign policy in the Middle East. This book focuses on how al Qaeda attempted to turn jihad from a local struggle to a global one. It's a fascinating story.