In his regular op-ed for Asharq Alawsat, Amir Taheri takes a look at the history of terrorism as well as the history of how terrorist movements ran themselves out. He projects this to Iraq, where he sees Al-Qaeda losing its struggle having failed in its two main goals of terrorizing the Shi’a and Kurdish populations into acquiescence and driving the US forces out of the country. He thinks that the US Congress, despite the calls from some Democrats, has given up its attempt to withdraw US forces any time soon. Interesting piece.

When People Refuse to be Terrorized
Amir Taheri

In every terrorist war there comes a time when even the deadliest operations begin to lose impact. Every human endeavor is subject to the law of diminishing returns. In the case of terrorism, whose aim is to cow the adversary into submission, this means a growing refusal by the adversary to be cowed.

In time, terror also loses whatever initial support it might have enjoyed as more and people discover its ugly face. This maybe what is happening in the Muslim world now. The latest surveys show that support for suicide-murder operations is in steady decline everywhere.

The terrorist knows that it cannot win by waging any form of conventional warfare. Thus, he is constantly looking for weapons and methods designed not to help him seize and control territory but to restrict the adversary’s psychological safety space.

Seen from that angle, the car bomb is the ideal weapon: it can be directed precisely at a chosen target, and delivered at minimum human and material cost to the terrorist. As far as method is concerned, suicide-murder is even more effective. By annulling man’s basic instinct for survival, it points to a world in which all rules are negated.

The hashasheen (assassins) in medieval Islam and the Narodniks (populists) in 19th century Russia introduced an individual version of suicide-murder.

In the 1960s, the Tamil “Tigers” of Sri Lanka expanded the concept by organizing suicide operations aimed at killing large numbers of enemy combatants in surprise attacks.
…