VIEW
US Invasion Will Fuel Jehad

Terrorism is created not because people provide it with funds or safe sanctuary but because there exists a real or imagined political grievance. Terrorists for the most part are not mercenaries — although those in power like to describe them as such — but motivated, misguided young people.
In the mind of the terrorist, his cause cannot be addressed peacefully because there is an absence of a legitimate political process that would allow him to do so.To that extent, there is an intimate connection between the growth of terrorism on the one hand and the lack of democratic space on the other. From Kashmir to Kurdistan, from Chechnya to West Asia, that’s the one constant feature that has invariably given rise to terrorism. For nearly 30 years after Independence, Kashmir had its share of problems but it didn’t suffer from any terrorist activity. Then came a series of state elections which were deliberately rigged by the wise men in New Delhi. And thus began a spiral of terrorist violence, that was, in time, aided and abetted by our friendly western neighbour. The only way we can judge America’s war in terms of its impact on terrorism is to ask ourselves one simple question: Will this war lead to the establishment of a real political process in that part of the world? The answer is no. America’s war might be about any number of other ‘noble’ ends — freeing the people from tyranny, giving them Coke and burgers, and so on — but restoring to Iraqis the right to choose their own destiny is not among them. What Washington really wants is a client regime that will do its bidding.
Not for nothing did Washington ‘parachute’ Ahmed Chalabi — a discredited Iraqi exile with a shady financial past — into the country even before it won the actual war on the ground. No wonder too that many Iraqis, having ‘celebrated’ their freedom, are already beginning to have second thoughts about their American ‘liberators’. The disorder on the streets of Baghdad might be quelled sooner rather than later, but America’s cynical occupation of Arab land will provoke more unrest and lead to greater political instability and violence.