By Christopher Swift
President George W Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are certain to celebrate their recent successes in the global "war on terrorism" when the Group of Eight (G8) summit begins on Saturday in St Petersburg, Russia.
| When they use quotes describing the "war on terrorism" you know they don't really believe it it... |
On June 7, US aircraft killed al-Qaeda's Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a safe house outside Baquba. On July 10, pro-Kremlin militia liquidated Chechen separatist Shamil Basayev in Ingushetia.
| Either that, or Makhmud tossed his see-gar and it landed in the dynamite. We may never know which... |
Both operations featured prominently on national television, with US and Russian pundits predicting the eventual collapse of their adversaries' insurgent networks.
| The way to kill off the movements is to kill all the head cheeses. Incarceration doesn't work. |
At first blush, the similarities between Zarqawi and Basayev appear significant. Both used Islam to inspire followers and legitimize violent force. Both led dynamic insurgencies embracing comparable military tactics. Both appear to have been betrayed by inside sources.
| Yeah. We'd never have gotten them otherwise, would we? |
Yet despite apparent symmetry between US and Russian operations, critical distinctions between Chechnya's indigenous rebels and Iraq's foreign jihadis still remain. Rather than collaborating in a common struggle, Bush and Putin face dissimilar adversaries animated by distinct values and dramatically different agendas.
| They just talk the same jihad talk and cut people's heads off similarly, and they're financed by Arabians. Other than that, there's nothing in common... |
Despite their superficial similarities, Zarqawi and Basayev manifested two ideologically and politically distinct faces of contemporary Islamic militancy. That distinction turns on the relationship between politics and religion. For Basayev's rebels, Islam is inherently communitarian. It defines ethnic and cultural identity.
| Whereas for Zark's Arab League, Islam is inherently communitarian. It defines cultural and ethnic identity. That's very significant, y'know... |
It reinforces notions of Chechen nationhood.
| Which is still a part of the ummah... |
It animates violent opposition to Moscow's historic dominance and a drive toward political self-determination. Rather than threatening a global conflagration, Basayev's Islam mobilized a discrete population for limited, localized ends.
| That the discrete population shows up in other countries, shooting things up and cutting off heads is quite beside the point... |
For Zarqawi's jihadis, Islam is radically cosmopolitan.
| That's different from "communitarian," y'see... |
It subsumes ethnic and cultural identity.
| Chechens wear hats, y'see. Everybody else wears turbans or kefiyehs... |
It eschews Iraqi nationhood in favor of establishing a regional caliphate. It champions violence against Kurds, Shi'ites and moderate Sunnis in a drive toward social and theological purity. Rather than promoting self-determination, Zarqawi's Islam catalyzed burgeoning Arab resentment for unlimited, globalized ends.
| But not in Chechnya. No, no. Certainly not. That's different. |
Those ideological differences underscore important distinctions in each group's character and composition. Zarqawi's jihadis are predominantly foreign.
| Some of them Chechens, in fact... |
Leaders mobilize manpower through transnational networks, recruiting disaffected Muslims in the Middle East, Europe and beyond. Most are loners, leaving their families and homelands to fight in mixed international units. Their struggle is globalized yet atomized. Despite cooperating with Ba'athists and other Iraqi Sunnis, al-Qaeda's forces fight for a millenarian ideology rather than a discrete community. By comparison, Basayev's rebels are overwhelmingly indigenous.
| Except for the Arabs and Turks and Ingush and Dagestanis and the occasional Azeri, Ossetian, Circassians, Avars, Huns, Veps, Vandals, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Turanians, and Cro-Magnons. |
Leaders mobilize manpower through subnational jamaats and Sufi spiritual orders known as tariqat.
| Except that Chechnya isn't a Sufi phenomenon. It just used to be a Sufi area. It's now a Wahhabi operation, which is where the money comes from. |
Recruiting is largely spontaneous, with volunteers from Chechnya and adjoining Russian republics fighting on a seasonal or semi-seasonal basis. Their struggle is localized and highly personalized. Despite limited assistance from a tiny and rapidly diminishing cohort of Arab volunteers, the Chechens continue fighting for readily identifiable ethno-nationalist ends.
Those ends do not legitimize Chechen terrorism, especially in cases where civilians are the intended targets. Nor do they eliminate prospects for closer military cooperation between local rebels and global terrorist syndicates. Nonetheless, these distinctions illuminate critical differences between militant Islam's subnational and transnational variants. Absent a common spiritual idiom, Chechen rebels share more with the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka than they do with al-Qaeda. Basayev was Chechnya's Che Guevara, not Russia's Osama bin Laden.
Recognizing the two faces of militant Islam carries critically important implications for how the United States frames and fights the "global war on terrorism". It also carries important implications for US-Russia relations. In Iraq, an assertive US military posture is necessary to curb the transnational terrorist threat and provide conditions necessary for domestic institutional development. Defeating Zarqawi's global insurgency requires a local solution. Only authentic Iraqi leadership will mobilize the nation against foreign jihadis. To ignore that reality risks consigning Iraq to protracted civil conflict.
In Chechnya, that analysis is reversed. Russia's aggressive military campaign fuels a cycle of violent repression and armed reprisal. Rather than negotiating with moderate separatists, the Kremlin controls a criminalized and increasingly coercive indigenous elite. Ending Basayev's local insurgency requires a global solution. Only authentic US leadership will convince Russians and Chechens to pursue a meaningful political dialogue. To ignore that responsibility risks the imminent emergence of a failed state within the sovereign boundaries of a nuclear superpower.
Christopher Swift is a doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge. |