Talking to al-Qaeda

Jonathan Powell has indicated that we should talk to al-Qaeda, making a comparison with Northern Ireland.

In Ireland, it was fairly straightforward, if not to identify, to delimit the people who controlled the IRA. The brass was known and there were contacts throughout the eighties between the governments of both sides of the Irish Sea and the paramilitaries. There were times when the parties were so far apart that they were totally irreconcilable. However, changes in all parties meant that there was the potential for discussion and cooperation. Without lines of communication, it would have been a lot harder to gauge the attitudes of the opposing sides.

The buzz-acronym around the military is C4ISTAR. That is command, control, computers, communication, intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaisance. It describes the functions that a military must cover to carry out a given operation or set of operations. While some of it does not apply to some or all of the Troubles – computers being the obvious example – it is not hard to see that, within the constraints of reality, the IRA approximated the British army in its function-set.

Note that it does not include mission definition or objective quality. It does, however, indicate that there is a command structure; not just that people lower down the chain will do as they’re told but that they will not do anything unless they are told to do something.

The very fact that contacts took place in this manner with the IRA shows the difference when dealing with al-Qaeda. It is a network of organisations and of networks, that act in different manners depending on the situations in which they find themselves. While there may be a common eschatology, there is no equivalent of the army council with which to deal. Rather, different bits can draw on the philosophical motivations and practical resources – planning and materiel – as they see fit.

Talking to one’s enemies makes sense. The ‘red phones’ between Moscow and Washington is probably the best known example, but NATO is talking to the Taliban in Afghanistan. The most common examples, however, are embassies, legations and foreign missions.

There is no equivalent of the Army Council in al-Qaeda; there is no one controlling body that can order a ceasefire or a truce. As I said, al-Qaeda is an ideology and perhaps a methodology and, although it might seek to be, is not a polity. However, there are polities and groups under the al-Qaeda umbrella with which you can deal; as I mentioned, some elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan are being engaged but this will not affect other conflicts where different grievances lead to the ideology and methodology combining in different ways. This means that there will not be co-ordination and the benefits of scale for al-Qaeda-inspired groups, but that there is no, one unit that will end things. Given that some of the techniques of asymmetric warfare are very widely known, it is not hard to see that the advantage here is with the many-headed hydra.

There is an interesting comparison of no particular significance other than illustration between the IRA and al-Qaeda and Catholic and Sunni hierarchies; the Pope can give orders that are followed the way down, while a given imam is one of many sources of influence and authority. I don’t think this post particularly revelatory or that Mr Powell would disagree, but it is worth stressing both that the parallels between IRA and al-Qaeda only go so far and it would be not only wrong but dangerously wrong to see al-Qaeda as a single campaign.

xD.