APPEASING TERROR WON'T WORK
By AMIR TAHERI
NEW YORK Post Opinion
July 20, 2005
CHATHAM House, the London foreign-affairs think tank, has given its seal of respectability to the claim that Britain's participation in the liberation of Iraq allowed al Qaeda to transform a bunch of ordinary Muslim youths into the suicide-killers of July 7.
That analysis, however, is strange for several reasons.
To start with, it is not clear how anyone could know that the suicide-killers were solely motivated by Britain's role in Iraq. The two claims of responsibility for the operation cite a variety of reasons, making it clear that the attack on Britain was part of a broader campaign against the "infidel" West.
And how could Islamist suicide-bombers be concerned only about Britain's participation in the war in Iraq — and not about its similar role in Afghanistan?
If the suicide-killers were al Qaeda Islamists, then they should be more angry about the destruction of the Taliban regime, which they regarded as the world's only genuinely Islamic government, than at the toppling of Saddam Hussein, whom they saw as an atheist and a purely tactical ally.
Why then does Chatham House prefer to focus on the British role in Iraq? It has nothing to do with reality. But in the circles to which Chatham House caters, it is politically fashionable to pretend that Afghanistan didn't happen.
It is hard to defend the Taliban with their obsession with burqa and beard and their bombing of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Saddam Hussein, however, was supposed to be a secular and Socialist ruler who could claim some kinship with the "useful idiots" in the West.
More important, from Chatham House's point of view, is that the "international community," meaning Jacques Chirac and Kofi Annan, swallowed the liberation of Afghanistan but made loud noises against the liberation of Iraq.
Can Chatham House guarantee that if Britain withdrew from Iraq, al Qaeda would not demand a similar withdrawal from Afghanistan? And, if it got that, then ask for more retreats by Britain?
Those who look for excuses for terrorism do so only to justify a policy of appeasement. Experience, however, shows that the appeaser becomes a more attractive target for the terrorists.
The appeased terrorist concludes that, having won a battle, he should press for victory in his war against a weakened adversary
Appeasing terrorists was tried by President Francois Mitterrand in the 1980s, and made France the most-targeted Western country for a decade.
Mitterrand launched his appeasement weeks after taking office in 1981. He released all the 31 convicted terrorists in French prisons and lifted the ban on pro-terrorist publications and illegal radio stations. He also abolished the State Security Court, set up to deal with terrorism, describing it as a Nazi-style outfit. He let the Basque terrorists of ETA use French territory as a base against Spain and allowed various Palestinian groups and The Irish Republican Army (IRA) to operate in Paris.
Mitterrand feted Yasser Arafat, then regarded as the godfather of terror, and traveled to Cyprus to court Libya's dictator Moammar Qaddafi, then the principal paymaster of international terror. The appeasement also led to an exchange of ambassadors and high-level contacts with the Khomeinist regime in Tehran.
The French leader emphasized the ideological propinquity of his Socialist party with "other radical movements," meaning terrorist groups, that were also "striving for justice." At one point, Mitterrand even talked of the "common roots" of the French Revolution and the Khomeinist takeover in Iran.
In 1984, Mitterrand's policy led him into vetoing an American plan for joint G-7 action against international terrorism. In a meeting with then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, who headed a special anti-terrorism unit, Mitterrand argued that the only way to deal with the threat was to "address the grievances" that were "often caused by Western policies."
Not surprisingly, terrorists of all denominations began to see France as a safe haven. Abu Nidal and Carlos visited Paris for business and pleasure. Imad Mughniyeh, a Lebanese terrorist on the American "most wanted list," dropped in for shopping holidays.
Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini sent his nephew, one Massoud Hendizadeh, to set up a terror headquarters in Paris. Later, when French police issued an arrest warrant for Vahid Gorji, who headed that terror headquarters in Paris, Mitterrand arranged for him to be put on the first flight to Tehran to escape prosecution.
Payback for Mitterrand's policy started with the assassination of Gen. Rene Audron, a senior member of the Defence Ministry, in 1985. A few months later, Paris was hit by a series of bomb attacks; one on Christmas Eve at two major department stores injured 35 people.
In February 1986, a major shopping arcade and a hotel in Champs Elysees were bombed. The wave of attacks continued with the bombing of the Forum des Halles and an attempt to blow up the Eiffel Tower.
By March 1986, France was the victim of a full-scale terror campaign, including a suicide operation in which two Arab terrorists were killed in the Champs Elysees. Attacks on the Paris Metro, the Orly Airport and shopping centers created a climate of fear. Police nipped dozens of other plots, including one to derail a high-speed train, in the bud.
Throughout the Mitterrand appeasement, a total of 93 people were killed and more than 800 wounded in terrorist attacks in France (plus 17 Iranian dissidents killed by hit-squads from Tehran).
But this was not all. Fifty-three French paratroopers were killed in a suicide attack in Beirut in 1983. Also in Beirut a pro-Syrian group assassinated France's ambassador while a Khomeinist gang held the French ambassador in Tehran hostage for several days. A total of 37 French citizens were held as hostages in the Middle East, and two murdered in cold blood, by the same terror groups that Mitterrand had tried to appease.
France is not alone in having tried appeasement and failed. Algeria, Egypt, Germany, Saudi Arabia and more recently Spain have had similar experiences. The British should know that any appeasement of terrorists could put them in an even greater danger.
Iranian author Amir Taheri is a member of Benador Associates.
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