Elaine Sciolino and Eric Schmitt of NYT report that an epic battle has ensued between two formidably wise men, Bruce Hoffman and Marc Sageman, over the state of al-Qaeda. The row started after Hoffman published a scathing review of Sageman’s Leaderless Jihad in Foreign Affairs, and has degenerated into a verbal scuffle with schoolboy arguments like “you’re just jealous ’cause everybody likes me”.
I’ve read both men but wasn’t aware of the scholarly infighting. Thankfully, Jihadica provides an excellent overview:
There’s a lot more agreement between Sageman and Hoffman than the Times piece portrays. Both men accept that there are grassroots Jihadi groups popping up without any operational connection to AQ and both men believe that AQ Central (Bin Laden, Zawahiri, et al) is alive and well in the FATA region of Pakistan.
Dr. McCants doesn’t care much about Sageman’s antics:
As for Sageman’s why-me? posture in the Times article, puh-lease. In his books, Sageman dismisses entire fields of study with a flick of the pen, excoriating colleagues for their lack of scientific rigor. His fulminations would be tolerable if his own scientific practice were rigorous, but it’s not–his datasets are not easy to obtain, his coding of the data is idiosyncratic, and some of his strongest conclusions rest on weak evidence. This is what Hoffman is reacting to in his review of Sageman’s latest book and it is long overdue.
On a related note: The ridiculous discussion about whether to call jihadis jihadis continues in the New York Times. A previous convoluted treatise can be found here.
I’m not too interested in the battle between these two guys but I am convinced that al-Qaeda’s future (as well as any other jihadis organization) is that of a “leaderless” organization that depends on individual and small cell actions. Al-Qaeda could only last so long as a heirarchical organization since being a heirarchical organization leaves it prone to infighting, infiltration and also that a certain amount of apathy and stagnation sets in after a time.
I am sure many jihadis have learned from reading from the likes abu Musab al-Suri and his anarchist-tainted lectures, essays and books. He has cribbed ideas from the likes of Deleuze and Guattari and others and this has seeped into the thinking of Internet dagawandists over the past few years. His predictions of the heirarchical al-Qaeda being killed, imprisoned and scattered have great cache amongst the emerging intellectuals and isn’t about to go away any time soon.
Asking if al-Qaeda is “on the ropes” is like asking if Islam is “on the ropes”. They have found an operational model that is far more flexible than what al-Qaeda’s heirarchical form could ever deliver. The propaganda of the deed doesn’t require a centralized organization but a centralized belief system and that was attained 1400 years ago and can be found in the foundational texts of Islam.