PROFESSOR YONAH ALEXANDER AND PROFESSOR DON WALLACE, JR. EDITORS
One cannot fully understand the impact of rising terrorism in North Africa and the Sahel without looking back to numerous warning signs that exploded during the post-WWII period. Thus, one tragic historical lesson relates to the December 21, 1988, mid-air explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, perpetrated by a Libyan state-sponsored operation. It resulted in the death of 270 passengers, mostly Americans. Although Muammar Gaddafi’s 42 years of dictatorship were replaced by a new Tripoli regime in 2011, Libyan terrorism is alive and well. This brutal reality was graphically illustrated by the killing of four U.S. government personnel, including Ambassador John Christopher Stevens, in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. In fact, several days after this attack, a Libyan preacher during a Friday sermon called on the faithful to “detonate our wrath upon them” and “stab them in their main artery.”1

Therefore, it is not surprising that the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies (IUCTS), in cooperation with its academic partners such as the George Washington University, the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, the International Law Institute, and other institutions in the U.S., Africa, Asia, and elsewhere have developed interdisciplinary educational programs focusing on security challenges in the Maghreb—Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia—as well as adjacent areas such as Chad, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and their regional and global strategic implications.

More specifically, our latest academic work has included a number of publications. The first on, “Why the Maghreb Matters: Threats, Opportunities & Options for Effective U.S. Engagement in North Africa” was published by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and the Conflict Management Program at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies on March 31, 2009. This initial work was guided by a bipartisan panel, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, General (Ret.) Wesley Clark, Ambassador (Ret.) Stuart Eizenstat, Professor William Zartman, and other distinguished former officials and academics. The panel recommended more effective engagement in the region to prevent a brewing security crisis from erupting there.

Another following report is, “Terrorism in North Africa and the Sahel in 2015” that was authored by Yonah Alexander and published in March 2016. This work drew similar conclusions, thereby underscoring the pessimistic reality that the region is engaged in a generational socio-cultural conflict that impacts the global community. Indeed, events continue to point to a growing “arc of instability” across the region, with consequences beyond any country’s borders.

Additionally, in 2017, another study also authored by Yonah Alexander observed that focusing international attention on the region can help enable the seeds of conflict resolution, political accommodation, economic and social development, and national reconciliation to emerge and counter the forces of instability and chaos. The publication therefore recommended that, to be sustainable and effective, these solutions require an integration of global and local resolve as well as resources. Without an effective menu of responses to the challenges of terrorism and instability, these threats to the world community will only continue to grow.

The current March 2023 publication draws from the recent Zoom Forum titled, “The Security Situation in the Sahel: Assessing Threats and Responses” that was held virtually on November 2, 2022. It included the following distinguished invited speakers Professor Jibrin Ibrahim (Senior Fellow, Centre for Democracy & Development); Ambassador Zango Abdu (Country Manager, USIP Nigeria; Director, Sahel Institute for Strategic Studies); Professor Yasmine Hasnaoui (University Professor of Humanities & Political Science at the American International University, Kuwait); Ambassador (Ret.) Charles Ray (Former United States Ambassador to Cambodia and Zimbabwe); Professor Rita Colwell (Distinguished University Professor at Maryland and Johns Hopkins); and Dr. Chris Kwaja (Associate Professor of International Affairs at the Center for Peace and Security, Modibbo Adama University, Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria). Deep appreciation is due to their exceptional contributions to the Forum.

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The rise of power in Iran of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the November 1979 seizure of the United States Embassy in Tehran and of some 60 American hostages by “revolutionary students” triggered a flurry of introspection in Washington concerning the policies which successive Administrations had followed with a country of enormous strategic and economic importance in the Middle East.

Among the questions that have been raised during that historical period were the following: What had gone wrong? Why had the United States failed to correctly assess the strength of the elements that brought down the Shah Shahanshah, King of Kings, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in January 1979, after a 37-year rule? Why had the United States linked its fortunes so closely to those of the Shah in the first place? What did the national interests of the United States consist of as applied to Iran? What were the full implications of the transformation of Iran from a friendly ally to a hostile adversary of the United States?

These and related issues were analyzed in a study on The United States and Iran: A Documentary History, co- edited by Yonah Alexander and Allan Nanes and published by the University Publications of America in 1980. This work was prepared in association with the World Power Studies Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University.

During the next 43 years, extensive research efforts have been undertaken by the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies (IUCTS) and its academic partners such as the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies (PIPS) and the International Law Institute (ILI), focusing on Iran’s strategic and tactical intentions, capabilities, and actions. For instance, Tehran’s expanding terrorism role was discussed within the framework of the study, Terrorism: As State-Sponsored of Covert Warfare, co-authored by Ray S. Cline and Yonah Alexander and published by Hero Books in 1986.

This work was prepared in cooperation with the Center of Strategic and International Studies at the request of the Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. The publication underscored the fact that the goal of psychological terror and physical violence employed by totalitarian dictatorships, like the Iranian regime, is to maintain control of their own people and to expand this kind of control over other regions and nations. In the face of Iran’s terrorism challenge, the United States, its friends and allies, particularly Israel, have developed a wide range of countermeasures. They consisted inter alia of intelligence, economic and security assistance, political and diplomatic pressures, economic sanctions, clandestine counter-terrorism infiltrations, covert and overt military operations.

Despite these activities, Tehran continued to resort to terrorism at home and abroad. Additionally, Iran’s apparent vision of a country becoming the dominant power in the Middle East had led its leadership to develop a nuclear program in open defiance of United Nations resolutions. In this connection, the IUCTS once again had conducted a major research project resulting in the release of a study on The New Iranian Leadership: Ahmadinejad, Nuclear Ambition, and the Middle East. This book, co-authored by Yonah Alexander and Milton Hoenig, was published by Praeger Security International in 2007. It documented Ahmadinejad’s background and rise to power and explained the structure of the Iranian Revolutionary government—the competing centers of power and the major players. The study then detailed the terrorist groups funded and armed by Iran, primarily Hizballah and Hamas. It also provided a comprehensive picture of Iran’s apparent aspirations to acquire nuclear weapons, as well as the related implications for regional and global security concerns.

Moreover, numerous seminars and conferences related to the multiple Iranian security challenges to the international community were held in the United States and abroad. For example, on December 6, 2011, a Forum was organized by the IUCTS on “Iran’s Nuclear Program: A Final Warning?” The event highlighted Tehran’s nuclear weapon program amidst the backdrop of an uncertain political reality in the Middle East.

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Recorded history has repeatedly provided tactical and strategic lessons on the nature of political relations within, between, and among nations. Numerous universal postulates for the conduct of statecraft have been offered by philosophers, politicians, scholars, and other observers reflecting on the experiences of diverse societies regarding what does and does not work.

These collective insights focus on the perceived realities of national, regional, and global matters, including the role of history, the supremacy of self-interest, the cost of wars, and the benefits of peace. Other views deal with the nature of diplomacy in the struggle for power, and the value of multinational alliances in securing a stable world order based on the rule of law, the protection of human rights, and the advancement of economic progress and prosperity.

As NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, celebrates more than 70 years of existence, it remains the most significant defensive alliance in the past two centuries. In early 2022, its 30 nation-state members are still facing a broad range of old and new horizontal and vertical challenges. These include piracy, terrorism, regional conflicts, humanitarian crises, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), and cyber threats.

Moreover, NATO’s three core tasks, namely, deterrence and defense; crisis prevention management; and cooperative security are being critically tested during the Russian Federation war of aggression launched against Ukraine, a non-member independent country in the Euro-Atlantic region.

It is against this background that NATO has acknowledged Russia as its greatest direct security threat. The alliance announced its intention to defend “every inch” of its members’ territory. Additionally, Finland and Sweden have officially been invited to join the alliance. Other significant strategic measures have been adopted at the Madrid Summit Declaration on June 29, 2022.

The current report “NATO Strategic Lessons From the Russian Invasion of Ukraine” (July 2022) held as a Zoom Forum on April 28, 2022 focuses on the above developments and looking forward. This virtual Forum began with opening remarks by Professor Don Wallace Jr. (Chairman, International Law Institute) and was moderated by Professor Yonah Alexander (Director of the International Center for Terrorism Studies and Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies). The following distinguished panel of scholars and practitioners gave presentations and subsequent discussion; General (Ret.) Wesley Clark (Former Supreme Allied Commander Europe); Ambassador (Ret.) Robert Hunter (Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO); Major General (Ret.) Dr. Mihail E. Ionescu (Professor, National School of Political and Administrative Studies (SNSPA) Bucharest, Romania); Professor Herman Matthijs (University Ghent & Free University Brussels); Professor Natividad Carpintero- Santamaria (Professor at the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and General Secretary of the Instituto de Fusión Nuclear “Guillermo Velarde”); Professor Shimon Shetreet (Greenblatt Chair of Public and International Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Former Cabinet Minister and MK, Israel); and Bruce Weinrod (Former Secretary of Defense Representative for Europe and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and NATO Policy. Closing remarks were delivered by General (Ret.) Alfred Gray, USMC (29th Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps (1987-1991); Chairman of the Board of Directors and Regents, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies).

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The history of mankind from time immemorial to the modern era consists of overwhelming evidence that multiple dogmas of religious denominations have contained various manifestations of hatred and violence towards other perceived antagonistic believers. For instance, in the 1990s religious self-righteousness and within and among nations around the globe.

Suffice to mention, the exploitation of religious symbols and concepts to advance radical political agendas in places such as Northern Ireland, Nigeria, and India.

Furthermore, the informal and formal network among different sub-state and state-sponsors has created a structure to promote terrorism on national, regional, and global levels. This modern political framework has consisted of many forms: theological alliances; organizational assistance; propaganda and psychological warfare; financial help; recruitment support; intelligence systems; supply of weapons; training; coordinated operational missions; and sanctuary availability.

To be sure, other various disciplinary factors have also directly and indirectly contributed to seemingly endless cases of brutality and bloodshed. These elements include, inter alia, ethnic, racial, and tribal intolerance and violence; extreme nationalism and separatism; regional and inter-regional conflicts that defy easy solutions; intensification of criminal activity; population explosion, migration expansion, and rising poverty; the widening economic gap between North and South; environmental challenges; expanding health security concerns; and proliferation of modern weapon technologies.

And yet, as we have entered the 21st century, a promising contemporary trend of inter-faith relations has envisioned a renewed ecumenical trend, reflecting the minimization of religious confrontations and maximizing cross-theological cooperative efforts. For instance, a Millennium World Peace Summit held in New York formed an organizational structure of religious leaders to advise the United Nations on preventing and settling political disputes stemming from traditional religious animosities.

Alas, this and other similar hopeful efforts have been derailed by the tragedy of 9/11 and the continued rise of theological-inspired state and non-state terrorism, insurgencies, and wars during the past two decades.

In view of the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, a key question is whether any potential inter-faith initiatives can contribute, however modestly, in the search for peace with justice regionally and globally?

At this stage of deepening security uncertainties, two encouraging flickering lights in the “fog of war” should be noted for future analytical considerations. The first is a May 2022 gathering of world religious leaders in Saudi Arabia that uniquely demonstrated a major inter-faith effort.

The Muslim World League organized the first-ever “Forum on Common Values among Religious Followers” in Riyadh. Invited delegates from Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and other religious denominations participated in establishing and outlining fundamental agreements in advancing the cause of peace.

A communique issued by the Saudi organizers stated that, “the Forum’s collective objectives were to reach a universal consensus between global spiritual leaders, leverage their commonalities by placing them at the forefront of human values, effectively support efforts to advance tolerance and peace, and set rational intellectual-frameworks to immunize against the dangers of extremist ideology and behavior regardless of its source.”

The communique also included areas of agreements for religious policy that were reached at the gathering, including the fundamental role of religion in society, the spiritual basis for basic human rights, and a rejection of an “inevitable civilizational clash” among religions. Notably, the Archbishop of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine Ivan Zoria also attended this event.

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