A Hundred Osamas: Islamist Threats and the Future of Counterinsurgency

The US Army Professional Writing Collection ^ | Sherifa Zuhur

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NEW CONFLICT, OUTDATED STRATEGY?

The U.S. Government launched Operation ENDURING FREE- DOM, Operation IRAQI FREEDOM and the Global War on Terror (GWOT) in response to the events of September 11, 2001 (9/11), and in alliance with various nations. Many other nations objected to the U.S. invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussayn's region did not, in their views, pose a credible Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) threat as was claimed at the time, and because they believed that American dismantlement and occupation of Iraq would surely be interpreted as neocolonialist interventionism. Indeed, Islamist extremists labeled these as Crusader campaigns, capitalizing on the preexisting understanding of neocolonialism and fear of Western antipathy to Islam. In March 2003, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt predicted that the American-led war on Iraq would create "one hundred new bin Ladens."1

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Lengthy Professional Reading thesis.