Encouraging appeasement in the war on terror is only rarely expressed as directly as one Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou does in a recent Boston Globe op-ed: Time to talk to Al Qaeda?
After dismissing the idea that al-Qaeda's leaders are religious fanatics and fundamentalists, and asserting that actually its goals and methods are very rational and quite reasonable, Mohamedou concludes:
Though dismissed widely, the best strategy for the United States may well be to acknowledge and address the collective reasons in which Al Qaeda anchors its acts of force. Al Qaeda has been true to its word in announcing and implementing its strategy for over a decade. It is likely to be true to its word in the future and cease hostilities against the United States, and indeed bring an end to the war it declared in 1996 and in 1998, in return for some degree of satisfaction regarding its grievances. In 2002, bin Laden declared: ''Whether America escalates or deescalates this conflict, we will reply in kind."
In other words: let them win, and the war will end.
Even if it was true that Bin Laden et al could be expected to cease the attacks if the United States sold out Israel, ended all support for Islamic governments al-Qaeda opposes (which is, at last count, all), pulled back all military forces from the Middle East, etc, etc, I don't think Msrs Bin Laden, Zawahri and Zarqawi would put down their AK-47's and open a cozy little Halal restaurant somewhere. Getting rid of "infidels" in the holy lands is certainly part of their objectives, but they also want to replace all governments in Islamic lands with a Taliban-style theocracy. Just possibly, these countries would be able to fight off this threat by themselves, but that is far from certain. If Al-Qaeda should succeed in taking over a really powerful country, say Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, what havoc could those lunatics wreck using the massive oil revenue and resources available to them? Weapons of mass destruction would certainly fall into their hands sooner or later in this surrender scenario.
If Bin Laden had been able to obtain large concessions through conventional blackmail, what could he get using biological, chemical or - heaven forbid - nuclear weapons?
The lesson of western appeasement to Arafat's terrorism, Hezbollah, Somali warlords and so on was precisely that the west would eventually give in if enough blood was spilled. Repeating that error with al-Qaeda would, even if it against all odds ended that terrorist threat, teach the next generation of extremists exactly the wrong lesson. That the world may one day wake up to terrorists more vile, brutal and cunning than the Salafi-Jihadists is something I can't even imagine, but some decades ago we could not imagine Abu Nidal's terror ever being considered the good old days.
The terrorist war has really been fought against Israel, moderate Muslims worldwide, India, Russia, the west and many others for decades. It took 9/11 to wake us up to this, and forcing us into the war that had really been declared and ruthlessly fought against us for so long. It may be difficult, and it may be a very long haul, but the alternative to fighting it is so much worse.
Mohamedou is described as an "associate director of the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University," and is a man with a quite impressive resume, if you are still impressed by anything labeled "human rights" these days. If I didn't know academia better, I would be very surprised someone could be an "expert" in "conflict research" yet write such ill-thought advise. One could almost be tempted to speculate that other motives than our best interests were behind the article, but I have learned to never attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained through incompetence.
7:02:35 AM 
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