Abu Aardvark

Assessing the MB "firewall"

So that I don't feel like such a bad blogger, here's a lightly edited version of my presentation notes for the public session of yesterday's Institute for Middle East Studies workshop on political Islamist movements.  This was very much a workshop, not a place to present finished work, and I'm still digesting a lot of the critiques and suggestions.  Here it is in rough form nonetheless - and sorry, I really don't have time to go through and add the links that are so richly deserved.   Welcome to the virtual workshop!

Assessing the Muslim Brotherhood "Firewall"

In a number of recent articles I have argued that the Muslim Brotherhood can serve as an important "firewall" against al-Qaeda style radicalization in Arab countries (while simultaneously taking seriously the concerns that it might act as a "transmission belt" towards radicalization under certain conditions).   While this makes intuitive sense, and seems to be empirically plausible in some key cases, much needs to be done to flesh out the contention into a more rigorous causal argument which specifies mechanisms and can be made subject to empirical analysis.  In today's presentation, I don't yet presume to go that far. But I do want to put forward three key areas for research. 

Before getting to that, a word on the rising centrality of the MB-AQ divide across a wide range of issues in the world of Islamist politics.  This is a key theme of influential analysts such as the Jordanian journalist Mohammed Abu Roman and Akram Hijazi (whose writings are widely circulated in a range of jihadist internet forums).   It can certainly be seen in the many recent statements by Ayman al-Zawahiri, whose obsession with the Muslim Brotherhood is well documented;  in his recent "Q+A" session he devoted a remarkable amount of space to the MB-friendly Yusuf al-Qaradawi and to a detailed critique of the Brotherhood's party platform.  He has also made a determined effort over the last few years to claim the mantle of reform (islah) from the Brotherhood, dismissing their attempts to work within the system and trying to redefine reform within a salafi-jihadist framework.  Zawahiri has sharply criticized the Egyptian MB and the Palestinian Hamas for their participation in elections (both groups responded with sharp, scornful dismissals).   

The main driver, though, is probably Iraq, where the conflict which erupted between the Islamic State of Iraq and the various 'nationalist-jihadist' factions has been framed as "salafi-jihadist vs ikhwani" even though few of those groups other than perhaps Hamas Iraq really merit the label.  This often seems to be reduced to a catch-all for "groups which claim to be Islamist but aren't because they are willing to work within existing political institutions, prioritize the national rather than the universal jihad, and put pragmatism ahead of principle".  The irony is that while the Muslim Brotherhood party (Tareq al-Hashemi's Islamic Party) does enjoy political power due to its decision to contest elections, Iraq has not had a serious MB presence for a long time because of Saddam's refusal to tolerate competing movements or power centers - indeed, I remember back in 2002-03 that at least a few influential MB-affiliated writers argued against siding with Iraq against the US because of Saddam's treatment of the movement over the years.

At any rate, today's presentation focuses on a set of claims about how the MB might act as firewall against AQ-style radicalism. This begins with a simple observation:  where the MB is strong (Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine for example), AQ has had a hard time finding a point of entry despite serious efforts to do so, while where the MB is weak (Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Lebanon) it has had more success.   This begs the question of how to define where the MB is strong and weak and along what indicators - certainly something for further research. 

Correlation, of course, is not causation.   How, exactly, does a strong MB interfere with al-Qaeda style movements?  Simplifying a bit, I could see arguments which stress either ideology or organization.  The ideology argument would focus on the MB's avowed 'wasatiya' (centrism) and denunciation of Qutbist notions of jahiliya and takfir.  It's clear (to me anyway) that the leadership of the MB is firmly opposed to al-Qaeda and its ideology, and have made this extremely clear in both rhetoric and practice over the last five years.  MB leaders themselves seem to prefer this explanation, as do many of the MB members I've spoken with about this.  But ideology alone does not seem to be enough – ideas tend to be somewhat elastic, adapting to circumstance, and there are lots of different Islamist ideas out there besides those of the Brotherhood.  Ideas, as they say, do not float freely. 

The second argument would therefore stress the MB's distinctive organization which allows it to effectively monitor and control social space – through mosques, charities, organizational networks, and widespread networks.  Put simply, by this argument the MB is aware when radicals move in to social sectors full of Islamically-oriented and politically active people, and are in a position to lock out their challengers. (Think here of Fearon and Laitin's arguments about in-group policing, for instance.)  Of course, the MB isn't the only kind of organization that can do this - an efficient mukhabarat, tribes or clans, established neighborhoods, gangs, and so forth might all do similar functions.  But I do suspect that MB structures have a distinctive advantage with regard to specifically Islamist challengers.  That's where ideology does matter:  the MB is present in the religious, pious spaces where AQ might get foothold in way that unions or secular orgs are not.  [I'd like to work in something here about Abdullah al-Nefisi's argument for dissolving the MB based on Qatar's experience, but haven't yet.]

So far, so good.  But even if the firewall argument has been true in the past, can the firewall hold when it's being actively degraded?   The current wave of official crackdowns on the MB in places like Jordan and Egypt might similarly hinder their capability (if not willingness) to act as a firewall.   Repression after choosing political participation discredits the pragmatists within the organization, and it's possible to imagine politicized youth growing frustrated at feckless leadership or to see the MB struggle to hold on to some of its constituencies (what Amr Hamzawy terms the ‘facebookiyin’, angry and impoverished workers, pious salafis, marginal urban areas). What's more, the repressive efforts increasingly target precisely the charities (Jor) and financial underpinings (Eg) which make the organization so formidable.  There's precedent for such degraded capacity:  during the Egyptian insurgency of 1992-97, for instance, the MB found itself caught up indiscriminately by the regime's repressive response despite its efforts to differentiate itself from the Gamaa and Islamic Jihad and was thus perhaps less able to contain radical challengers. 

There are obviously a lot of other variables to consider here, and a lot of cases beyond the paradigmatic ones which would change the picture.   The focus on the organization rather than the ideology would arguably make the global MB less relevant of a "firewall" than specific national MB organizations. It would also raise cautionary concerns about the likely impact of the repressive measures currently being taken by Arab regimes - by weakening the MB organizationally, they could be opening up those spaces for more radical competitors.  Jordan seems to be a particularly relevant test case here, with the MB and IAF discredited after the response by some of its members to Zarqawi, highly publicized internal splits,  the fallout of Hamas over the last few years, its poor electoral performance, and in general the breakdown of the long-standing accord between the regime and the MB.   Syria might also emerge as a national arena upon which to focus, just as Lebanon has to such widespread alarm over the last year.   

All worth looking into...

sorry

.. sorry, would blog more but buried in worse than usual end of the semester deluge of grading, committee meetings, conferences (6 presentations on entirely different topics in a month!), designing yet another new course (the 5th new course in one year!), trying to catch up on backlog of manuscript reviews and overdue articles.... you know, the usual, only more so.  Not likely to change this week ... so carry on.  Not like anything's going on in the Middle East, right?

Monday: IMES Conference on Islamist Movements

For those in the area and interested, just a quick note that I will be appearing on an Institute for Middle East Studies panel discussion Monday afternoon entitled "What have we learned about Islamist political movements?"  It is the public portion of a day-long academic workshop featuring a number of leading political scientists whose work focuses on various dimensions of Islamist activism.  The public event will feature Amr Hamzawy (Carnegie), Janine Clark (University of Guelph), Joshua Stacher (Syracuse), Nathan Brown and me.  It's at the Elliott School, Room 602, from 3:30 to 5:00 on Monday, May 12.  Hope to see you there!

Lebanon's crisis not really a Sunni-Shia crisis (unless it is)

A fair amount of the coverage of the escalating crisis in Lebanon is framing it as a Sunni-Shia conflict.  I don't have much to say about what's happening inside of Lebanon - I'd recommend checking out reflections by Brian Katulis, Abu "my pseudonym has outlived its utility" Muqawama, and many others following events there closely -  but I did want to point out something important in the wider arena.  Compared to the near-hysteria which broke out across the Arab world over Sunni-Shia conflict in late 2006, the Sunni-Shia dimension is very visibly not being driven by mainstream Islamist movements on either side. In the last day,

• the Muslim Brotherhood released a statement calling on all sides to end violence in the streets and to engage in national dialogue to end the crisis.
• Mohammed Fadlallah, the extremely influential Shia marja'a who is widely considered to be the spiritual guide for Hezbollah, warned all sides against falling into the trap of sectarian discourse and called for dialogue among all parties.
• Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the most influential Sunni Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood trend, called for an end to the bloodshed and a unification of ranks against common external enemies.
• the popular MB-aligned website Islam Online is reprinting a whole slate of articles and opinions by various figures over the years denouncing Sunni-Shia tensions, including a 2006 statement by Egypt's Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, a 2007 article criticizing the politicization of sectarian differences by the influential Egyptian columnist Salamah Ahmed Salamah, and more. 
• Fahmy Howeydi, the influential Egyptian Islamist columnist, said that he understands the distress and concern people feel, but that political struggles must not be allowed to rip apart the Islamic umma.

I could add more if I had the time, but hopefully this will suffice to make the point.  There's plenty of anti-Iranian and anti-Hezbollah agitation out there in the Arab media discourse on Lebanon the last few days, especially in the Saudi media and in some of the Lebanese media (and also anti-Shia discourse lurking in the corners) - and Ayman al-Zawahiri noticably focused on Lebanon in his last appearance -  but it isn't coming from Muslim Brotherhood circles or from key Shia figures such as Fadlallah.   Whatever happens in the ongoing struggle between the two Lebanese coalitions and their external patrons, I don't see this crisis offering much support for meta-narratives about popular Sunni-Shia conflicts bubbling up to the surface.  Which doesn't mean that those hoping to promote such conflict won't try to frame it in that way...

resource tradeoffs and the war on ideas

I've linked several times to the outstanding work done by RFE/RL analyst Daniel Kimmage on al-Qaeda's internet operations, including his definitive study of Iraqi insurgent media (with Kathleen Ridolfo) and his more recent report on al-Qaeda's internet media production network.  There are very few people inside or outside the government who have worked harder or thought more deeply about how jihadists use online media, drawing on the original Arabic sources rather than from second and third-hand conjecture.  It is clear that everyone working on the issue has learned a tremendous amount from those reports, even when we don't agree on how to interpret his findings. 

The relevance of his work has grown along with the general appreciation of the importance of information operations to al-Qaeda's strategy, and a sense (rightly or wrongly) that the internet is a central front in this battle.  Just a few days ago,  State Department Coordinator of the Office for Counter-terrorism Dell L. Dailey stated that "terrorists consider information operations a principle part of their effort, use the Internet for propaganda, recruiting, fundraising, and increasingly for training. It has made the Internet a virtual safe haven."  So understanding how that works has got to be a top priority, right?  Especially given the widely noted shortage of analysts with Arabic language skills? 

So imagine my surprise to learn yesterday that '"the president of RFE/RL informed the analysts there that because of budgetary shortfalls, he had no choice but to fire them."  I've heard that Kimmage and Ridolfo are two of the analysts who have been given notice.   

That's right:  the US government is cutting loose one of its best analysts of al-Qaeda's use of the internet in order to save money which doesn't even amount to a rounding error in the Pentagons budget. Whether it's because of the fall of the dollar or because of the costs of Iraq, or more narrowly because of the Broadcasting Board of Governors need to pay the bills of the al-Hurra TV white elephant, this speaks volumes about both our real resource constraints and our real priorities.

I don't know how Kimmage himself feels about the situation, but I'm pretty peeved.  Anyone else working on these issues should be too. 

latest shots on the "war of ideas"

Once I get through all of this week's grading and stuff, I've got some more stuff to put out there on the war on ideas (or, as others call it, the war of ideas).  In the meantime, here are three brand new reports approaching the issue from various directions rather different than mine:

• Sharifa Zuhur, US Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute, Precision in the Global WAr on Terror: Inciting Muslims Through the War of Ideas.  Argues that US attempts to combat radical Islamism fail in part because of imprecise messaging and conceptualization of the problem - specifically, that Muslims "are unable to identify with the proposed transformative countermeasures because they discern some of their core beliefs and institutions as targets in this endeavor."
• Matthew Levitt and Michael Jacobson, WINEP, Highlighting Al-Qaeda's Bankrupt Ideology. Argues that success against al-Qaeda lies in going negative and exposing its true radicalism:  "one of al-Qaeda's goals is to "create a perception of a worldwide movement more powerful than it actually is." Consequently, the United States seems to be making a concerted effort to avoid contributing to this phenomenon."

One of the interesting points to note here is that both Zuhur and Levitt-Jacobson seem to be arguing against threat inflation and the conflation of different Islamist groups into a single undifferentiated threat:  "splitters" instead of "lumpers."  This seeming convergence is particularly interesting because Matt Levitt has been a key person in the campaign against Islamic charities and Hamas.   While I suspect that Levitt and Jacobson would draw the line in a different place than would Zuhur (or me), this is refreshingly far away from the threat conflation approach of "Islamofascism".

... okay, that was only two.  I was also going to link to a fascinating new Brookings paper by Hisham Hellyer on the lessons of British engagement with its Muslim community on counter-terrorism issues; it came in the mail yesterday, but I can't find an electronic version anywhere on its site.   If anyone can find a link, pass it on!  And now, back into undisclosed location filled with papers. UPDATE: here's a link to Hellyer's piece, which I see was published in December even though I only got it two days ago (mabrouk, ya post office!).

GP Wittes: Marching to Freedom Unsteadily

I am deep in grading week, and not likely to see sunlight any time soon.   In the meantime, here's a guest post from Tamara Wittes, author of the new book Freedom’s Unsteady March: America’s Role in Building Arab Democracy.  I might throw in some thoughts of my own later, but for now I turn it over to Tamara:

Guest Post:  Freedom's Unsteady March
Tamara Wittes, Brookings

 

Marc’s kindly offered me some space to flog my new book, Freedom’s Unsteady March: America’s Role in Building Arab Democracy. The book is a two-part argument – why I think that, despite the failures of recent years, it remains in America’s interest to advance democratic reform in the Arab world, and how the United States can pursue that goal while protecting its other interests in the region. In this post, I’ll focus on the first part. I’ll begin, though, with the premise that the United States continues to have crucial national interests at stake in the Middle East, and will continue to engage in the region militarily, politically, and economically to advance those interests.

In brief, the argument is that global and regional trends have eroded the resiliency of Arab authoritarianism while presenting challenges that Arab governments are ill-equipped to solve. The analysis centers around three main tools that Arab regimes traditionally used to sustain their social contracts and sustain their rule: rents (from oil and strategic assistance), political ideology, and coercion.  I argue that these three tools are all beginning to fail – they are either less available, less effective, or both.

The most important trend affecting Arab states, with far-reaching effects, is the so-called “youth bulge.” Hobbled by the legacies of a half-century of corporatist governance and state-dominance, Arab economies cannot grow fast enough to create enough jobs to absorb new entrants to the labor market – much less the already-unemployed. Oil rents may be high, but they are out of balance with the region’s demography, and they are not being well-used; new income is inefficiently and incompletely distributed through a network of ruling elites and regime supporters. At the macro-level, most of the region’s economies are growing – but income inequality is growing much faster. This is not China, where a rising tide is lifting all boats and bringing desperately poor people out of poverty – in the more populous states of the region, and the non-oil states, the tide hasn’t even lapped at most people’s hulls yet.

Governments know they need to restructure economies in line with the relentless demands of global investors, trade partners and lenders. They know that, given the demographics, they need to reform economically in order to stabilize politically, but – as today’s Egypt abundantly demonstrates – the political costs of these reforms are themselves too high and too destabilizing. So some governments are stuck, while others engage in half-hearted, start-stop cycles of reform that don’t achieve sustained growth. The state’s capacity to provide benefits to society, and to penetrate society in ways that suppress dissent and bind citizens to the state, is maxed out and beginning to decline.

If rents are no longer doing their job, neither is ideology binding Arab citizens to their governments. Arab nationalism’s decline is obvious; Palestine remains a highly salient issue for Arab citizens, but not one that motivates patriotic loyalty to the state – rather, allegiance to the Islamist opposition. With the decline of ideological legitimacy, government performance becomes a more important source of legitimacy and consent.

Coercion, of course, is still available to Arab states – but at a higher cost today, in an era of satellite TV, cell-phone cameras documenting police abuses and twittering bloggers reporting on their own arrest. The quick transfer of information exacerbates the impact of media and of international human rights monitors, putting more and faster pressure on Western governments to respond to abuses with protests and public criticism – a twenty-first century CNN effect.

The youth factor is also crucial in another way: young people define their aspirations in social and economic, as well as political terms – the ability to buy an apartment, to marry and have kids, all the other markers of normal adulthood. But there is a widening gap between young people’s aspirations for themselves and their real prospects. Arab youth are well aware of what opportunities their colleagues, even in other developing countries, have access to, and they know they are missing out. Plus, as some Brookings colleagues have pointed out, high marriage costs and high unemployment combine to raise the age at which young men can afford to marry and become full adults – Morocco’s average marriage age for young men has risen from 25 a generation ago to 32 today. This crop of unemployed, unmarried young men is an additional source of pressure on governments, and potentially a source of greater instability.

I don’t predict social revolutions in Arab states – their coercive resources are still significant, and many still have residual legitimacy. But I don’t believe that governments can formulate a coherent and lasting response to these pressures that does not involve either a wholesale revision of their power relations, or much-increased repression (perhaps ala Pinochet’s Chile – economic growth at a high societal cost). I think ramped-up repression is by far the likeliest outcome, and one that should be troubling to an American government concerned with the rise of regional extremism. Already, in the two years since the Lebanon War, Hassan Nasrallah has built up his lead as the most popular world leader in Egypt, according to my colleague Shibley Telhami’s polls. His narrative about the bankruptcy of Arab regimes – their humiliating deals with the United States and Israel and their deafness to their own citizens’ suffering – these are the tropes that America and its Arab allies must confront and seek to contain. We cannot do that without making liberalizing, democratizing reform a part of our agenda for US-Arab cooperation.

I recognize that this policy is easy to argue for, yet hard to do. The second half of the book discusses how Bush screwed it up; how the United States can try to make the case for democratic reform to recalcitrant Arab allies; how to prioritize; how to resolve conflicts between democracy promotion and other interests; and how to confront and resolve American worries about the prospect that Arab democracies necessarily mean Islamist victories. I hope you’ll give the book a look, and welcome your feedback at FreedomsUnsteadyMarch  ... at .... gmail dotta com.

off again

... going on the road for another conference for the next few days, with limited internet access.  Have a nice weekend!

Senate: make Iraq pay for Sons of Iraq

I was very intrigued to hear that the Senate Armed Forces Committee has unanimously recommended, in addition to a somewhat problematic ban on US financing for reconstruction projects larger than $2 million, that "Iraq also would have to pay to train and equip its security forces and provide the salaries of Sunni-dominated "Sons of Iraq" security groups."   I've been advocating this move for a long time - not to save money, but to force Maliki to integrate the Awakenings into state security force to advance both sectarian political accommodation and the effective sovereignty of the Iraqi state.  Here's an excerpt from what I wrote in March  after noting that Gen. Petraeus had just gone on record declaring the future of the "Sons of Iraq" to be the single thing which most kept him up at night:

So what to do?  Brian Katulis and Ian Moss over the weekend argued that "the United States must signal that it will stop its independent funding of the Sunni militias that are part of the sahwa movement, providing ample time for Iraq's Ministries of Defense and Interior to assume financial responsibility. With the price of oil hovering around $110 a barrel, the Iraqi government does not lack the resources to fund these groups on its own."   Over the last two weeks I had been privately circulating a similar proposal along these lines, though I had suggested sweetening the pot by offering to compensate the Iraqi government for the expense of hiring the Awakening fighters in order to remove any financial incentives. 

The argument basically goes like this.  If the Awakenings are not integrated into the national security forces, then there is little hope for political accommodation or for lasting security and the US is effectively trapped.  Since all other forms of persuasion seem to have failed, it's time to give Maliki an ultimatum:  in two months, payments to the Awakenings will cease.  If Maliki gives in, then there may finally be some hope for political accommodation and for overcoming the strategic problems created by the surge - think of it as cashing in the Awakenings chip before it loses its value.   

The downside is that if Maliki doesn't go along, dragging his feet and ignoring American advice as usual, then things may well get ugly. But all signs suggest that they will get ugly anyway - and better that they get ugly while the US is at the highest troop levels it will ever have.  If Maliki won't do this now, when US troop levels are high and security is relatively better, with the shadow of a new President who likely will not continue to offer an open-ended commitment, then he never will... and everyone should know this.  The upside is that if it works, then the next President - whoever it is - will be dealing with a more competent and more effectively sovereign Iraqi state in which the weight of Sunni arms is more vested rather than with an uneasy, violent standoff between heavily armed and mistrustful militias seperated only by American troops.

The argument for this has only gotten stronger over the last two months, as the Maliki government has suddenly found it possible to find jobs for significant numbers of members of Shia tribes and presumed Shia militia members in its battle against the Sadrists. Good move by the Senate Armed Forces Committee - now let's see if the recommendation can be leveraged into some real progress on that front.

how juggernaut is the AQ online juggernaut?

It seems that the internet's role in al-Qaeda's agenda is coming back up as a theme, with Matt Duss quoting Counterterrorism Office Coordinator Dell Dailey saying that al-Qaeda "has made the Internet a virtual safe haven."  I agree with much of the thrust of the importance of the internet and information operations more broadly to today's al-Qaeda, but in the spirit of contrarianism let me sketch out some bullet points of an argument that I made recently in a relevant forum against the conventional wisdom:

• It's true that al-Qaeda Central has dramatically increased and improved its internet distribution and production capabilities.  Al-Sahab, al-Fajr, et al have churned out a remarkable number of vides, audiotapes, and other media productions over 2007-2008 (I've heard the figure of 97 tapes in 2007, which is a lot, and the number will likely be higher this year;  and that doesn't even count the vast number of non-AQC productions - see Dan Kimmage's new report for more details).
  
• The forums do allow the direct distribution of their messages, cutting out the middleman of the al-Jazeera producer or the courier:  they can be directly uploaded and immediately accessed by all international media outlets (usually with convenient English subtitles, these days).  This virtually guarantees coverage, and helps them get around attempts by media outlets to distort or shape the message - as in AQ's furious response to al-Jazeera's presentation of the bin Laden tape on Iraq, which they were able to show was misrepresented because al-Jazeera didn't have the only copy.
• Finally, the forums are an extremely important virtual space for jihadists and interested observers to exchange information, have tactical arguments and doctrinal disputes, disseminate practical information (the much-discussed online training manuals) and key texts (i.e. the al-Tawhed virtual library), communicate broad strategic arguments from the center or from milieu strategists, and generally to build virtual community. 

But these forums and information operations have some underappreciated limitations:

• saturation effect:  more videos is not necessarily better.  One Bin Laden tape in four months has a tremendous impact, a dozen Zawahiri tapes in two months has considerably less.  In Zawahiri's Q+A, he repeatedly answered questions with an irritated "I already answered that in last month's speech" or "bin Laden already answered that in his speech."  That suggests that too many messages dilutes the impact. It also reduces the likelihood of massive media coverage, since the messages become routine.  The same applies for the Iraqi insurgency videos:  the first exploding hummer might be thrilling, but the 76th not so much.  The volume of tapes may be an important signal from AQ Central that it still matters, but it might come at a cost.
• accessibility:  internet sites require some effort to access, unlike the television set which might just be running in the background.  Jihadi forums are like internet porn, I suppose:  not that hard to find, but you actually have to look - it doesn't just pop up onto an innocent computer screen, usually.   As some of the most prominent open-access forums have been shut down (al-Qala'a) or hidden behind proxy servers (al-Tawhed), they become less accessible to the casually interested Muslim.  Requesting a password to the closed sites may be a daunting obstacle to those worried that this will get them put directly onto a Guantanamo list, or lead a terrorist to their doorstep.  Some of the videos make their way to YouTube or other more easily accessible sites, but most don't and AQ can not control their fate there.
  
• polarization effects:  Bin Laden and Zawahiri set out to reach the mainstream Muslim with their political arguments, to spread widely and deeply the sense of the reality of a clash of civilizations and the need to embrace the global jihad.  The discourse within online communities, it seems to me, often empower the most doctrinaire and ideological voices, which can leave the average, mainstream person either cold or with no point of entry.   They also tend to create a self-referential universe of terms, authors, and shared histories which can both raise the barriers to entry and distance them from the wider community (household names among jihadists may be nearly completely unknown in the wider Muslim world). Although I haven't seen this tested in any serious way, the impact of the rising importance of forums to al-Qaeda may be to strengthen the ideological purists (the salafi-jihadist hard core) over the generally angry but not ideologically pure fellow-traveler.   This may empower the base, but reduce the movement's broader appeal - and thus undermine the strategic goals of AQ Central.  We saw this most dramatically with Zarqawi, but even without his unique brand of sensationalism and brutality the general effect may hold.
  
• credibility:  the gap between rhetoric on the forums and actual behavior cuts both ways.  On the one hand, it hurts the credibility of some of the Iraqi forums when they present their group as engaged in ongoing war against the US occupation while everyone knows that they are actually cooperating with the US (check out the Hamas Iraq forum, if you want to be bored).   That doesn't mean that the rhetoric is meaningless:  it is significant that these groups feel the need to present themselves in this way to their members, their backers, and potential recruits.  But I suspect that it does undermine confidence in their claims among some of their intended audience.  Similarly, repeated intimations that major attacks are coming in Egypt or Israel or the West which don't happen can undermine confidence.  If the intended audience comes to think that the forums aren't where the real action is, they might well lose interest leaving behind only an echo-chamber or a shell.
  
• open dissent:  when figures respected by many within the jihadist milieu disagree with al-Qaeda strategy, their dissents instantly reach a very wide audience by jihadist standards through immediate and multiple repostings across multiple forums.   There has been a lot of attention in the West to 'recantations' and critiques of al-Qaeda by old jihadists such as Dr Fadl (from an Egyptian prison).  But from an internal al-Qaeda perspective, the greater challenge may come from challenges such as Hamed al-Ali's denunciation of the declaration of the Islamic State of Iraq or Abu Mohammed al-Maqdessi's critique of 'excessive takfir'.  What would once have been internal arguments are now public (or at least semi-public), which could be a healthy or unhealthy development depending on one's point of view.
• the blogosphere effect:  the, shall we say, quality of the contributions to these forums is not always the highest.  I come across quite a bit of posturing and bravado in these forums, hating on 'enemies' and back-patting of 'allies'.  The recent initiation of an 'al-Jazeera watch' feature on one of the forums tracking perceived slights and misrepresentation by the now maligned station reminds me of nothing so much as the partisan media criticism found on so many political blogs).  There's a lot of posting of articles or news reports clipped from the media, with long comment threads of cheering or jeering.  I remember seeing a bitter post on one of the main forums a few weeks ago (al-Boraq?  I forget) complaining that the "internet jihad" had failed since the forum had degenerated into personal attacks and what we would call flame-wars. This isn't to say that nothing on the forums should be taken seriously - far from it.    Some of the postings and discussions are very important, especially the writings and analysis of well-known and trusted figures, and "authenticated" posts with the official seal of approval. Even the "junk DNA" probably contributes to community building and to the 'warming' of online networks. But still....
  
• innovation:  there's a general perception that al-Qaeda is extremely cutting-edge in its use of internet technology, but I think this is overstated.  In fact, they seem to be a bit behind the curve.  Their successes lie in well-established technologies and media forms:  forums, video and audiotapes, online archives of manuals and such.   But whereas many Islamist groups have been innovative with newer internet technologies,  al-Qaeda really doesn't seem to be one of them:  releasing videos to forums is one thing, but Facebook-style social networking, virtual worlds, twittering and podcasting, and other stuff which I'm probably already too old to know about?  Zawahiri's Q+A was actually rather rudimentary - Iraqi groups and others had done this sort of thing before, and his offered little interactivity.  While various sources have suggested that jihadists are using Second Life or other virtual worlds for training (though the evidence on this seems to be mixed) and it's extremely possible that there are things going on that I haven't come across, in general I haven't really seen AQ pushing the envelope with these new internet or media technologies.  They seem kind of stuck in 2005, even if they are doing 2005 better and better. 

Again, none of this is to dispute the basic argument for the importance of the internet in shaping the realm of possibility for all forms of globalized movements, whether jihadist or otherwise.  But it's worthwhile considering some competing hypotheses about their use by al-Qaeda and their possible effects, and even to think about ways that they might be tested.