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Al-Qaeda's Agenda for Iraq

(New York Post) Amir Taheri - "It is not the American war machine that should be of the utmost concern to Muslims. What threatens the future of Islam, in fact its very survival, is American democracy." This is the message of a new book just published by al-Qaeda in several Arab countries. The author of The Future of Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula After the Fall of Baghdad is Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of Osama bin Laden's closest associates since the early 1990s. A Saudi citizen also known as Abu Muhammad, he was killed by security forces in Riyadh last June. The goal of democracy, according to Al-Ayyeri, is to "make Muslims love this world, forget the next world, and abandon jihad." If established in any Muslim country for a reasonably long time, democracy could lead to economic prosperity, which, in turn, would make Muslims "reluctant to die in martyrdom" in defense of their faith. Al-Ayyeri's analysis may sound naive; he also gets most of his facts wrong. But he is right in reminding the world that what happens in Iraq could affect other Arab countries - in fact, the whole of the Muslim world.
2003-09-05 00:00:00
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