main
The Eurasian Politician - March 2004
By: Antero Leitzinger, March 15, 2004
(Translation: AKK)
Driven into desperation by the election broadcasts for the Spanish election, did not avoid any means to unscrupulously exploit the opportunity offered by the circumstances, with no respect to a mourning period or electoral peace. The temptation to dramatically influence the outcome of the election was too big, and it was successful. Although the new government will probably do its best to wipe out terrorism and to continue what they will see as responsible foreign policy, it will never be able to get rid of the dirt that the rise into power with shameful methods caused to its reputation.
The terrorists will expect the new government to be indebted to them, and if the government will not act in accordance to their expectations, it will face even stronger bitterness than its predecessor. The history of leftist groups has shown that nothing is as hated by the marginalized extremists as a comrade who has gone to the same side with the class enemy. It is very difficult for an outsider to understand those controversies between splinter groups, which are enough to brand an old ally as a traitor and arch-enemy.
This means there are hard times ahead, not only for Spain, but also for all other countries where the extreme left might apply the teachings of Spain. For the luck of the Europeans, there are not many elections this year (the danger will be most eminent to the US, Australia, and South Korea). However, the situation may change in Germany.
According to Der Spiegel (no. 11, March 8th, 2004), the support for CDU/CSU has risen to 50 percent, while for SPD it has sunk to 24 percent. If there will be premature Bundestag election, power will be shifted to the right. However, the left will now possess a secret weapon, which it can mobilize at times of need? Although the initiative will come from extremist groups, and there is no need for ordering it, just the consciousness of its existence will give the left new hope and paralyzes the right's preparedness to follow a freely chosen foreign policy. As the joker card of political game has been played in Spain, and it has proven surprisingly successful, it will undoubtedly be used again.
The consciousness will make even moderate left feel partially guilty, just as visible support from extreme right would cause serious embarrassment in the moderate right. The difference lies in the fact that terrorism has so far been a weapon increasing the left's political weight, and not the right's, and al-Qaida, which has become a mythical factor in Western politics, is by its nature first and foremost anti-American and anti-Semitic. Any extremist group can launch terrorist attacks in the name of al-Qaida and find suitable explanations from the foreign politics of its country, but to be reliable, the fundamental motive must always be connected with the activities of the US or Israel.
It follows from this that adding terrorism to the arsenal of unconventional tools of political manipulation is most suitable for those countries which have been part of the Western Coalition. Terrorists also don't call back the activities they have prepared, although there was a change of government or foreign policy. This was witnessed in the case of Turkey. Because there is a need for enough time for preparations, the terrorists may also start preparing already during a leftist government in order to strike soon after a regime shift.
Germany is in an increasing danger after what happened in Spain. The extremist movements may lack a realistic vision of how to prevent the right from rising into power, but in Spain they learned how to take away enough of the support from a right wing government in the next election. In Spain, the change from latest polls to the outcome of the election was about 10 % - that means as many as every tenth Spanish voter changed his or her mind due to an act of violence. Such an impact would radically change the outcome of most of European elections, as in stable Western countries the support between the right and the left tend to be close enough to fifty-fifty.
Timing is decisive, as is also the massiveness of the strike. The victims should be totally innocent and they have to be 200, with more than a thousand wounded. The target no longer needs to be an aircraft or a landmark, as far as there is enough bloodshed. The impact is strengthened if the media is already at the brink of hysteria, which guarantees that they will not let the criminal investigators to do their work. If forecasts and polls are depressing for the left, the shock effect will help to avoid the danger of too much honorability, i.e. that politicians and journalists would abstain from harassing the government.
The terrorists cannot allow confusion over the culprits (like in September 2001) to suppress looking for a scapegoat. They have to prepare for that, with suitable hints, which would help the voters to blame their government for the shaken security. Actions of foreign politics are much more suitable for motive than controversies in domestic politics, problems of economy, or ideological differences. As the "yellow press" in the 1800s fomented wars between Germany and France, or between Spain and the USA, nowadays it is possible to rise a people against their government, which still failed 90 years ago.
Earlier, terrorism was not enough to frighten monarchs into exile, but it is an efficient methods in our time, when democracy, free and prompt flow of information, and freedom of demonstrations prevail. The terrorists live in a symbiosis with such people who principally do not accept violence, but who in practice serve the purposes of the extremists. These people consist of sympathizers, myth-constructing researchers, pacifists and humanists, useful idiots, sensationalist journalists as well as easily provoked opponents.
In Madrid, March 11, 2004, a new phase of terrorism began, and in the following years it will go around the allies of the US, increasingly becoming a persistent political companion of parliamentary and presidential elections. Its primary impact will be seen as a setback for the rightist trend that started a couple of years ago, and the emergence of a new leftist wave resembling the one in the early 1990s. Secondary impacts will follow as a revenge of the right in the 2010s. By then, however, rightism has changed its shape. The fashionable economic liberalism of the 1980s as well as the conservatism of the 1990s will be replaced by right-wing populism demanding hard discipline, law and order, calling for strong leaders and getting inspiration from leftist populism. It will resemble the anti-Semitic early national socialism of the 1880s, and Benito Mussolini of the 1920s, but it is to be expected that the Jews will be replaced by Muslims in the role of aliens and troublemakers. Russia will be the leader of this reaction.
The centuries-old arch-enemy of Russia, Turkey, is simultaneously being left in a very difficult position mainly due to the very situation in Germany. The present government has promised to advocate Turkey's bid for EU membership, but most of the opposition leaders have been repulsive to the idea. If the right rises into power in Germany before the EU summit in December, or the German government proves too weak, the EU may reject Turkey in a way that forces the Turks into a total reorientation in their foreign policy.
If Russia's influence in Europe gains strength simultaneously when Turkey's influence loses strength, the great power politics of Europe will increasingly resemble the situation in the late 1800s. That era was dominated by the wars in the Balkans and the Caucasus, genocides, deportations and pogroms (against Crimean Tatars, Circassians, Jews, and Armenians), accelerated armament race, an end of free trade, and a German-Russian axis that proved untenable.
Russia appears just now more dynamic than ever before, or ever hereafter. This can be concluded, first of all, from economical facts, such as the exceptionally high level of the world market price for oil, which is protecting Russian economy. Secondly, this is a result of the presidential election. After this, Vladimir Putin will have to choose whether he, after his term, gives up his power - which would be an unprecedented case in Russian politics, especially if he would not hand his power over to a pre-selected successor - or whether he rather changes the constitution to get new terms. Napoleon Bonaparte had himself crowned as an emperor 200 years ago.
Der Spiegel (March, 8) offers background information, based on a poll, according to which the characteristics that the Russians value most in their president include youthfulness, activity, physical health and professionalism. Most of these criteria will inevitably weaken by rising age. So, the expectations for future as well as promises are now at their peak in Russia, and the forthcoming years will inevitably be characterized by disappointment, frustration and dissatisfaction. That means that the strengthening of Russia's foreign political status will coincide with the weakening of the empire's internal strength. This means accumulating threat posed to the neighboring countries, which will push them to form closer alliances with Turkey and the US.
If the US remains in Republican control and actively involved in the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia, it can offer the support Turkey needs. This would mean that NATO will survive, even though the European states would start to develop their own security systems and rival co-operation patterns. If the US withdraws from the Islamic world and leaves Turkey alone, the latter has to seek closer ties with Israel, inevitably reforming Iran, and the nuclear power Pakistan. Single Arab countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt will probably join them. At all events these countries will remain the primary strategic pivots for international terrorism, and weakening or destabilizing them will also remain a strategic interest of Russia and India.
The US and Europe will stay as the subsidiary theater of terrorism, as the terrorists want that the West stays out of the Islamic world. In other words, the terrorists' main goal is that the West would withdraw all support from Turkey, Israel and their allies. Inspired by the experience in Spain, the terrorists will concentrate in massive strikes before elections. After Spain, the next target may well be Germany, which has a negative attitude at the Western involvement in Iraq, suffers from a complex relationship with Israel, and from contradictory stands concerning Turkey's membership in the EU.
The terrorists will probably try to foment the dormant anti-Semitism in Germany, which the terrorists probably estimate stronger under the surface than what it really is, due to the historical images and the discourse in those ideological currents where the terrorists dwell. They will also try to sabotage the German support for Turkey's membership in the EU. The result of any act of terrorism that can be somehow connected with any conflict of the Islamic world will be the turning of a significant proportion of German voters against such a government that advocates warmer German relations with Turkey and Israel. For determined terrorists, Iraq and Afghanistan are just irrelevant excuses, which will be more useful for destabilizing minor European states such as the Netherlands, Denmark, the Baltic countries, Poland, and some others. The Germans should not fall into the belief that they would have bought safety from the immediate terrorist attention with their few years of demonstrated anti-Americanism.
* * *
The author is a Finnish historian and researcher of the Directorate of Immigration.