About Fawaz A. Gerges
Article: Iraq 'lighting rod' for extremists, says Sarah Lawrence professor

The Review Press, Dec. 16, 2004, by James Withers.

When Fawaz A. Gerges speaks, every word is crafted with scholarly care, which of course is logical: Gerges earned degrees from the London School of Economics and Oxford University, and has taught at Harvard and Princeton universities.

In 1998, Gerges was awarded a two-year research writing grant from the MacArthur Fellowship, and since 1994 he has held the Christian A. Johnson Chair in Middle Eastern Studies and International Affairs at Sarah Lawrence College. He would have gladly stayed in the cloistered academic world except for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"Sept. 11 was a great shock," Gerges said. "There was so much loss and damage it forced academics to get out of our ivory towers."

Gerges is now a consultant and regular commentator for ABC News, and has appeared on various radio and TV shows across the globe from CNN to the BBC. While he is honored to be part of the public debate, Gerges admits his training as a historian is contrary to the sound-bite age.

"I'm supposed to be an historian who delves deep into arguments," he said.

Gerges spent two years interviewing Muslim extremists and in the spring his k, "The Jihadists: Unholy Warriors" will be published by Harcourt Press. According to Gerges, by the late 1990s most jihadists wanted to stop fighting because they were not gaining ground against the rulers of countries such as Saudi Arabia. To reinvigorate the movement, Muslim extremists decided it was time to leave regional targets alone and move on to a different enemy: the United States.

"They decided to shift gears and stay in business," said Gerges.

Gerges makes the point that in his interviews, many jihadists did not think much of the leader of al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden, whose base was in Afghanistan, was methodically making plans for an attack as early as 1998, and was even making explicit threats against the U.S. Gerges agrees with the 9/11 Commission Report that the al-Qaida danger was consistently dismissed by many government officials.

"We underestimated the nature and intensity of the threat," Gerges said.

After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, al-Qaida lost its operating base, thus making the planning of future attacks difficult.

"The senior leadership is on the run constantly. It is difficult to plot and plan when you are on the run."

However, this does not mean that al-Qaida is gone from the international scene.

"Al-Qaida has become more of a franchise in the past two years," said Gerges. "It has adapted itself to the local situation."

Gerges estimates there are al-Qaida cells in 53 countries and they essentially operate on their own with no formal directions.

Bin Laden and his followers may be on the run, but the conflict in Iraq, according to Gerges, is becoming more of a lightning rod for the extremists.

"The largest active jihadist contingent is in Iraq. Iraq is a fire that could range on for years," said Gerges.

Gerges makes it clear that he sheds no tears for the toppling of Saddam Hussein. "Iraq is free of Saddam Hussein who was a bloody dictator," he said.

But the promise of Iraqi freedom stands next to serious problems. Close to 100,000 Iraqis have died since the start of the war, more than 1,000 American military members have been killed and there is a 60 percent unemployment rate in the country.

Gerges is hesitant about predicting the future; as a serious historian he has no use for reckless speculating. He said, however, that "the American invasion opened a Pandora's box," and that the U.S. must have a concrete date for when it plans to withdraw its troops.

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