Nonetheless, jihadist movements in the 1980s pitted the two sides of the Cold War against each other. The Soviet Union was seen as their main enemy because of its immediate encroachment to the East, its superior organization to Western capitalists, and its atheistic tendencies, according to Phares.
These movements, he said, saw the U.S.S.R.'s collapse as Allah's satisfaction, thus warranting unctuous relations with and the subsequent invasion of the West.
Phares described how many jihad networks began operating in the West and inside the United States in the early 1990s to ensure security within the "belly of the dragon."
He also said the United States' weak reprisal after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing galvanized Osama bin Laden to declare war against the United States in a 29 minute speech in 1998.
Soon thereafter, Al Qaeda struck the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Thus, "all the scenarios after 9/11 existed before," said Phares.
He described American foreign policy before Sept. 11 as selfish, naïve, and diffident because of its reluctance to use military or political action.
"We didn't touch regimes in the Middle East because it would 'complicate international relations'... One regime change would result in a tsunami," said Phares, suggesting the blocked dam of democracy fortified by oil-friendly states in the area that harbor terrorist attacks on Israel out of a fear that an Arab-Israel resolution will jeopardize their power by spreading transparent governments.
"Egypt and the Saudis advised against De-Baathification," he said, because it would have lead to their own demise.
These collapses, he reasoned, substantiate the war against terror, which "will be ended by a generation of fighting" that achieves an anecdote from within by establishing an alternative educational system formerly shielded by rich, oil-shielded regimes.
Iraqi women voters, he said, will influence the region, and this transitional society will "surely develop into a democracy" that will spread.
An "Iraqi civil society [will] produce a political culture and system that will be able to shield Iraq from the return of Baathists and Taliban-like regimes."
One already sees this transformative vigor, he said, in Syrian reformists, opposition leaders in Lebanon, and students in Iran, all part of the world's last region to receive help in democratic reform.
"The Middle East was the only region abandoned for its own status quo: Do not engage democratic forces because of oil," said Phares.
Phares concluded by noting the irony of "neo-cons in Washington helping progressive forces in the Middle East ... while liberals in the West have abandoned progressive movements in the Middle East."
Spring Break
