|
both nationalists and Arab Islamists. Some of the latter thought they could achieve political power through things like the Islamic party in Algeria; but the Algerian army had a coup to stop them. So the Islamists started terror campaigns in Algeria and Egypt. But the people didn't flock to them, or rise up against the government; so the extremists started targeting anyone who even though of cooperating in the government (ie most of the population). In Algeria the extremists lost all support, and ended up fighting among themselves.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was collapsing economically and socially. Both the neocons and Afghan mujaheddin thought they had achieved this, but there was really far more to it than that. When European communism collapsed, the neocons were left without their 'uniting foe' that Straussian thought needed. Much to Wolfowitz's annoyance, Bush Senior didn't take over all of Iraq, and the neocons saw this foreign policy as the 'moral relativism' of their enemy Kissinger all over again. So they hijacked the 1992 Republican convention, conning the religious right that they were on a great moral crusade. But the people didn't buy it, and voted for Clinton and "it's the economy, stupid". The neocons then started all the Whitewater investigations, to paint the Clintons as depraved monsters - the 'uniting foe' they needed.
Meanwhile, bin Laden, having been a fighter in Afghanistan, and then a leader of Islamic Jihad, trying to overthrow the Egpytian government, which failed (like Algeria), decided to go back to Afghanistan, the one place where fundamental Islamists might still be able to take over.
|