Vol. 69 No. 2 2002 - page 283

NICHOLAS X. RIZOPOULOS
283
of pieces included in
How Did This Happen?: Terrorism and the New
War-a
three-hundred-page paperback volume which appeared in early
December.
It
was also wise on the editors' parr to emphasize the "how" in the
tirle as least as much as the "why" or the "what next," making this
rather thorough in itia I a utopsy of
91
I I
more useful for the general
reader than any number of shorter collections, published at about the
sa me ti me, that focused on the" lessons of history," or on questions of
future American strategy in the face of this new "Age of Terror" (the
title of the small volume edited by Strobe Talbott and Nayan Chanda,
with contributions primarily from Yale faculty members).
How Did This Ha/Jpell?
sticks in large measure to commonsensical
analyses of developments in the Middle East (and Islamic societies out–
side the Arab world) since the end of the Gulf War; and, without by any
means disregarding the burden of earlier history, the peculiar
antecedents of Islamic terrorism, or the less-than-perfect track record of
American power politics and diplomacy in the Cold War era, stays clear
of roo much theoretical speculation or counterfacrual musings. Better
yet, there is a dearth of ex cathedra pronouncements on such favorite
subjects of recent academic debates as the "clash of civilizations" or the
"perils of globalization."
To be sure, the occasional essay does venture too far afield from the
actual topic at hand; and a few authors with axes to grind muddy the
waters without adding to our understanding of recent events. But, on
the whole, most of the volume's contributors adhere to the sensible line
laid down in the editors' brief but extremely helpful introduction.
for Hoge and Rose, "the short answer" to
How Did This Happen?
is clearly this: "Because some very determined people ... driven by a
perverse interpretation of one of the world's great religions, and by
hatred of the United States and all that it stood for ... wanted to make
it happen and were able to outwit the defenses erected against them."
In effect, "a new kind of terrorist, driven by fanaticism and hatred
rather than limited political objectives ... managed to evade the search–
ing eyes of American intelligence agencies and slip through a porous
domestic security system." This is not to say that Osama bin Laden and
his cohorts did not (in theory at least) espouse a specific political agenda
(itself an outgrowth of the perceived "long history of Western humilia–
tions of the Muslim world" and of "American support of Israel")-to
wit, "to oust the Americans from the Middle East, overthrow so-called
moderate Arab governments, and create a unified Muslim nation based
on a puritanically oppressive theology." Therefore, the meticulously
159...,273,274,275,276,277,278,279,280,281,282 284,285,286,287,288,289,290,291,292,293,...322
Powered by FlippingBook