As I write, different Libyan sources wrangle over who is really behind the attack on the Corinthia hotel in Tripoli. Isis claimed responsibility. But the Tripoli-based government has pointed at a group associated with the Tobruk-based (and internationally-recognised) government.

Despite the unclear situation, the case illustrates what is wrong with much conventional wisdom about the nature of Islamist terrorism in general.

Conventional wisdom lumps all Muslims as proto-jihadist supporters. In addition, it lumps together all kinds of Islamist terrorism, even though they might call for rather different counter-strategies. For example, the rationale of states that sponsor terrorist groups is not the same as that of a terrorist network, like Isis or Al-Qaeda. Conventional wisdom believes such distinctions are not important.

Of course, once you believe all this, it makes sense to believe that the whole of Islam is against us, just biding its time. If the enemy is so great and insidious, then pre-emptive strikes and total repression are the rational response. And, under the pressure of vote-catching and fund-raising, some Western politicians sign up to the conventional wisdom.

But it’s not what anti-terrorism experts believe. They distinguish between states and nationalist terrorists (for both of whom terrorism is a negotiating instrument but who accept the international community as it is) and jihadists who reject the international order.

The experts think it’s as dangerous to present Isis and Al-Qaeda as an unprecedented kind of enemy as it is to glide over some important differences from other terrorist groups.

They base that judgement on their knowledge of other terrorist groups, analysis of Islamist manifestos, profiles of suicide bombers… In short, real information, sifted and compared.

The experts urge that anti-terror responses are measured, differentiating (between the various factions within a network, let alone all Muslims) and non-polarising.

Collective anti-terror experience shows total repression is often counter-productive and decapitation of terrorist leaders alone will not necessarily work.

It’s important also to choose which members of the terrorist network one can offer an exit-strategy (since many terrorist recruits, in Isis too, often regret their decision but can’t see how they can return to their previous lives). And it’s essential to flake away critical support and members by negotiation, so as to isolate the inner core.

It’s at this point that someone always pipes up to say that there’s no such thing as a moderate Muslim: they don’t think like other people because religion is non-negotiable to them, and that the real Islam urges them all to wage war on unbelievers, permitting them only to bide their time.

Therefore, the argument goes, there is no such thing as negotiation; there is only appeasement.

There are several ways to show the problems with this argument. I could use the same technique of selective quotation to show that evangelical Christianity is set on a new Crusade to dominate the world. Indeed, all I’d need to do would be to translate one or two Islamist videos intent on ‘showing’ just that.

But we can learn a thing or two from the targeting of the Corinthia. Even from the little we know (at the time of writing), we can see a logic that confirms what the experts say about Islamist terrorism in general.

First, why the Corinthia?

An attack on the Corinthia is an attack on a specific kind of economy

Here in Malta, some online posters immediately concluded that either Malta was the target or else there was a specific VIP at the hotel.

The Tripoli-based government took the line that this was an act of black propaganda by the Tobruk-based adversary, aiming to turn the world against Tripoli.

To those who said Malta was the target, I have belated news for you. The Corinthia group has long outgrown the country of its origin. Its profile in Libya, especially, is that of an international blue-chip company responsible for flagship projects associated with economic development and cosmopolitanism.

It’s unlikely that either of the two warring governments would want to target the Corinthia, although one cannot exclude an allied militia that conducted a rogue operation (or else had a different operation go wrong – a previous bomb attack that damaged the Corinthia was of this kind).

An attack on the Corinthia is an attack on a specific kind of economy. The hotel both symbolises it as well as hosts many of the businessmen, lobbyists and diplomats that drive it.

If this attack drives them away, the Libyan economy will become even more unstable than it is already and the political consequences will be dire.

The beneficiaries of this attack will be groups like Isis and Al-Qaeda. The attack will disrupt the fledgling, already weak peace process.

It will polarise the main factions in Libya. It tempts the international community to get out of what seems like a morass.

If it damages the Libyan economy, it will end up making ordinary Libyan people more dependent on the smuggling and crime networks associated with the militias, not least Isis and al-Qaeda, whose penetration of western Libya, especially the coast, is based on securing more sources of income, not just political domination.

With oil production down, and dwindling oil revenues, ordinary Libyans face a salary crunch several months down the road if the current impasse is not solved.

If it isn’t, the Islamist militias will offer a simple economic incentive: salaries twice the average, paid regularly.

This is what they are already doing in Libya as in Syria.

The strategy is easy to follow – as long as you understand Islamist terrorists as an interest group with problems of recruitment unless it runs a protection racket: special salaries for recruits, terror and random violence for the rest.

But if you follow the conventional wisdom, you will see all Muslims as proto-terrorists and the terrorists’ ideology as essentially the real Islam to which all Muslims subscribe.

So you won’t be able to make sense of anything: not why Muslims need special incentives to join a group, not why the majority resists in any case, not why the terrorists need to kill so many fellow Muslims.

You will also not understand the process by which the jihadists came to penetrate western Libya. It’s too complicated to describe on this occasion but one factor – say, in the coastal town of Sabratha – is the alliance with former Gaddafi men pursuing self-interest (even though more of them are to be found in the Tobruk alliance).

The expert view on Islamist terrorism enables us to pursue peace (at some expense to justice) using strategies of negotiation and offers of safe exit, which are an essential part of the dismantling of terrorist networks.

The conventional view – based on lumping all Muslims together as unthinking, irrational fanatics who hate us – is a recipe for bolstering jihadist recruitment: truly a case of our racism coming back to haunt us.

ranierfsadni@europe.com

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