Four days from now mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. I remember the sheer scale of shock that struck everyone at the time, and how reactions subsequently unfolded, each according to their own perspective, ranging from conspiracy theories to the usual narratives.
The event was framed as an extraordinary example of violence that pierced the heart of the global order, represented by the US. Subsequently, a long war on terror began, in an attempt to pursue those responsible for the act rather than the ideology itself. While the Twin Towers held profound symbolism, the greatest impact regarding the enduring pain was the political and strategic order born from their rubble and ruins. The world reordered its security priorities out of fear of a repetition, prioritizing military capability above all else to handle the crisis.
The reality is that the US shock was understandable and justified from the perspective of Americans, to whom the event appeared as a collapse of the concept of geographic security that had long protected the US and granted it peace of mind against being targeted. However, the subsequent behavior was also expected, as is typical of major powers seeking to restore their image through a swift response that dominates news screens just as the event itself did, to prove that power is still capable of inflicting punishment. Therefore, the intervention in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime, which had provided a safe haven for al-Qaeda, was understandable from a political and security standpoint.
The move from Afghanistan to Iraq changed the equation and the perspective on the crisis. It was no longer merely about pursuing the al-Qaeda organization, which had committed a major folly whose repercussions persist to this day, but rather about exploiting the shock to redefine the Middle East and reposition American power within it.
It was here that the George W. Bush administration’s rhetoric conflated the fight against terrorism with weapons of mass destruction, regime change, and the promotion of democracy, aiming to reproduce the image of the US as the undisputed post-Cold War superpower. The Iraq War was not merely the result of an intelligence failure; it was the product of a broader political vision that believed American security could be achieved by removing undesirable regimes and rebuilding the region in the image of American interests.
In my view, after a quarter of a century of contemplating the incident and reading most of what has been written about it, the response to the event was nothing short of an expression of a primarily strategic crisis. The dilemma of terrorism, extremism, and the rhetoric that produces them was treated as a problem that could be solved by altering political maps from the top down. Meanwhile, the core of the crisis was the problem of a violent ideological discourse that grew within the breeding ground of a fragile and weak state like Afghanistan, and other countries that served as safe havens for al-Qaeda due to fragility, weakness, and the absence of the state, allowing it to reconstitute transnational financing and recruitment networks.
The overthrow of Saddam Hussein did not mean possessing the capability to build a stable Iraq. Instead, the impact of disbanding the army, destroying state institutions, and dismissing thousands of employees from their jobs created a secondary environment where the chaos of sectarianism became entangled with the frenzy of extremism. This gave birth to ISIS and magnified the greatest challenge of the post-September 11 world.
The event transformed into an American syndrome: a costly project to engineer a state under American administration that relied for its survival on foreign funding and protection, effectively handing Iraq over to Iran. Thus, the more the mission expanded, the more elusive victory over the specter of terrorism became. This was due to a pattern of behavior characterized by raising the ceiling of objectives, stumbling to create a political consensus, and subsequently withdrawing, leaving behind a massive vacuum exploited by sub-state actors and armed factions.
Subsequently, a pattern emerged that I describe as "fast-food" counterterrorism: special forces operations targeting leaders or drone strikes. While all of these are important and effective in weakening organizations, they failed to create a political alternative capable of state-building, protecting marginalized societies, or even preventing civilian casualties from becoming fertile ground for recruitment and rhetoric for counter-mobilization.
Therefore, the post-September 11 world was not necessarily better at dealing with terrorism, despite tremendous progress in surveillance, data, and intelligence coordination. It became more capable of detecting cells, tracking funding, and targeting leadership, yet less agreed on defining the threat and its boundaries, and more inclined to reduce the crises of fragile states to their security dimension.
The center of gravity for terrorism shifted from Afghanistan and Iraq to the African Sahel, the Lake Chad basin, and the Horn of Africa, while organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda retained their ability to transition from territorial control to local branches, digital networks, and lone actors. Consequently, the centralized organization weakened, but the environment that produces extremism was not addressed to the same extent. Thus, the memory of September 11 transformed into the production of a global war on terror rhetoric and the justification of security frameworks without a critical review of strategies.
Away from September 11, the Saudi experience offered a different lesson. The Kingdom confronted terrorism when it shifted from a transnational rhetoric to direct violence on its own soil in 2003, which marked a turning point for us as Saudis regarding the issue of terrorism. We did not treat it solely as a security phenomenon, but rather as an ideological and social breach that required a multifaceted confrontation and a strategic mix. This approach combined security firmness, draining the sources of funding, and developing proactive security and intelligence capabilities.
Most importantly, however, there was a highly significant Saudi experience in countering extremist discourse - acknowledged even by Western think tanks - as was the case with rehabilitation within a major institutional framework that brought together various sectors, from state security to education.
The core value of the Saudi model lies in the fact that it did not use terrorism as a pretext to paralyze society, roll back growth and development, or compromise on religious fundamentals. Instead, it turned countering extremism into a shared responsibility between the state, its institutions, society, and religious, cultural, and social actors. From their respective positions, each contributed to building a robust and long-term immunity against this rhetoric, alongside maintaining vigilance against operations that were dismantled due to state power and societal trust. This was further sustained by promoting moderate religious discourse and providing all societal means to propel Saudis toward a future that has transformed into a narrative far more compelling than the rhetoric of extremism and the narrative of violence.
