Stop Looking for the Next al-Qaeda

In the last week there have been two good examples of a very familiar malaise that periodically affects governments around the world. Let's call it "blame al-Qaida syndrome". In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks there was a particularly acute outbreak of blame al-Qaida syndrome, which threatened to reach epidemic proportions. Many deeply unpleasant administrations around the world suddenly decided that deep-rooted domestic campaigns of Islamic militant violence were nothing to do with decades of repressive misrule and everything to do with a newly discovered, for most people, group led by Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaida was, of course, responsible for the September 11 attacks in America but it was not active in Uzbekistan, western China, the Philippines, Algeria, Chechnya or indeed in Saddam-controlled Iraq.