Al-Qaeda opportunistically leverages these skirmishes to perpetuate an impression of relevance for its primary constituency - the disparate pool of potential militants worldwide. However, no setting offers al-Qaeda with the opportunity to regain actual relevance among a wider audience more than Syria in its current quagmire.
While drawing selectively from centuries of Islamic scholarship, the ideological framework of al-Qaeda traces directly from 20th-century totalitarianism, originally presented ex cathedra as a remedy for the chronic failures witnessed by Muslim societies. Since its emergence as an uncompromising current within Islamist thought, al-Qaeda presented its ideology as a self-evident truth, stipulating solutions and summarily rejecting any opposing idea. With the transformations in the Arab world, which has witnessed widespread mobilization and empowerment of previously subdued populations, al-Qaeda ideologues have become more engaged in articulating an argument in favor of their view. Muslim societies, al-Qaeda ideologues note, strive to overturn the record of unfulfilled promises of progress and justice, while the West is at best indifferent toward - if not outright complicit in - their suffering and exploitation. Western methods and ideas - nationalism, socialism, liberalism, and democracy - are thus to be dismissed; legitimacy and justice are solely to be rooted in Islam.
The new, friendlier al-Qaeda ideological proposition still sounded outdated in the euphoria of the Arab Spring, with values such as freedom, dignity, and empowerment embraced by successive societies in North Africa and the Middle East, and applauded and supported by a welcoming world community. Then there was Syria.
International support for the peaceful popular uprising against the despotic rule of the Damascus regime failed to materialize. Red lines were drawn in the sand, and pronouncements of principle were vocalized in world capitals, from Ankara and Riyadh to Paris and Washington. Yet no concrete action was taken to stop the massacre, or the transformation of the peaceful uprising into a violent, asymmetrical conflict. For many Syrians, the notion of Western complicity, by omission or commission, in their plight is no longer dismissible. For many across the region, the al-Qaeda ideological stand is gaining new credibility.
While al-Qaeda is incapable of prevailing militarily in Syria, or elsewhere in the region, the missteps and hesitation of regional and international power may have accorded this organization a way out of what seemed to be a certain death. The invoice will follow.
