Daniel Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack
158 μ¢¤³£ ¬μμ¬
brand, it was a rival group——that seized the day. Whereas bin
Laden tried to transcend the divisions within the jihadi movement,
Zawahiri often aggravates them, especially by denouncing his rivals.
Zawahiri’s public statements betray a pedantic tone, an overbearing
manner, and impatience with critics. Those who met bin Laden often
described him as charismatic. No one says that about Zawahiri. Not
surprisingly, al Qaeda has stagnated on his watch: the core organization
has not conducted a major attack in the West for over a decade, and its
aliates tend to shun the global jihadi agenda in favor o local concerns.
The United States has hunted Zawahiri since the mid-1990s, and it
is useful to consider what might have happened had it knocked him
out. His replacement might have tried to make the movement more
appealing by establishing his own credentials as a warrior. Perhaps he
might have made al Qaeda more like its
eventual rival, , by coming out o
hiding to join the Äght directly, plan-
ning more attacks in the West, or en-
gaging in more gruesome behavior, such
as beheadings. Or another leader might
have moved away from al Qaeda’s global
agenda, embracing the local and regional politics favored by many
al Qaeda aliates. But it seems unlikely that he would have done what
Zawahiri has: giving uninspiring speeches while takes over the
leadership o the global jihadi movement.
Other leaders, by contrast, punch above their weight. Exhibit A
might be Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, or MBZ, the crown prince
o Abu Dhabi and the de facto leader o the United Arab Emirates.
Once, the country’s foreign policy consisted o trying to keep its head
down and get even richer, following Saudi Arabia wherever it went.
Although the ¬¤ has a population o just ten million (only a tenth o
whom are actually ¬¤ citizens), under MBZ, it has reshaped the
Middle East. MBZ helped engineer the 2013 coup in Egypt, inter-
vened in Yemen to turn back the advance o the Houthi rebels, pushed
the blockade o Qatar, and backed a warlord in Libya’s civil war who
is now banging on the gates o Tripoli. Thanks to MBZ’s military
reforms, ¬¤ forces demonstrated surprising competence in the Äght-
ing in Yemen, which made the ¬¤, for a time, the dominant player in
much o the country. In a chaotic region, MBZ has managed to lever-
age his country’s wealth and military prowess to make the ¬¤ thrive.Even mature liberal
democracies are not
immune to the charms of
a dominant personality.