The Origins of the War on Terrorism Paradigm

Abstract

It is now widely accepted among scholars that a new national security paradigm emerged in the United States after 9/11. Th parad gm h ft acc mpa ed the Ge rge W. Bu h adm trat ’ dec arat f a “g ba war terr r” and consisted of new interpretations of domestic and international law, new recognition of the threats posed by non-state actors, and a stated determination to eradicate threats everywhere before they emerged. Yet most ch ar h p ha eg ected exam at f th parad gm’ r g . t became d m a t after 9/11, but t d d t originate then. Examination of these origins and the original context shows that the war on terrorism paradigm was t created re p e t a cata tr ph c attack the Amer ca “h me a d”; rather t ar e ut f a x et e ab ut U.S. capacity exert its will in the Third World. Its foundations were established long before its post-9/11 revival. This paper places these origins within the context of U.S.-Middle East relations in the 1980s. It reads together the public discourses of Lebanese Hizbullah and of U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz who, more than any other U.S. official, promulgated the justifications for the war on terrorism, to show that the notion of a jihad aimed at American power and of a war on terrorism had a basis in anxieties about the capacity of American power in the M dd e Ea t. The art c e u e the auth r’ r g a tra at f the H zbu ah’ 1985 “Ope Letter t the Oppre ed” a g de Ge rge Shu tz’ pub c pr u ceme t betwee the tart f the U.S. terve t Lebanon in 1982 and the climax of the Iran-Contra scandal. It argues that provocations of the war on terrorism and the war on terrorism itself emerged out of emotions connected to the efficacy of American power in the Middle East.