Jessica Stern attracted global attention last year when Foreign Affairs published her path-breaking essay entitled ‘Pakistan’s Jihad Culture’. In it, Stern argued that Pakistan’s role in fomenting extremism outside Pakistan was inadvertently furthering sectarian violence within Pakistan and threatening the stability of the country. In this interview with HAQ, she discusses the nature of, and potential solution to militant fundamentalism in the region.

Jessica Stern is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University and has authored a critically acclaimed book, The Ultimate Terrorists (1999). From 1994-95, she served as Director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs in the National Security Council.

HAQ: In a recent essay you cite the late scholar Eqbal Ahmed who noted that the idea of jihad had really died out in the Muslim world until the United States instrumentally stoked the dying embers. So do we blame the US or is it more accurate to say that the US could not have foreseen the strategic consequences of its tactical actions?

JS: Well I think that both of those statements are true. What the US did probably was the right thing to do at the time, but it is also true that the US did inadvertently create the first international jihad. So in a sense we created our worst enemy.

HAQ: Yet, shouldn’t the US have done more to demobilize the Taliban? For example, there was the half-hearted effort to recover Stinger missiles from Afghani militia. 

JS: I think that is correct. People now realize that we cannot afford to make that mistake again. By leaving Afghanistan in a civil war, by allowing it to become a failed state, we allowed it to become the “Jihad University” for the entire world. This was wrong – it was counter to our own national security interests. Moreover, there is now a new understanding that failed states are more than humanitarian issues – they are a threat to international security. People in my field never worried about something like this. For the first time it has become clear that humanitarian crises have international security implications.

Another element that I see as being critically important is that my research shows there is an organizational dynamic to terrorist groups. That is to say, once an organization exists, it has an incentive to keep going. So you have these groups that don’t want to give up the fight – when there is no jihad for them to fight in Afghanistan, they look for a fight elsewhere. I have heard this over and over again from the jihadis whom I have interviewed in Pakistan and they keep repeating that they are “spiritually addicted” to jihad.

HAQ: What is your position on the competing arguments provided by some Western analysts that economic or psychological reasons drive the donation of children to jihadi movements?

JS: Remember that these families who donate their sons are very, very poor and undoubtedly their mothers are thinking that their sons might die of hunger, illness or some sort of disease anyway. So although some women say to me that they are proud of their sons, I do not think that this is entirely true. I do not think that the benefit is entirely psychological – rather, social approval is only one of the elements that enters into their decision-making process. 

HAQ: You estimate that 15% of Pakistan’s madrassahs provide fundamentalist education. More recently, Senator Sam Brownback and US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca have proposed investment in primary education in Pakistan. But is secular education either necessary or sufficient to combat fundamentalism? After all, it failed to curb ethnic hatred in Eastern Europe.

JS: No, it is neither adequate nor sufficient – but it is critically important. To have generations of young men who have no real world options means that they are susceptible to the teachings of radical destructive clerics. So yes, education will take a long time to take effect; and no, it is not the entire solution. But it has to be part of the solution as there is no way that Pakistan will recover without educating its youth – education serves to pull people out of poverty.

HAQ: Contrary to the view that investment in primary education will solve the fundamentalism problem, fundamentalists such as Osama bin Laden would argue that their behavior is a direct response to specific American policies in the Middle East. Therefore won’t a change in America’s policies be a more certain way to reduce fundamentalism?

JS: No, I don’t think it will. The extremists do have many grievances including US troops in Saudi Arabia and America’s backing of Israel. However, we should also keep in mind that Osama bin Laden said after the September 11 attacks that his mission is to end America’s anti-Islam agenda. But what is an anti-Islam agenda? To me this sounds like a branding device. I see organizations that persist as being very important in explaining the jihadi groups. James Wilson said that the first and last thing you need to know about organizations is that they persist.

Now consider the tragic fact that you have a lot of people making money off jihad and that these groups have access to young men who are willing to become cannon fodder. We need to keep in mind that these groups employ both unskilled and highly skilled young men and they can offer them a lot of money. So these professional jihadi groups are able to appeal to a wide variety of people. 

HAQ: Will a change in America’s Middle East policies undermine the legitimacy of these groups and their actions?

JS: It is possible that it will reduce their ability to attract ordinary Muslims. It is possible that if America were to change its policies, these groups would have less legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary people. But I personally don’t think that this is the answer to stopping the groups themselves. 

HAQ: Is it not in America’s long-term interest to pay attention to groups across the South Asian region, including those mujaheddin groups in Kashmir that have Afghani elements?

JS: Yes, I think that allowing “private armies” to continue is counter to international security – it’s not just a question of what is good for America. Sometimes these groups target militaries, which I do not consider to be terrorism, even though I know that the Indian government does not think the same way. Nevertheless, what really troubles me about these groups is that they deliberately target non-combatants – that is a problem for me regardless of the perpetrators, whether it be the American military or the Kashmiri groups. Targeting civilians is a violation of the western “just war” tradition, the Islamic “just war” tradition and a violation of international law.

HAQ: The various jihadi groups based in Pakistan have deep links and exchange both funds and members. So should America direct its response toward the entire spectrum including groups such as Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin and Al-Badr that have Afghan links?

JS: Those two groups would not be at the top of my list of groups that the US government should be getting worried about. At the top of my list are Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat-ul-Mujaheddin. These groups are quite involved in sectarian killings and a whole spectrum of similar groups emerge from the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and are closely affiliated to the Sipah-e-Sahiba. I hope that Pakistan itself will see the utility of cracking down on these groups. We also need to remember that much of the funding for these jihadi groups is coming out of Saudi Arabia.

HAQ: This raises the familiar question of how much control Pakistan has over these jihadi groups…

JS: This really is a very big question right now. It seems to me that a very real danger – and something that India should be extremely worried about – is the possibility that if the US makes a mistake then we will turn Pakistan into another Afghanistan. This is something that must be avoided at all costs.

HAQ: Do you foresee any serious attempt to choke off Saudi funding for the extremist groups?

JS: There is always a trade-off between broader foreign policy objectives and counter-terrorism policy in terms of cutting off funding for fundamentalists. Until recently the former trumped concerns for the latter. It is, however, now apparent that it is critically important to cut off such funding in order to end terrorism. Hopefully the current US administration will be more zealous.

HAQ: Is there adequate will and capability on the part of the Pakistani state to shut down the madrassahs?

JS: This is a very complicated question. There is a perception that America is pressuring the Pakistani Interior Ministry to shut down certain schools – this was made quite apparent to me in my meetings with various chancellors. 

However, you have identified an important problem. My own experiences have made it very clear to me that the government itself is divided. It seems that thus far the forces against extremism in Pakistan are strong – they call themselves the silent majority. The Pakistani intellectual elite is also very happy that Pakistan is being forced to make a decision about whether it wants to proceed in the direction that the jihadis would like, or whether it would like to be a more legitimate part of the international community. However, I cannot predict how likely either outcome is.

HAQ: How satisfied have you been thus far with the nature of the US government’s response to the events of September 11? 

JS: I think we started out pretty badly with talk about crusades. I was getting emails from Pakistan, from jihadi groups that were jumping with joy because they had been waiting for an American president to talk about a crusade. There is nothing they would have liked better! But I am very much heartened by the Administration’s further responses, which has focused on intelligence, drying up sources for funding, and humanitarian aid. This is a newer way of looking at international security which is not just bombs and bullets.