If you can't beat them, enjoin them
Over at The Belmont Club there's a short post about the possible KIA of al-Qaeda-in-Iraq-leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri. In the post itself, as well as in the ensuing comment thread, there's some speculation about whether the $5 Million bounty on said leader's head served as a motivation to the Sunni insurgents believed to have punched his ticket.
The question is relevant for a number of reasons. Any and every economist will tell you that incentives, both economic and intrinsic, are powerful motivators of behavior. Commenter "PeterBoston" rightly notes that the job of al-Qaeda-in-Iraq leader doesn't have much security. Short tenure aside, there appear to be an unlimited number of jihadis willing to take his place and to fill the lower ranking positions on that gory path to glory. Fortunately for us, our friends the Saudis are hard at work reducing the appeal of jihadism among would-be replacement killers :
Alarmed to find that detainees are emerging from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and other U.S. detention centers more devoted than ever to radical Islam, Saudi Arabia is offering counseling, financial aid and even matchmaking to pull young militants away from terrorism. ... The program pays special attention to those released from the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Nearly every Saudi returning from American captivity undergoes up to 10 weeks of intense psychological tests, starting with an evaluation on the private plane that whisks him home from the American prison...
The strategy is two-pronged. the first is instructional and involves appeals to and direction from authority. It is what I call "if you can't beat them, enjoin them." (And yes, given the Saudi's reputation for physical coercion, in this riff on the old adage, "beat" takes on added meaning.)
The U.S.-led war in Iraq is the biggest factor in radicalizing Saudi youths, according to a Saudi government report. "In Saudi Arabia, al-Qaida has been destroyed as an organization," said Abdulrahman al Hadlaq, the chairman of the committee that oversees the rehabilitation program. "What is happening now is a battle, a war, of ideas." That's why the program enlists counselors such as Sheik Mohamed al Nejeimi. He's one of 100 state-backed clerics who counter radical teachings with moderate passages from the Quran, Islam's holy book.
And to the enjoining is added an interesting mix of incentives and rewards, notable if for nothing else, their decidedly earthy nature:
To keep the former detainees from deep-pocketed militant recruiters, Saudi officials have treated them to perks that have included new cars, resort stays, job placement and help in finding brides. ... Counselors in Saudi Arabia said that the prisoners returning here are broken, humiliated and angry - the perfect prey for militant recruiters. Turki said that many men who rarely prayed before they were detained emerged from Guantanamo with bushy beards and fundamentalist beliefs. Distracting former detainees with new jobs and marriages helps Saudi authorities keep them out of trouble and away from vengeance missions.
Whether this approach is working is anyone's guess. Here's but one example of what the Saudis themselves offer as a success story.
Eager to highlight a success story, Saudi security officials recently introduced journalists to a short, wiry man they said had been detained at Guantanamo. They identified him only by a nickname, Abu Suleiman, and they refused to allow reporters to ask the man his real name. It was impossible to verify his account. Abu Suleiman said that when he was 20 years old and impressionable, he was recruited into a militant cell in the Philippines. With dreams of fighting alongside Chechen rebels, he received training in Afghanistan, where he met bin Laden "a few times" and where he was captured in late 2001 by U.S.-led forces in the mountains of Tora Bora. In his four years at Guantanamo, one of them in isolation, Abu Suleiman said, he underwent severe U.S. interrogations "from the first day to the last day." When he was finally released last year, he expected even harsher treatment from the Saudi prison system. Instead, Saudi authorities enrolled him in the then-nascent rehabilitation program and offered him a monthly stipend of $800. He's among 750 of the 2,000 graduates to be fully released and back in society. Abu Suleiman jokes that his last vestige of Guantanamo is the near-perfect English he learned from his American jailers. Now 33, he's a newlywed financial analyst working in Riyadh. The program found him the job and sent a representative to congratulate him on his marriage.
If I understand this correctly, we are being asked to accept that men who once and recently claimed to love death more than life, can be bought off with earthly delights. We are asked to accept that a 9-to-5 job analyzing securities and that has security and that doesn't deprive people of security can turn a would-be jihadi around. We are asked to accept that a wife (instead of 72 virgins in paradise), a car (instead of a car bomb), and resort stays (instead of Club Gitmo's austere "3 squares and 5 prayers a day") can make a difference. As someone teaching business on the Arabian peninsula, I'd really like to accept that the management maxim that "You Get The Behavior You Reward" applies here. Call me a skeptic, but I can't accept it.
See Also: “Why I joined the Iraqi jihad”: because of a really cool song