By BARKEV TAVITIAN
After the end of the Second World War and for almost half a century (1945–1995), the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union gave rise to popular liberation movements, which were generally directed against the West or the United States and its satellite countries. In Africa, countries were being liberated from colonialism one after another. Cuba, sitting in the bosom of the United States, dared to raise a finger against its powerful neighbour. Egypt’s Nasser also became a thorn in the West’s side.
Inspired by these national liberation movements of the mid-20th century and in the 1970s, various groups emerged in different parts of the world. Some called them liberation groups, others labelled them terrorist organizations. These were left-leaning ideological groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Red Army Faction of West Germany (RAF), the Red Brigades of Italy (RB), the Japanese Red Army, the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), and others. Similar terrorist-nationalist movements existed in parts of Latin America, Central America, and Asia.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, leftist ideology faded, giving way to forces driven by religious fundamentalism, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Palestine.
What concerns us is the rise of these religious groups that formed what came to be called the “Resistance Front” (Jabhat al-Muqawama in Arabic), which, under Iran’s leadership in recent decades, formed a front against Israel. The Iran-Iraq-Syria-Hezbollah-Houthi-Hamas political alliance was a kind of coalition of Shiite Islamic communities (with the notable exception of Sunni Hamas), which, under the banner of defending the Palestinian cause, began fighting against the West. Separate from these was ISIS, the Sunni extremist movement that created terror in Iraq and Syria under the vision of founding an Islamic state.
ISIS was defeated in Syria by the allied forces of Bashar al-Assad and Russia, as well as U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria. All that remained was to find the right moment to eliminate the Shiite religious-fundamentalist Resistance Front.
The trigger came from Hamas.
On October 7, 2023, after Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel, Israel’s powerful air force, backed by Western support and blessing, launched a plan to end the Resistance Front. One after another, the fortresses of Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria fell, and soon the Houthis in Yemen and Iran’s ruling clerics found themselves facing the same fate.
In the past, the now-defunct leftist ideological movements had also been hostile to Israel, seeing it as the West’s fortress in the Middle East. But they, too, disappeared with the fall of the Soviet Union. During United States’ anti-communist struggle, the religious fundamentalists—Taliban, Muslim Brotherhood, and Bin Laden—were recruited to join the fight. But the West’s creation, the Islamic fundamentalist Frankenstein monster, turned into Nemesis for its creator.
The 20th century was a time of national liberation struggles and extreme ideologies. That era ended. In 1982, a terrorist attack on American and French “peacekeeping” soldiers in Beirut marked the beginning of an Islamic ideological struggle against the West. And the 21st century began with the 2001 terrorist attacks planned by Osama Bin Laden, which delivered a blow to America itself.
After September 11, 2001, the U.S. and the West came to understand that Islamic fundamentalism was just as dangerous as communism. As a result, Israel’s “bread was buttered,” and Western support intensified. Secular, non-religious regimes that had dared to speak against the West—like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi (sworn enemies of Israel)—were violently removed. Only the Iran-led Resistance Front remained.
For over two decades, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has pressed and pressured the U.S. and the West for full support to eliminate the Resistance Front. The pretext for toppling Saddam Hussein was Iraq’s so-called weapons of mass destruction. Now, Netanyahu again justifies action against Iran with accusations about its alleged nuclear bomb ambitions. The presence of a U.S. president like Donald Trump was a golden opportunity for Netanyahu to sell his narrative to America and the broader world.
It is not possible to defeat movements driven by ideology or fanatical belief, no matter how severe or painful the blow. Such forces lack realism and even in defeat will find justification—no matter how absurd—to rebuild their blindly loyal ranks for future actions.
From all of this, one can draw the lesson that any power that stands against Western interests—whether ideologically or religiously motivated—is destined to eventually fade or disappear. Even a giant like Russia, after years of war against Ukraine, has failed to emerge victorious, because the West stood against it.
This is a bitter reality—one that some among us, for various reasons, cannot or will not understand and accept.
The current Armenian government appears to have understood this bitter truth and has opened itself to the West in order to ensure the security of its people, despite threats from its powerful but questionable “ally” to the north.
Terrorism is merely a means in service of a purpose, and all indications show that it has failed and only disturbed the peace of humanity.
Forces of the past in Armenia have threatened to use terrorism—now a discredited method of the past—to place the homeland under Russia’s skirts. But it was precisely by trusting Russia that we lost so much of our national dignity and territorial wealth.
So the real question is: When will some people realize that to repeat what has already failed is pure folly?
Note: Translated with the assistance of chatGBT
