Great civilizations existed in northern Nigeria before the West ever set foot there. The Kanem Bornu Empire (700-1900) stretched to present-day Chad, Libya, Niger and Cameroon, and was bound by trade and ethnic similarities and religion.

Present day Northern Nigeria is home to the large Hausa ethnic group. The Hausa language is spoken by more than 50 million people across the present-day Sahel (north Central Africa, spanning much of Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Togo, Chad, and Sudan). Hausa is still the region’s second language of trade; the primary languages come from the region’s colonizers: English, French and to a degree, Arabic.

In the early 19th century, a towering Islamic figure, Sheikh Uthman ibn Fodio (1754-1817), emerged in what is now northwest Nigeria. Although of ethnic Fulani extraction, he galvanized support across the Hausa-dominated regions and parts of the old Kanem Bornu Empire. In this multi-ethnic region, he had a uni-directional purpose: Islamic evangelism, imperialism and dominance. He ended up creating an Islamic Caliphate.

In the mid-20th century, the Western powers partitioned West Africa, and other parts of the African continent, into nation-states that had nothing in common with each other apart from geographical proximity. The ethnic groups that made up the old order still consider themselves as distinctive nations, regardless of the fragmentation of the Caliphate into multiple nation-states. Under such splintering, it was easy for the ideas of Islamists Sayyid Qutb or Osama Bin Laden violently to re-order the region through Jihad to reverberate and gain a following.

Although shattering the Caliphate succeeded in collapsing it geographically, the general consensus among the Muslims in the now-fragmented Caliphate was that the West won not by the superiority of its ideas or civilization, but by its sheer superiority in organized violence. This reasoning has played into the hands of extremist Islamic groups such as Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda, as they galvanize support across the region. These new groups also exploit thorny and delicate issues such as casting a negative obsession with Israel and its sovereignty as a way to unite Muslims, as many Islamic groups have been doing for decades.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau (center) in one of the group’s propaganda videos.

Above all, there has been no way for people to reject the past Empire and Caliphate in West Africa as failed systems because they were not replaced by better systems.

In the mid-20th century, most of the West African colonies were given independence. Whatever democratic values were handed to these newly independent states, however, were short-lived, trampled by military incursions. Military leadership suppressed freedoms in every aspect. This in itself served as a gag to protest the rule of any aspiring terror group. Now Africa, especially West Africa, would like to democratize; amid the madness of terrorism, it is calling for freedom. But is anyone listening?

Expectedly, the violent idea of jihad has taken on a regional dimension and therefore should necessitate a regional solution. Nigeria has played a leading role, based on the platform of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), in peace-keeping missions and restoring democratic rule in many West African countries. ECOWAS should be the linchpin for greater integration and the possible eradication of terror. The following, in no particular order, can help to root out those elements of terror and foster greater cooperation among states in West Africa:

• The worsening of environmental conditions in West Africa have increased the rate of violent crimes. Desertification and the shrinking of the Chad Basin have significantly affected the means of livelihood of tens of millions of people in this region. There is simply less arable land and grazing land. This has immensely contributed to the increasing number of unemployed youths. As a result, many have turned to joining various terror groups. Others go into cattle rustling. ECOWAS member states should encourage the spread of modern agricultural methods that work with limited supplies of water — a specialty of Israelis — and revive the Chad Basin so as to boost trade. That would deplete the pool of people from which terror groups get easy and unquestioning recruits.
• Each country in West Africa should strengthen their various “transitional justice mechanisms.” This is paramount for Ivory Coast and the Central African Republic, which recently experienced violent civil strife with religious undertones. Such upheavals are created and exploited by various terror groups. Committees and courts of law should be put in place to handle matters of genocide, secular education, rule of law, equal justice under law, property rights, freedom of expression, separation of religion and state, and also establish “truth and reconciliation” commissions to heal past wounds. Taking a cue from the Gacaca Court in Rwanda would be helpful.
• Islamic clerics should be included in this exercise. It will be an adventure in futility if this critical group is neglected, because a single sermon from a revered preacher could roll back whatever gains are achieved. Some clerics may see any improvement in the economy as a threat to their hegemony, and any democratic values as a threat to their power, but many moderate clerics have been killed by Boko Haram, as well. In essence, there should be room for reward and sanction. A preacher is responsible for any incitement they engage in — on or off the pulpit. Kaduna State in northern Nigeria is proposing a bill to license preachers.
• A highly motivated joint military task force comprising all member states should be established to patrol the porous regional borders — especially the borders between Mali and Libya.
• The ECOWAS Community Court should be empowered to deal with cross-border crimes and the prosecution of terrorists. So far, this court is merely an expression on paper.
• Financial institutions. After the 9/11 attacks, there were calls in banking institutions for “due diligence” and “know your customer” in opening accounts. This forced terrorists to go underground and use the informal system of hawala. One can bring cash to a hawala broker in Lagos, and a designated person can collect the same amount from a money broker in Jos. Terror groups still use this medium to fund their operations.

David C. Faith at Global Security Studies estimates that over $7 billion enters Pakistan through the hawala system every year. The true number is likely higher. And because of hawala‘s unregulated nature, it is impossible to verify the amounts used to finance terrorism.

Worries about terror financing led the Central Bank of Nigeria to strengthen its anti-money laundering laws. Transactions above the threshold of $5,000 for individuals and corporations are flagged, and details sent to Nigerian security services on a weekly basis.

Democracy is gradually becoming rooted in West Africa, especially in Nigeria, Senegal and Ghana. Demands for transparency and accountability are growing with visible positive results. The ECOWAS Commission has a robust strategy on counter-terrorism and anti-money laundering. The Institute for Security Studies West Africa explained that the ECOWAS Commission has identified three pillars of counter-terrorism:

PILLAR ONE — PREVENT: It constitutes the central pillar of the strategy. Its main goal is to prevent terrorism before it occurs based on the concept of “DID” -Detect, Intercept and Deter.

PILLAR TWO — PURSUE: The second phase of actions seeks to ensure timely and effective responses to terrorist acts. It is anchored on military and non-military approaches to terrorism, as well as the criminal justice system. One of the key objectives of this pillar is to eliminate impunity and ensure that all those who participate, support, finance and facilitate terrorists acts, whether directly or indirectly, are investigated, prosecuted and punished to the limit allowed by the law.

PILLAR THREE — REBUILD: seeks to restore society and re-assert the authority of the state after terrorist attacks. This strategy is based on regional and international cooperation including mutual legal assistance to meet the shortfalls and disparities in states’ capabilities. Above all, it requires cooperation in the areas of intelligence, investigation, prosecution and counter-terrorism.

The success of the Nigerian military in recent months is an indication that a coherent and enduring policy can see the end of these terror groups.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a Cameroonian Muslim clergyman emerged in the northeast of Nigeria: Muhammad Marwa, popularly known as Maitatsine, Hausa for “the one who damns.” He, like Boko Haram, also rejected Western education. He and his movement were crushed by military firepower. Nigeria’s current President, General Muhammadu Buhari, was appointed at that time to neutralize Maitatsine. Nigeria’s military captured Maitatsine, and his movement collapsed. This feat endeared Buhari to the people of northeast Nigeria, who had suffered greatly under Maitatsine. Not surprisingly, Boko Haram emerged in the same place 30 years later with the same ideology,

In 2015, Muhammadu Buhari was elected president in the hope that he could repeat his success.

Unfortunately, Iran’s nuclear deal has emboldened the terrorists, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has also been increasing its presence in Nigeria by sponsoring Sunni clergymen in their institutions of learning.

Military campaigns alone cannot bring a lasting solution to terrorism in the West African sub-region. The political will seriously to address the issues above will make joining these criminal and heartless groups far less desirable.

Nuhu Othman is a senior consultant at Atta Zubairu & Associates, in Abuja, Nigeria. He can be reached at nuhuothman@gmail.com

Senior leaders from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are in Washington, meeting with top U.S. diplomatic and defense officials, and are deeply concerned America has significantly worsened the situation in the Middle East by creating a “strategic partnership” with Iran.

Thirty-seven years ago, U.S. President Jimmy Carter paved the way for Iran’s Islamic theocratic dictatorship to come to power, according to newly declassified secret documents, reports the BBC Persian News Service. The documents show that Carter pledged to “hold back” the Iranian military from attempting a coup, which would have prevented the return of the exiled Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini from France.

The documents also reveal that the Carter administration believed — erroneously — that bringing Ayatollah Khomeini into power in Iran, and in the process abandoning the Shah, would preserve American interests, keep the Soviets out of the region, protect U.S. allies, and ensure the flow of oil to the world’s industrial nations.

In one of his many messages to President Carter, Khomeini played into that belief. “You will see we are not in any particular animosity with the Americans,” Khomeini said, and promised that Iran would be a “tolerant democracy.”

Unfortunately, the mullahs did not stop their terrorist ways; and the U.S. government, through successive administrations, did not stop them, either.

The Reagan administration, for example, deployed “peacekeepers” to Lebanon under Congressionally-mandated rules of engagement that, tragically, only facilitated the Iranian- and Syrian-directed bombings of the U.S. Marine barracks and embassy in Beirut.

Then, the Clinton administration refused to lift an arms embargo and provide weapons to Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, ensuring that Iranian weapons and influence would fill the void.

The result of decades of the U.S. policy in Iran is that since Islamic terrorists took power in Tehran in 1979, Iran has murdered thousands of Americans[1] — in addition to those killed in the bombings in Lebanon, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the African embassies, and the World Trade Center in New York.

U.S. court decisions have so far held Iran responsible for more than $50 billion in damages owed to American citizens for these terror attacks, which directed by the mullahs and their terrorist proxies.

America’s military has also suffered. Thousands of American and allied soldiers have been killed and maimed by Iranian Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan.[2]

It could be argued that the United States has at times had to make deals with unsavory countries. It was allied with the Soviet Union, for instance, in the fight to destroy Nazism in World War II. So, the thinking might go, a genuine agreement to eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons program might require some compromise and thus a type of “partnership”.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during talks in Vienna, Austria, July 14, 2014. (Image source: U.S. State Department)

The Obama administration has, in fact, sought to justify its embrace of Iran by citing the assumed benefits from a nuclear agreement with Iran.[3] But the current “nuclear deal” with Iran is not a real agreement. The Iranians never signed it.

Members of Iran’s parliament reviewed it and made it clear that they would only adhere to those parts of the agreement they liked, insisting in a public statement, released after the review, that the U.S. had no reciprocal flexibility.

While the Obama administration tried to portray the agreement as one which would “dismantle” much of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, the facts were that Iran was able to keep an “industrial sized nuclear program“. Elliot Abrams describes the Iranian strategy on its nuclear program as trading “permanent American concessions for Iranian gestures of temporary restraint”.

Even worse, under the “deal” Iran would ultimately be able to become a full-fledged, legitimate nuclear power in roughly ten years. Additionally, despite promises and signed UN resolutions to the contrary, Iran’s ballistic missile program continues, giving Tehran the largest missile inventory in the Middle East.

Thus, the current US “tilt” toward Iran has not been a carefully calibrated outreach to a dangerous adversary. It has been instead a firm embrace of a dictatorship that has not only killed thousands of Americans, but continues to undermine U.S. and allied interests in the Gulf and elsewhere.

Moreover, although the State Department has in its just released annual report on world-wide terror designated Iran as the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism, the Obama administration has assisted Iranian militias in Iraq with air support, provided intelligence to Hezbollah’s allies on Israeli air strikes, and has steadfastly refused to use military force against any elements of the Assad regime. In 2014, President Obama wrote to Supreme Leader Khamenei that any US military action in Syria would “target neither the Syrian dictator nor his forces”.

Destroying ISIS or stopping terrorism against America and its allies cannot be achieved by embracing Shia terrorists directed by Tehran.

The Sunni nations of the Gulf, North Africa and the Mediterranean might be willing to provide leadership and manpower in a coalition to oppose Iran’s doctrine of Shia conquest. However, although the U.S. administration has repeatedly talked about such a coalition, America’s actions have continually embraced and helped Iran. As Michael Doran has explained, the result of the American administration’s embrace of Iran “has been the development of an extremist safe haven that… stretches from the outskirts of Baghdad all the way to Damascus.”

The U.S. could enter into talks with the Saudis, Egyptians, other Arab states and other countries in the region to help them build a coalition to oppose Iran’s plans to achieve hegemonic status in the Middle East.

Is reform in the region even possible? Or is the U.S. now solidly locked into an embrace with an increasingly hostile and violent Iran?

Reform in the Middle East does not come easily, but the “Arab Spring” illustrates that positive change can take place. Unfortunately, the Obama administration, as President Carter mistakenly did in 1979, has embraced the mullahs, who immediately sidelined any reformers who might have been democratically inclined. In Egypt, the U.S. then actively helped bring the extremist Muslim Brotherhood to power, until twenty-two million Egyptians themselves apparently decided they had tasted enough of such repression and revolted; and in Afghanistan, the U.S. pathetically kept looking for the “moderate wing” of the Taliban.[4]

America is apparently bent on repeating — yet again — the historic wrong turn it took in 1979, by once again embracing the radical Islamic regime in Iran. Why would the U.S. administration think doing the same thing again will have a different outcome?

Dr. Peter Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis, a defense consulting firm he founded in 1981, and was the senior defense consultant at the National Defense University Foundation for more than 20 years. He is now the National Security Fellow at the AFPC, and Senior Defense Consultant at the Air Force Association.

[1] For the details about Iran’s involvement in 9-11 see http://www.iran911case.com. For Iran complicity in conducting other terror attacks against the United States in Beirut, Khobar Towers, and the African embassies, see Clare Lopez speaking at the Center for Security Policy. Also in documents recently translated from the “Abbottobad” material seized in the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s Pakistani hideout, Joseph Braude host of the New York radio show “Risalat,” reveals that according to Bin Laden, “Our main artery for funds, personnel and communication” is Iran.

[2] Testimony of Lt General Michael Flynn, (Retired), former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, 10 June 2015, the Joint Foreign Affairs and HASC Subcommittee, House of Representatives.

[3] See for example, these assessments of the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA): “Our Iranian Allies“, “The Iran Deal Wasn’t About Nukes At All“, and “The Iran Deal, One Year In: Economic, Nuclear, and Regional Implications.”

[4] This aspect of the “Arab Spring” and the Administration’s response is detailed by Walid Phares in The Lost Spring, 2014, Palgrave Macmillan.