Divided we stand
You know the world is in a sad state when anarchists try to organize.
That’s effectively what’s happening now, with the leader of al-Qaida making kissy faces at the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) after the competing jihadist groups have spent the past two years putting the pot and kettle to shame in the black-calling contest.
Likely you missed this story because it was buried among more earth-shaking ones that CNN and other news outlets think worthy of highlighting on their websites: “Concerns over aggressive goats leads to Idaho trail closure”; “Steve Irwin’s daughter does ‘DWTS’.” Fret not. I’m here to bring you up to speed – at least until the Caitlyn Jenner crisis boils over again.
Our story so far. To make it more accessible to Americans, I’ve assigned organized crime-like monikers to the leaders. Early in 2014, al-Qaida leader Ayman (“Big Al”) al-Zawahiri began dissing ISIS and its leader, Abu Bakr (“Medium-Size Al”) al-Baghdadi. Seems ISIS had ignored al-Qaida’s warning to stay out of Syria, so Big Al went to the mattresses. This is a turf war worthy of “The Godfather,” “The Sopranos” and even certain episodes of “The Monkees” (Season 1, Episode 11: Davy, Mike, Peter and Mickey pose as the Purple Flower Gang to save their favorite Italian restaurant from a gangster.)
There also are unavoidable comparisons with “West Side Story,” although the lyrics just don’t flow like Stephen Sondheim’s (“When you’re I-SIS / you’re I-SIS all the way / from your first cigarette / ’til the sand blows away”). But I digress.
In a video posted Sept. 9, Big Al pronounced Medium-Size Al’s self-declared caliphate “illegitimate,” calling it “an emirate of taking over without consultation.” Ironically, this same language was used by Al Gore in seeking to overturn the results of the 2000 U.S. presidential election. (Don’t miss “Bush v. Gore,” slated to appear on The History Channel in 2016, starring Steve Buscemi as Bush and Matthew McConaughey as Gore.)
Yes, war between the families seemed inevitable. But in a new message, Big Al urges cooperation between al-Qaida and ISIS in order “to push back the attack of the enemies of Islam.” Unexpected! Yet – even more ironically – this is exactly the plot twist awaiting us in season six of HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” wherein (spoiler alert!) Tyrion Lannister hops atop the reanimated corpse of Jon Snow to take on the Night’s King in single combat.
If you think that arguing among jihadists is similar to Mississippians claiming that they thought of seceding from the Union before South Carolinians did, you’d be correct. But I remind you that these competing Southern factions eventually put aside their differences to unite against the Union – at least until Ellesville, Miss., seceded from the Confederacy in July 1864. Something about the war not going well.
Cooperation between competing jihadist groups? Such a development would seem to validate Lord Byron’s musings that truth is stranger than fiction.
And if this be true, perhaps there is yet hope for Congress.