The end of Hamas?

An article by Audrey Kurth Cronin in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs entitled “How Hamas Ends” discusses possible outcomes.  Dr. Cronin assembled a data set of 457 terrorist campaigns and organizations over the last 100 years.  Groups end in various ways.

They can succeed.  That happened in about 5% of the cases.  Interestingly one of those was the Irgun, the Jewish militant group in Israel that drove out the British and many Arabs.

They can transform, becoming either an insurgency or a criminal network.  If they become popular enough, they can fight the state; if corrupt enough, criminal gangs.  

Some are eliminated by military repression.  Separatists in Chechnya and the Tamil Tigers were killed off by the state.

They can be decapitated.  After Abimael Guzman, the leader of the Peruvian Shining Path, was arrested, the group declined.

They may decide to negotiate.  This, of course, takes two sides.  Dr. Cronin cites the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland.  Negotiating with terrorists is difficult and takes more compromise than is often available.  It is easier to negotiate when territory is involved than if religion or ideology is the issue.

Finally, many terrorist groups can implode, fracturing over tactics or ideology.  Think Weather Underground.  They can also lose the support by an act that causes general revulsion.  In 2004 Chechen separatists took over a school and killed over 300 people, including 200 children.  After that they lost much of their support.

How will Hamas end?  If you are a Palestinian whose family was killed in an Israeli bombing attack, do you blame Hamas for creating that response or do you blame Israel for dropping the bombs?  Dr. Cronin doesn’t know