In the wake of the #ParisAttacks earlier this month, lots of think pieces emerged that tried to make sense of  the vile acts that took the lives of 130 people on terraces and in the Bataclan concert hall. Two competing narratives emerged: one emphasizes how the French way of life with its universal republican values was attacked, another – less publicized – explanation focuses on the tormented legacy of French colonialism in Algeria. However, it is only by unpacking the complexities that tie both narratives together that we can begin to understand the position of the Paris attacks within the international history of the 20th and 21th century. First of all, on the day of the attacks, French President François Hollande declared a state of emergency. While touted as an ‘exceptional’ measure, Hollande’s decision should be more accurately viewed as an historical reflex. After all, the French state of emergency is intimately connected with colonialism and its effects: it was declared during the Algerian War of independence in 1955, 1958 and 1961, in the course of a secession movement in New Caledonia in 1984 and during the riots of young Parisians of North African and African decent in 2005. The state of emergency was instated once again because a vicious civil war in a former semi-French territory – Syria became a mandate territory after World War I – has provided a fertile ground for terrorist attacks. Similarity, the French anger about the Belgian inability to control the movement of terrorists on its soil is also not new. As documents from the French foreign archives in La Courneuve show, Belgium was already the place where Algerians had a hide-out in the 1960s and a country where members of the Mouvement national Algérien (M.N.A.) shot F.L.N. supporters in Mons. At the same time, however, we should not dismiss the feelings of Frenchmen and Europeans who see the values of democracy and the open society violently attacked by men who feel excluded from those societies. Most observer points out with great subtlety that Daesh perverts the values of Islam as it is being practiced today. At the same time there is little attention for the recent history of French Republicanism and the values that have sustained the European integration process. Instead, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and President Hollande have announced tighter security measures, but they fail to spur a debate about what the values are Europeans are supposed to fight for. This is problematic since a key justification for tighter security and more surveillance rests on a major contradiction: the democratic project should be defended, particularly because “we,” Europeans consider the values that came out of the French Revolution to be universal, beneficial for people no matter where they live. At the same time it is also believed that "others" commit terrorist acts because they disapprove of "Western" values despite of their universality. The key to understanding this paradox lies in the complicated legacy of colonialism, which – particularly in the French context – tainted the democratic values that are so fervently embraced today. As historians, such as Todd Shepard and Frederick Cooper, have painstakingly documented, Algerians and – to an extend – Africans in French West Africa were legally viewed as French citizens, within the longstanding tradition of France’s universal Republicanism. After the Second World War the colonial project was transformed into the modernization project. Colonialism was no longer an economic enterprise, but a technocratic one aimed at increasing the standards of living while strengthening societies through Western expertise. However, once Algeria successfully claimed its independence in March 1962, the colour-blindness of French Republicanism was written out of French history. The so-called "failure" of French modernization in Algeria was blamed on the racial “otherness” of Muslims. Moreover, the European integration process had imperial overtones as well. Particularly for Charles de Gaulle, European unification was not only a way to keep German ambitions in check, but it also offered a tool to manage the fledgling French empire in Africa. Eurafrica, the supposed "natural" union between both continents remained a powerful idea up until the end of the 1950s when different forms of independence and self-rule seemingly became inevitable. At that point colonialism was written out of European Union history. As European amnesia about colonialism began to set in, black intellectuals such as Martiniquan writer Aimé Césaire stressed the hypocrisy of the imperial enterprise. French imperialism had carried the promise of economic development and Republican citizenship but instead brought destruction and oppression. In 1955, Césaire attacked the European claims of moral superiority. Europe bragged about its so-called achievements, the diseases it had cured, and the improved standards of living it had delivered, while in fact the Europeans had only taught men to have an "inferiority complex, to tremble, to kneel, despair and behave like flunkeys." Finding an appropriate response to the threat of terrorism therefore does not only require a forceful response, exemplified by Manuel Valls’ call to “annihilate” the enemies of the French Republic. It also requires European leaders to acknowledge how millions were excluded from access to what were supposedly universal values. As the decolonization process dragged on and Europe’s paternalist ambitions lessened, Europeans became more explicit about the fact that non-whites were not entitled to the same rights they themselves enjoyed on the old continent. A good way to come to terms with the fact that both the European project and the political ideologies of Islam have perverse outgrowths might be the universalization of empathy. Devastating terrorist attacks like the one in Paris happen at regular intervals in Nigeria and Kenya, and should therefore – in equal measure – be presented as an attack on “all of humanity.”

Richard Nixon visited Mao’s Zedong’s China 43 years ago, from 21 to 28 February 1972. His stay was part of Henry Kissinger’s triangular diplomacy in which the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union were drawn into a competitive cooperative dynamic with the United States. Because of that newly established link with the PRC, Leonid Brezhnev felt compelled to improve his relationship with the US, resulting in an interim strategic arms limitation agreement (SALT I), normalization of US-Soviet trade and even a joint venture in space known as Apollo-Soyuz. While Détente had its limits, particularly in Vietnam and other areas of the Third World, it still stands as one of Henri Kissinger’s crowning achievements.

The African Union’s (AU) decision to commit 75,00 troops to counter Boko Haram’s in Nigeria as well as Nigeria’s call for American support and the pledge to support of Iranian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Amir Hossein Abdollahian at the AU summit, offers the Obama administration the chance to design its own triangle, a Kissinger 2.0.

It is true, as John Campbell points out, that Boko Haram is an indigenous northern Nigerian response to poverty and bad governance which should not be placed in the context of the international war on terrorism. But sustained attention to the international dimension of this African conflict is vital in addressing an underlying problem: the proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia that is being played out in Nigeria.

President Obama ought to take a page out of the book of the Vice President of Nigeria, Namadi Sambo, who travelled to Riyadh in August 2012 to request King Abdullah’s assistance. The late King and other Saudi nationals funded Al Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Boko Haram and Al Shabab believing that their radicalism would provide a vehicle for Saudi geostrategic interests. Iran on its turn has, according to the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point, invested in intelligence gathering and supports a group of its own: the Islamic Movement in Nigeria. While the fog of war makes the verification of precise details difficult, it is becoming increasingly clear that the ideological competition between Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism and Iran’s Shia inspired Khomeinism has been exported to Africa, with bloody results.

Like the US and the USSR in the 1970s, Iran and Saudi Arabia are keen to acquire allies which has deepened local conflicts. In January 2012, funds from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, for instance, increased the popularity of Wahabi Islam in Mali and strengthened local fundamentalists such as Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. This militant group in turn drew on the discontent of Northern Malian Tuareg who already in 1963 and 1990 had led an insurgency against the central government in Bamako. Similarly, the murder of  Boko Haram’s leader, Mohammed Yusef, by Nigerian troops in 2009 cemented Boko Haram’s commitment to violence. Abubakar Shekau’s group could only grow because of local and international benefactors, and links to Al-Qaeda and other well-funded groups in the Middle East.

It is as if a strange version of the Cold War has returned to Africa: ideological affinity compel states outside of Africa to fund groups who on their turn spin out of control, killing thousands of civilians and requiring prolonged military intervention.

In response the White House is hesitantly developing a Kissinger 2.0. Obama’s letter to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in mid-October 2014, in which he raises the issue of ISIS, the continued negotiations over Teheran’s nuclear program, the war authorization under consideration in the US Congress, and the President’s reaction to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nethanyahu’s speech all suggest the US government is open to engaging Iran. At the same time Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, head of Iran’s Expediency Council, has said that cooperation between Tehran and Riyadh would be advantageous to the region.

Bringing Iran back into the international community would give Riyadh and Tehran less incentive to seek allies in the Middle East and Africa and could compel the new Saudi King to prevent his subjects from funding extremists abroad. Improved relations between Iran and the US would force Saudi Arabia into a more constructive attitude because the Saudi Government depends on US military support for its survival and the fight against ISIS.

It is in this light that Africa in general – and Nigeria in particular – becomes a key battle ground in the war on terror and significant in the international order. Not only can cooperation against Boko Haram further restore trust between two nations who have been estranged from one another since 1979, but the defeat of Boko Haram would also offer a blow to the ideological project of a fundamentalist caliphate built on atrocities.

To realise an Iranian-Saudi-US triangle, Obama will have to tread lightly. As Ronald Reagan learned in the wake of the Iran-Contra scandal a deal with Iran, like any other diplomatic move, could have unexpected outcomes. Moreover, local problems such as the Kurdish national question or the protracted civil war in Libya might derail a new linkage venture. Nevertheless, Iranian-American support for the AU in Nigeria might provide an important stepping stone to a broader long term arrangement between the US and Iran. For a president eager to establish his legacy this is a golden opportunity. Unlike Kissinger – who was booed when he testified in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a few weeks ago – Obama still has time to write his story.