Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack
December 1, 2008
By George Friedman
Last Wednesday evening, a group of Islamist operatives carried out a complex terror operation in the Indian city of Mumbai. The attack was not complex because of the weapons used or its size, but in the apparent training, multiple methods of approaching the city and excellent operational security and discipline in the final phases of the operation, when the last remaining attackers held out in the Taj Mahal hotel for several days. The operational goal of the attack clearly was to cause as many casualties as possible, particularly among Jews and well-to-do guests of five-star hotels. But attacks on various other targets, from railroad stations to hospitals, indicate that the more general purpose was to spread terror in a major Indian city.
While it is not clear precisely who carried out the Mumbai attack, two separate units apparently were involved. One group, possibly consisting of Indian Muslims, was established in Mumbai ahead of the attacks. The second group appears to have just arrived. It traveled via ship from Karachi, Pakistan, later hijacked a small Indian vessel to get past Indian coastal patrols, and ultimately landed near Mumbai.
Extensive preparations apparently had been made, including surveillance of the targets. So while the precise number of attackers remains unclear, the attack clearly was well-planned and well-executed.
Evidence and logic suggest that radical Pakistani Islamists carried out the attack. These groups have a highly complex and deliberately amorphous structure. Rather than being centrally controlled, ad hoc teams are created with links to one or more groups. Conceivably, they might have lacked links to any group, but this is hard to believe. Too much planning and training were involved in this attack for it to have been conceived by a bunch of guys in a garage. While precisely which radical Pakistani Islamist group or groups were involved is unknown, the Mumbai attack appears to have originated in Pakistan. It could have been linked to al Qaeda prime or its various franchises and/or to Kashmiri insurgents.
More important than the question of the exact group that carried out the attack, however, is the attackers’ strategic end. There is a tendency to regard terror attacks as ends in themselves, carried out simply for the sake of spreading terror. In the highly politicized atmosphere of Pakistan’s radical Islamist factions, however, terror frequently has a more sophisticated and strategic purpose. Whoever invested the time and took the risk in organizing this attack had a reason to do so. Let’s work backward to that reason by examining the logical outcomes following this attack.
An End to New Delhi’s Restraint
The most striking aspect of the Mumbai attack is the challenge it presents to the Indian government — a challenge almost impossible for New Delhi to ignore. A December 2001 Islamist attack on the Indian parliament triggered an intense confrontation between India and Pakistan. Since then, New Delhi has not responded in a dramatic fashion to numerous Islamist attacks against India that were traceable to Pakistan. The Mumbai attack, by contrast, aimed to force a response from New Delhi by being so grievous that any Indian government showing only a muted reaction to it would fall.
India’s restrained response to Islamist attacks (even those originating in Pakistan) in recent years has come about because New Delhi has understood that, for a host of reasons, Islamabad has been unable to control radical Pakistani Islamist groups. India did not want war with Pakistan; it felt it had more important issues to deal with. New Delhi therefore accepted Islamabad’s assurances that Pakistan would do its best to curb terror attacks, and after suitable posturing, allowed tensions originating from Islamist attacks to pass.
This time, however, the attackers struck in such a way that New Delhi couldn’t allow the incident to pass. As one might expect, public opinion in India is shifting from stunned to furious. India’s Congress party-led government is politically weak and nearing the end of its life span. It lacks the political power to ignore the attack, even if it were inclined to do so. If it ignored the attack, it would fall, and a more intensely nationalist government would take its place. It is therefore very difficult to imagine circumstances under which the Indians could respond to this attack in the same manner they have to recent Islamist attacks.
What the Indians actually will do is not clear. In 2001-2002, New Delhi responded to the attack on the Indian parliament by moving forces close to the Pakistani border and the Line of Control that separates Indian- and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, engaging in artillery duels along the front, and bringing its nuclear forces to a high level of alert. The Pakistanis made a similar response. Whether India ever actually intended to attack Pakistan remains unclear, but either way, New Delhi created an intense crisis in Pakistan.
The U.S. and the Indo-Pakistani Crisis
The United States used this crisis for its own ends. Having just completed the first phase of its campaign in Afghanistan, Washington was intensely pressuring Pakistan’s then-Musharraf government to expand cooperation with the United States; purge its intelligence organization, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of radical Islamists; and crack down on al Qaeda and the Taliban in the Afghan-Pakistani border region. Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had been reluctant to cooperate with Washington, as doing so inevitably would spark a massive domestic backlash against his government.
The crisis with India produced an opening for the United States. Eager to get India to stand down from the crisis, the Pakistanis looked to the Americans to mediate. And the price for U.S. mediation was increased cooperation from Pakistan with the United States. The Indians, not eager for war, backed down from the crisis after guarantees that Islamabad would impose stronger controls on Islamist groups in Kashmir.
In 2001-2002, the Indo-Pakistani crisis played into American hands. In 2008, the new Indo-Pakistani crisis might play differently. The United States recently has demanded increased Pakistani cooperation along the Afghan border. Meanwhile, President-elect Barack Obama has stated his intention to focus on Afghanistan and pressure the Pakistanis.
Therefore, one of Islamabad’s first responses to the new Indo-Pakistani crisis was to announce that if the Indians increased their forces along Pakistan’s eastern border, Pakistan would be forced to withdraw 100,000 troops from its western border with Afghanistan. In other words, threats from India would cause Pakistan to dramatically reduce its cooperation with the United States in the Afghan war. The Indian foreign minister is flying to the United States to meet with Obama; obviously, this matter will be discussed among others.
We expect the United States to pressure India not to create a crisis, in order to avoid this outcome. As we have said, the problem is that it is unclear whether politically the Indians can afford restraint. At the very least, New Delhi must demand that the Pakistani government take steps to make the ISI and Pakistan’s other internal security apparatus more effective. Even if the Indians concede that there was no ISI involvement in the attack, they will argue that the ISI is incapable of stopping such attacks. They will demand a purge and reform of the ISI as a sign of Pakistani commitment. Barring that, New Delhi will move troops to the Indo-Pakistani frontier to intimidate Pakistan and placate Indian public opinion.
Dilemmas for Islamabad, New Delhi and Washington
At that point, Islamabad will have a serious problem. The Pakistani government is even weaker than the Indian government. Pakistan’s civilian regime does not control the Pakistani military, and therefore does not control the ISI. The civilians can’t decide to transform Pakistani security, and the military is not inclined to make this transformation. (Pakistan’s military has had ample opportunity to do so if it wished.)
Pakistan faces the challenge, just one among many, that its civilian and even military leadership lack the ability to reach deep into the ISI and security services to transform them. In some ways, these agencies operate under their own rules. Add to this the reality that the ISI and security forces — even if they are acting more assertively, as Islamabad claims — are demonstrably incapable of controlling radical Islamists in Pakistan. If they were capable, the attack on Mumbai would have been thwarted in Pakistan. The simple reality is that in Pakistan’s case, the will to make this transformation does not seem to be present, and even if it were, the ability to suppress terror attacks isn’t there.
The United States might well want to limit New Delhi’s response. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is on her way to India to discuss just this. But the politics of India’s situation make it unlikely that the Indians can do anything more than listen. It is more than simply a political issue for New Delhi; the Indians have no reason to believe that the Mumbai operation was one of a kind. Further operations like the Mumbai attack might well be planned. Unless the Pakistanis shift their posture inside Pakistan, India has no way of knowing whether other such attacks can be stymied. The Indians will be sympathetic to Washington’s plight in Afghanistan and the need to keep Pakistani troops at the Afghan border. But New Delhi will need something that the Americans — and in fact the Pakistanis — can’t deliver: a guarantee that there will be no more attacks like this one.
The Indian government cannot chance inaction. It probably would fall if it did. Moreover, in the event of inactivity and another attack, Indian public opinion probably will swing to an uncontrollable extreme. If an attack takes place but India has moved toward crisis posture with Pakistan, at least no one can argue that the Indian government remained passive in the face of threats to national security. Therefore, India is likely to refuse American requests for restraint.
It is possible that New Delhi will make a radical proposal to Rice, however. Given that the Pakistani government is incapable of exercising control in its own country, and given that Pakistan now represents a threat to both U.S. and Indian national security, the Indians might suggest a joint operation with the Americans against Pakistan.
What that joint operation might entail is uncertain, but regardless, this is something that Rice would reject out of hand and that Obama would reject in January 2009. Pakistan has a huge population and nuclear weapons, and the last thing Bush or Obama wants is to practice nation-building in Pakistan. The Indians, of course, will anticipate this response. The truth is that New Delhi itself does not want to engage deep in Pakistan to strike at militant training camps and other Islamist sites. That would be a nightmare. But if Rice shows up with a request for Indian restraint and no concrete proposal — or willingness to entertain a proposal — for solving the Pakistani problem, India will be able to refuse on the grounds that the Americans are asking India to absorb a risk (more Mumbai-style attacks) without the United States’ willingness to share in the risk.
Setting the Stage for a New Indo-Pakistani Confrontation
That will set the stage for another Indo-Pakistani confrontation. India will push forces forward all along the Indo-Pakistani frontier, move its nuclear forces to an alert level, begin shelling Pakistan, and perhaps — given the seriousness of the situation — attack short distances into Pakistan and even carry out airstrikes deep in Pakistan. India will demand greater transparency for New Delhi in Pakistani intelligence operations. The Indians will not want to occupy Pakistan; they will want to occupy Pakistan’s security apparatus.
Naturally, the Pakistanis will refuse that. There is no way they can give India, their main adversary, insight into Pakistani intelligence operations. But without that access, India has no reason to trust Pakistan. This will leave the Indians in an odd position: They will be in a near-war posture, but will have made no demands of Pakistan that Islamabad can reasonably deliver and that would benefit India. In one sense, India will be gesturing. In another sense, India will be trapped by making a gesture on which Pakistan cannot deliver. The situation thus could get out of hand.
In the meantime, the Pakistanis certainly will withdraw forces from western Pakistan and deploy them in eastern Pakistan. That will mean that one leg of the Petraeus and Obama plans would collapse. Washington’s expectation of greater Pakistani cooperation along the Afghan border will disappear along with the troops. This will free the Taliban from whatever limits the Pakistani army had placed on it. The Taliban’s ability to fight would increase, while the motivation for any of the Taliban to enter talks — as Afghan President Hamid Karzai has suggested — would decline. U.S. forces, already stretched to the limit, would face an increasingly difficult situation, while pressure on al Qaeda in the tribal areas would decrease.
Now, step back and consider the situation the Mumbai attackers have created. First, the Indian government faces an internal political crisis driving it toward a confrontation it didn’t plan on. Second, the minimum Pakistani response to a renewed Indo-Pakistani crisis will be withdrawing forces from western Pakistan, thereby strengthening the Taliban and securing al Qaeda. Third, sufficient pressure on Pakistan’s civilian government could cause it to collapse, opening the door to a military-Islamist government — or it could see Pakistan collapse into chaos, giving Islamists security in various regions and an opportunity to reshape Pakistan. Finally, the United States’ situation in Afghanistan has now become enormously more complex.
By staging an attack the Indian government can’t ignore, the Mumbai attackers have set in motion an existential crisis for Pakistan. The reality of Pakistan cannot be transformed, trapped as the country is between the United States and India. Almost every evolution from this point forward benefits Islamists. Strategically, the attack on Mumbai was a precise blow struck to achieve uncertain but favorable political outcomes for the Islamists.
Rice’s trip to India now becomes the crucial next step. She wants Indian restraint. She does not want the western Pakistani border to collapse. But she cannot guarantee what India must have: assurance of no further terror attacks on India originating in Pakistan. Without that, India must do something. No Indian government could survive without some kind of action. So it is up to Rice, in one of her last acts as secretary of state, to come up with a miraculous solution to head off a final, catastrophic crisis for the Bush administration — and a defining first crisis for the new Obama administration. Former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once said that the enemy gets a vote. The Islamists cast their ballot in Mumbai.
Taken from Stratfor.com
Showing posts with label Terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Terrorism. Show all posts
Monday, December 1, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Russia Takes Advantage of U.S.'s Military Involvement in Middle East
The Medvedev Doctrine and American Strategy
September 2, 2008
By George Friedman
The United States has been fighting a war in the Islamic world since 2001. Its main theaters of operation are in Afghanistan and Iraq, but its politico-military focus spreads throughout the Islamic world, from Mindanao to Morocco. The situation on Aug. 7, 2008, was as follows:
The war in Iraq was moving toward an acceptable but not optimal solution. The government in Baghdad was not pro-American, but neither was it an Iranian puppet, and that was the best that could be hoped for. The United States anticipated pulling out troops, but not in a disorderly fashion.
The war in Afghanistan was deteriorating for the United States and NATO forces. The Taliban was increasingly effective, and large areas of the country were falling to its control. Force in Afghanistan was insufficient, and any troops withdrawn from Iraq would have to be deployed to Afghanistan to stabilize the situation. Political conditions in neighboring Pakistan were deteriorating, and that deterioration inevitably affected Afghanistan.
The United States had been locked in a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program, demanding that Tehran halt enrichment of uranium or face U.S. action. The United States had assembled a group of six countries (the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) that agreed with the U.S. goal, was engaged in negotiations with Iran, and had agreed at some point to impose sanctions on Iran if Tehran failed to comply. The United States was also leaking stories about impending air attacks on Iran by Israel or the United States if Tehran didn’t abandon its enrichment program. The United States had the implicit agreement of the group of six not to sell arms to Tehran, creating a real sense of isolation in Iran.
The Russian Resurgence
In short, the United States remained heavily committed to a region stretching from Iraq to Pakistan, with main force committed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the possibility of commitments to Pakistan (and above all to Iran) on the table. U.S. ground forces were stretched to the limit, and U.S. airpower, naval and land-based forces had to stand by for the possibility of an air campaign in Iran — regardless of whether the U.S. planned an attack, since the credibility of a bluff depended on the availability of force.
The situation in this region actually was improving, but the United States had to remain committed there. It was therefore no accident that the Russians invaded Georgia on Aug. 8 following a Georgian attack on South Ossetia. Forgetting the details of who did what to whom, the United States had created a massive window of opportunity for the Russians: For the foreseeable future, the United States had no significant forces to spare to deploy elsewhere in the world, nor the ability to sustain them in extended combat. Moreover, the United States was relying on Russian cooperation both against Iran and potentially in Afghanistan, where Moscow’s influence with some factions remains substantial. The United States needed the Russians and couldn’t block the Russians. Therefore, the Russians inevitably chose this moment to strike.
On Sunday, Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev in effect ran up the Jolly Roger. Whatever the United States thought it was dealing with in Russia, Medvedev made the Russian position very clear. He stated Russian foreign policy in five succinct points, which we can think of as the Medvedev Doctrine (and which we see fit to quote here):
First, Russia recognizes the primacy of the fundamental principles of international law, which define the relations between civilized peoples. We will build our relations with other countries within the framework of these principles and this concept of international law.
Second, the world should be multipolar. A single-pole world is unacceptable. Domination is something we cannot allow. We cannot accept a world order in which one country makes all the decisions, even as serious and influential a country as the United States of America. Such a world is unstable and threatened by conflict.
Third, Russia does not want confrontation with any other country. Russia has no intention of isolating itself. We will develop friendly relations with Europe, the United States, and other countries, as much as is possible.
Fourth, protecting the lives and dignity of our citizens, wherever they may be, is an unquestionable priority for our country. Our foreign policy decisions will be based on this need. We will also protect the interests of our business community abroad. It should be clear to all that we will respond to any aggressive acts committed against us.
Finally, fifth, as is the case of other countries, there are regions in which Russia has privileged interests. These regions are home to countries with which we share special historical relations and are bound together as friends and good neighbors. We will pay particular attention to our work in these regions and build friendly ties with these countries, our close neighbors.
Medvedev concluded, “These are the principles I will follow in carrying out our foreign policy. As for the future, it depends not only on us but also on our friends and partners in the international community. They have a choice.”
The second point in this doctrine states that Russia does not accept the primacy of the United States in the international system. According to the third point, while Russia wants good relations with the United States and Europe, this depends on their behavior toward Russia and not just on Russia’s behavior. The fourth point states that Russia will protect the interests of Russians wherever they are — even if they live in the Baltic states or in Georgia, for example. This provides a doctrinal basis for intervention in such countries if Russia finds it necessary.
The fifth point is the critical one: “As is the case of other countries, there are regions in which Russia has privileged interests.” In other words, the Russians have special interests in the former Soviet Union and in friendly relations with these states. Intrusions by others into these regions that undermine pro-Russian regimes will be regarded as a threat to Russia’s “special interests.”
Thus, the Georgian conflict was not an isolated event — rather, Medvedev is saying that Russia is engaged in a general redefinition of the regional and global system. Locally, it would not be correct to say that Russia is trying to resurrect the Soviet Union or the Russian empire. It would be correct to say that Russia is creating a new structure of relations in the geography of its predecessors, with a new institutional structure with Moscow at its center. Globally, the Russians want to use this new regional power — and substantial Russian nuclear assets — to be part of a global system in which the United States loses its primacy.
These are ambitious goals, to say the least. But the Russians believe that the United States is off balance in the Islamic world and that there is an opportunity here, if they move quickly, to create a new reality before the United States is ready to respond. Europe has neither the military weight nor the will to actively resist Russia. Moreover, the Europeans are heavily dependent on Russian natural gas supplies over the coming years, and Russia can survive without selling it to them far better than the Europeans can survive without buying it. The Europeans are not a substantial factor in the equation, nor are they likely to become substantial.
This leaves the United States in an extremely difficult strategic position. The United States opposed the Soviet Union after 1945 not only for ideological reasons but also for geopolitical ones. If the Soviet Union had broken out of its encirclement and dominated all of Europe, the total economic power at its disposal, coupled with its population, would have allowed the Soviets to construct a navy that could challenge U.S. maritime hegemony and put the continental United States in jeopardy. It was U.S. policy during World Wars I and II and the Cold War to act militarily to prevent any power from dominating the Eurasian landmass. For the United States, this was the most important task throughout the 20th century.
The U.S.-jihadist war was waged in a strategic framework that assumed that the question of hegemony over Eurasia was closed. Germany’s defeat in World War II and the Soviet Union’s defeat in the Cold War meant that there was no claimant to Eurasia, and the United States was free to focus on what appeared to be the current priority — the defeat of radical Islamism. It appeared that the main threat to this strategy was the patience of the American public, not an attempt to resurrect a major Eurasian power.
The United States now faces a massive strategic dilemma, and it has limited military options against the Russians. It could choose a naval option, in which it would block the four Russian maritime outlets, the Sea of Japan and the Black, Baltic and Barents seas. The United States has ample military force with which to do this and could potentially do so without allied cooperation, which it would lack. It is extremely unlikely that the NATO council would unanimously support a blockade of Russia, which would be an act of war.
But while a blockade like this would certainly hurt the Russians, Russia is ultimately a land power. It is also capable of shipping and importing through third parties, meaning it could potentially acquire and ship key goods through European or Turkish ports (or Iranian ports, for that matter). The blockade option is thus more attractive on first glance than on deeper analysis.
More important, any overt U.S. action against Russia would result in counteractions. During the Cold War, the Soviets attacked American global interest not by sending Soviet troops, but by supporting regimes and factions with weapons and economic aid. Vietnam was the classic example: The Russians tied down 500,000 U.S. troops without placing major Russian forces at risk. Throughout the world, the Soviets implemented programs of subversion and aid to friendly regimes, forcing the United States either to accept pro-Soviet regimes, as with Cuba, or fight them at disproportionate cost.
In the present situation, the Russian response would strike at the heart of American strategy in the Islamic world. In the long run, the Russians have little interest in strengthening the Islamic world — but for the moment, they have substantial interest in maintaining American imbalance and sapping U.S. forces. The Russians have a long history of supporting Middle Eastern regimes with weapons shipments, and it is no accident that the first world leader they met with after invading Georgia was Syrian President Bashar al Assad. This was a clear signal that if the U.S. responded aggressively to Russia’s actions in Georgia, Moscow would ship a range of weapons to Syria — and far worse, to Iran. Indeed, Russia could conceivably send weapons to factions in Iraq that do not support the current regime, as well as to groups like Hezbollah. Moscow also could encourage the Iranians to withdraw their support for the Iraqi government and plunge Iraq back into conflict. Finally, Russia could ship weapons to the Taliban and work to further destabilize Pakistan.
At the moment, the United States faces the strategic problem that the Russians have options while the United States does not. Not only does the U.S. commitment of ground forces in the Islamic world leave the United States without strategic reserve, but the political arrangements under which these troops operate make them highly vulnerable to Russian manipulation — with few satisfactory U.S. counters.
The U.S. government is trying to think through how it can maintain its commitment in the Islamic world and resist the Russian reassertion of hegemony in the former Soviet Union. If the United States could very rapidly win its wars in the region, this would be possible. But the Russians are in a position to prolong these wars, and even without such agitation, the American ability to close off the conflicts is severely limited. The United States could massively increase the size of its army and make deployments into the Baltics, Ukraine and Central Asia to thwart Russian plans, but it would take years to build up these forces and the active cooperation of Europe to deploy them. Logistically, European support would be essential — but the Europeans in general, and the Germans in particular, have no appetite for this war. Expanding the U.S. Army is necessary, but it does not affect the current strategic reality.
This logistical issue might be manageable, but the real heart of this problem is not merely the deployment of U.S. forces in the Islamic world — it is the Russians’ ability to use weapons sales and covert means to deteriorate conditions dramatically. With active Russian hostility added to the current reality, the strategic situation in the Islamic world could rapidly spin out of control.
The United States is therefore trapped by its commitment to the Islamic world. It does not have sufficient forces to block Russian hegemony in the former Soviet Union, and if it tries to block the Russians with naval or air forces, it faces a dangerous riposte from the Russians in the Islamic world. If it does nothing, it creates a strategic threat that potentially towers over the threat in the Islamic world.
The United States now has to make a fundamental strategic decision. If it remains committed to its current strategy, it cannot respond to the Russians. If it does not respond to the Russians for five or 10 years, the world will look very much like it did from 1945 to 1992. There will be another Cold War at the very least, with a peer power much poorer than the United States but prepared to devote huge amounts of money to national defense.
There are four broad U.S. options:
Attempt to make a settlement with Iran that would guarantee the neutral stability of Iraq and permit the rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces there. Iran is the key here. The Iranians might also mistrust a re-emergent Russia, and while Tehran might be tempted to work with the Russians against the Americans, Iran might consider an arrangement with the United States — particularly if the United States refocuses its attentions elsewhere. On the upside, this would free the U.S. from Iraq. On the downside, the Iranians might not want —or honor — such a deal.
Enter into negotiations with the Russians, granting them the sphere of influence they want in the former Soviet Union in return for guarantees not to project Russian power into Europe proper. The Russians will be busy consolidating their position for years, giving the U.S. time to re-energize NATO. On the upside, this would free the United States to continue its war in the Islamic world. On the downside, it would create a framework for the re-emergence of a powerful Russian empire that would be as difficult to contain as the Soviet Union.
Refuse to engage the Russians and leave the problem to the Europeans. On the upside, this would allow the United States to continue war in the Islamic world and force the Europeans to act. On the downside, the Europeans are too divided, dependent on Russia and dispirited to resist the Russians. This strategy could speed up Russia’s re-emergence.
Rapidly disengage from Iraq, leaving a residual force there and in Afghanistan. The upside is that this creates a reserve force to reinforce the Baltics and Ukraine that might restrain Russia in the former Soviet Union. The downside is that it would create chaos in the Islamic world, threatening regimes that have sided with the United States and potentially reviving effective intercontinental terrorism. The trade-off is between a hegemonic threat from Eurasia and instability and a terror threat from the Islamic world.
We are pointing to very stark strategic choices. Continuing the war in the Islamic world has a much higher cost now than it did when it began, and Russia potentially poses a far greater threat to the United States than the Islamic world does. What might have been a rational policy in 2001 or 2003 has now turned into a very dangerous enterprise, because a hostile major power now has the option of making the U.S. position in the Middle East enormously more difficult.
If a U.S. settlement with Iran is impossible, and a diplomatic solution with the Russians that would keep them from taking a hegemonic position in the former Soviet Union cannot be reached, then the United States must consider rapidly abandoning its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and redeploying its forces to block Russian expansion. The threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War was far graver than the threat posed now by the fragmented Islamic world. In the end, the nations there will cancel each other out, and militant organizations will be something the United States simply has to deal with. This is not an ideal solution by any means, but the clock appears to have run out on the American war in the Islamic world.
We do not expect the United States to take this option. It is difficult to abandon a conflict that has gone on this long when it is not yet crystal clear that the Russians will actually be a threat later. (It is far easier for an analyst to make such suggestions than it is for a president to act on them.) Instead, the United States will attempt to bridge the Russian situation with gestures and half measures.
Nevertheless, American national strategy is in crisis. The United States has insufficient power to cope with two threats and must choose between the two. Continuing the current strategy means choosing to deal with the Islamic threat rather than the Russian one, and that is reasonable only if the Islamic threat represents a greater danger to American interests than the Russian threat does. It is difficult to see how the chaos of the Islamic world will cohere to form a global threat. But it is not difficult to imagine a Russia guided by the Medvedev Doctrine rapidly becoming a global threat and a direct danger to American interests.
We expect no immediate change in American strategic deployments — and we expect this to be regretted later. However, given U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s trip to the Caucasus region, now would be the time to see some movement in U.S. foreign policy. If Cheney isn’t going to be talking to the Russians, he needs to be talking to the Iranians. Otherwise, he will be writing checks in the region that the U.S. is in no position to cash.
Taken from: www.stratfor.com
September 2, 2008
By George Friedman
The United States has been fighting a war in the Islamic world since 2001. Its main theaters of operation are in Afghanistan and Iraq, but its politico-military focus spreads throughout the Islamic world, from Mindanao to Morocco. The situation on Aug. 7, 2008, was as follows:
The war in Iraq was moving toward an acceptable but not optimal solution. The government in Baghdad was not pro-American, but neither was it an Iranian puppet, and that was the best that could be hoped for. The United States anticipated pulling out troops, but not in a disorderly fashion.
The war in Afghanistan was deteriorating for the United States and NATO forces. The Taliban was increasingly effective, and large areas of the country were falling to its control. Force in Afghanistan was insufficient, and any troops withdrawn from Iraq would have to be deployed to Afghanistan to stabilize the situation. Political conditions in neighboring Pakistan were deteriorating, and that deterioration inevitably affected Afghanistan.
The United States had been locked in a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program, demanding that Tehran halt enrichment of uranium or face U.S. action. The United States had assembled a group of six countries (the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) that agreed with the U.S. goal, was engaged in negotiations with Iran, and had agreed at some point to impose sanctions on Iran if Tehran failed to comply. The United States was also leaking stories about impending air attacks on Iran by Israel or the United States if Tehran didn’t abandon its enrichment program. The United States had the implicit agreement of the group of six not to sell arms to Tehran, creating a real sense of isolation in Iran.
The Russian Resurgence
In short, the United States remained heavily committed to a region stretching from Iraq to Pakistan, with main force committed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the possibility of commitments to Pakistan (and above all to Iran) on the table. U.S. ground forces were stretched to the limit, and U.S. airpower, naval and land-based forces had to stand by for the possibility of an air campaign in Iran — regardless of whether the U.S. planned an attack, since the credibility of a bluff depended on the availability of force.
The situation in this region actually was improving, but the United States had to remain committed there. It was therefore no accident that the Russians invaded Georgia on Aug. 8 following a Georgian attack on South Ossetia. Forgetting the details of who did what to whom, the United States had created a massive window of opportunity for the Russians: For the foreseeable future, the United States had no significant forces to spare to deploy elsewhere in the world, nor the ability to sustain them in extended combat. Moreover, the United States was relying on Russian cooperation both against Iran and potentially in Afghanistan, where Moscow’s influence with some factions remains substantial. The United States needed the Russians and couldn’t block the Russians. Therefore, the Russians inevitably chose this moment to strike.
On Sunday, Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev in effect ran up the Jolly Roger. Whatever the United States thought it was dealing with in Russia, Medvedev made the Russian position very clear. He stated Russian foreign policy in five succinct points, which we can think of as the Medvedev Doctrine (and which we see fit to quote here):
First, Russia recognizes the primacy of the fundamental principles of international law, which define the relations between civilized peoples. We will build our relations with other countries within the framework of these principles and this concept of international law.
Second, the world should be multipolar. A single-pole world is unacceptable. Domination is something we cannot allow. We cannot accept a world order in which one country makes all the decisions, even as serious and influential a country as the United States of America. Such a world is unstable and threatened by conflict.
Third, Russia does not want confrontation with any other country. Russia has no intention of isolating itself. We will develop friendly relations with Europe, the United States, and other countries, as much as is possible.
Fourth, protecting the lives and dignity of our citizens, wherever they may be, is an unquestionable priority for our country. Our foreign policy decisions will be based on this need. We will also protect the interests of our business community abroad. It should be clear to all that we will respond to any aggressive acts committed against us.
Finally, fifth, as is the case of other countries, there are regions in which Russia has privileged interests. These regions are home to countries with which we share special historical relations and are bound together as friends and good neighbors. We will pay particular attention to our work in these regions and build friendly ties with these countries, our close neighbors.
Medvedev concluded, “These are the principles I will follow in carrying out our foreign policy. As for the future, it depends not only on us but also on our friends and partners in the international community. They have a choice.”
The second point in this doctrine states that Russia does not accept the primacy of the United States in the international system. According to the third point, while Russia wants good relations with the United States and Europe, this depends on their behavior toward Russia and not just on Russia’s behavior. The fourth point states that Russia will protect the interests of Russians wherever they are — even if they live in the Baltic states or in Georgia, for example. This provides a doctrinal basis for intervention in such countries if Russia finds it necessary.
The fifth point is the critical one: “As is the case of other countries, there are regions in which Russia has privileged interests.” In other words, the Russians have special interests in the former Soviet Union and in friendly relations with these states. Intrusions by others into these regions that undermine pro-Russian regimes will be regarded as a threat to Russia’s “special interests.”
Thus, the Georgian conflict was not an isolated event — rather, Medvedev is saying that Russia is engaged in a general redefinition of the regional and global system. Locally, it would not be correct to say that Russia is trying to resurrect the Soviet Union or the Russian empire. It would be correct to say that Russia is creating a new structure of relations in the geography of its predecessors, with a new institutional structure with Moscow at its center. Globally, the Russians want to use this new regional power — and substantial Russian nuclear assets — to be part of a global system in which the United States loses its primacy.
These are ambitious goals, to say the least. But the Russians believe that the United States is off balance in the Islamic world and that there is an opportunity here, if they move quickly, to create a new reality before the United States is ready to respond. Europe has neither the military weight nor the will to actively resist Russia. Moreover, the Europeans are heavily dependent on Russian natural gas supplies over the coming years, and Russia can survive without selling it to them far better than the Europeans can survive without buying it. The Europeans are not a substantial factor in the equation, nor are they likely to become substantial.
This leaves the United States in an extremely difficult strategic position. The United States opposed the Soviet Union after 1945 not only for ideological reasons but also for geopolitical ones. If the Soviet Union had broken out of its encirclement and dominated all of Europe, the total economic power at its disposal, coupled with its population, would have allowed the Soviets to construct a navy that could challenge U.S. maritime hegemony and put the continental United States in jeopardy. It was U.S. policy during World Wars I and II and the Cold War to act militarily to prevent any power from dominating the Eurasian landmass. For the United States, this was the most important task throughout the 20th century.
The U.S.-jihadist war was waged in a strategic framework that assumed that the question of hegemony over Eurasia was closed. Germany’s defeat in World War II and the Soviet Union’s defeat in the Cold War meant that there was no claimant to Eurasia, and the United States was free to focus on what appeared to be the current priority — the defeat of radical Islamism. It appeared that the main threat to this strategy was the patience of the American public, not an attempt to resurrect a major Eurasian power.
The United States now faces a massive strategic dilemma, and it has limited military options against the Russians. It could choose a naval option, in which it would block the four Russian maritime outlets, the Sea of Japan and the Black, Baltic and Barents seas. The United States has ample military force with which to do this and could potentially do so without allied cooperation, which it would lack. It is extremely unlikely that the NATO council would unanimously support a blockade of Russia, which would be an act of war.
But while a blockade like this would certainly hurt the Russians, Russia is ultimately a land power. It is also capable of shipping and importing through third parties, meaning it could potentially acquire and ship key goods through European or Turkish ports (or Iranian ports, for that matter). The blockade option is thus more attractive on first glance than on deeper analysis.
More important, any overt U.S. action against Russia would result in counteractions. During the Cold War, the Soviets attacked American global interest not by sending Soviet troops, but by supporting regimes and factions with weapons and economic aid. Vietnam was the classic example: The Russians tied down 500,000 U.S. troops without placing major Russian forces at risk. Throughout the world, the Soviets implemented programs of subversion and aid to friendly regimes, forcing the United States either to accept pro-Soviet regimes, as with Cuba, or fight them at disproportionate cost.
In the present situation, the Russian response would strike at the heart of American strategy in the Islamic world. In the long run, the Russians have little interest in strengthening the Islamic world — but for the moment, they have substantial interest in maintaining American imbalance and sapping U.S. forces. The Russians have a long history of supporting Middle Eastern regimes with weapons shipments, and it is no accident that the first world leader they met with after invading Georgia was Syrian President Bashar al Assad. This was a clear signal that if the U.S. responded aggressively to Russia’s actions in Georgia, Moscow would ship a range of weapons to Syria — and far worse, to Iran. Indeed, Russia could conceivably send weapons to factions in Iraq that do not support the current regime, as well as to groups like Hezbollah. Moscow also could encourage the Iranians to withdraw their support for the Iraqi government and plunge Iraq back into conflict. Finally, Russia could ship weapons to the Taliban and work to further destabilize Pakistan.
At the moment, the United States faces the strategic problem that the Russians have options while the United States does not. Not only does the U.S. commitment of ground forces in the Islamic world leave the United States without strategic reserve, but the political arrangements under which these troops operate make them highly vulnerable to Russian manipulation — with few satisfactory U.S. counters.
The U.S. government is trying to think through how it can maintain its commitment in the Islamic world and resist the Russian reassertion of hegemony in the former Soviet Union. If the United States could very rapidly win its wars in the region, this would be possible. But the Russians are in a position to prolong these wars, and even without such agitation, the American ability to close off the conflicts is severely limited. The United States could massively increase the size of its army and make deployments into the Baltics, Ukraine and Central Asia to thwart Russian plans, but it would take years to build up these forces and the active cooperation of Europe to deploy them. Logistically, European support would be essential — but the Europeans in general, and the Germans in particular, have no appetite for this war. Expanding the U.S. Army is necessary, but it does not affect the current strategic reality.
This logistical issue might be manageable, but the real heart of this problem is not merely the deployment of U.S. forces in the Islamic world — it is the Russians’ ability to use weapons sales and covert means to deteriorate conditions dramatically. With active Russian hostility added to the current reality, the strategic situation in the Islamic world could rapidly spin out of control.
The United States is therefore trapped by its commitment to the Islamic world. It does not have sufficient forces to block Russian hegemony in the former Soviet Union, and if it tries to block the Russians with naval or air forces, it faces a dangerous riposte from the Russians in the Islamic world. If it does nothing, it creates a strategic threat that potentially towers over the threat in the Islamic world.
The United States now has to make a fundamental strategic decision. If it remains committed to its current strategy, it cannot respond to the Russians. If it does not respond to the Russians for five or 10 years, the world will look very much like it did from 1945 to 1992. There will be another Cold War at the very least, with a peer power much poorer than the United States but prepared to devote huge amounts of money to national defense.
There are four broad U.S. options:
Attempt to make a settlement with Iran that would guarantee the neutral stability of Iraq and permit the rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces there. Iran is the key here. The Iranians might also mistrust a re-emergent Russia, and while Tehran might be tempted to work with the Russians against the Americans, Iran might consider an arrangement with the United States — particularly if the United States refocuses its attentions elsewhere. On the upside, this would free the U.S. from Iraq. On the downside, the Iranians might not want —or honor — such a deal.
Enter into negotiations with the Russians, granting them the sphere of influence they want in the former Soviet Union in return for guarantees not to project Russian power into Europe proper. The Russians will be busy consolidating their position for years, giving the U.S. time to re-energize NATO. On the upside, this would free the United States to continue its war in the Islamic world. On the downside, it would create a framework for the re-emergence of a powerful Russian empire that would be as difficult to contain as the Soviet Union.
Refuse to engage the Russians and leave the problem to the Europeans. On the upside, this would allow the United States to continue war in the Islamic world and force the Europeans to act. On the downside, the Europeans are too divided, dependent on Russia and dispirited to resist the Russians. This strategy could speed up Russia’s re-emergence.
Rapidly disengage from Iraq, leaving a residual force there and in Afghanistan. The upside is that this creates a reserve force to reinforce the Baltics and Ukraine that might restrain Russia in the former Soviet Union. The downside is that it would create chaos in the Islamic world, threatening regimes that have sided with the United States and potentially reviving effective intercontinental terrorism. The trade-off is between a hegemonic threat from Eurasia and instability and a terror threat from the Islamic world.
We are pointing to very stark strategic choices. Continuing the war in the Islamic world has a much higher cost now than it did when it began, and Russia potentially poses a far greater threat to the United States than the Islamic world does. What might have been a rational policy in 2001 or 2003 has now turned into a very dangerous enterprise, because a hostile major power now has the option of making the U.S. position in the Middle East enormously more difficult.
If a U.S. settlement with Iran is impossible, and a diplomatic solution with the Russians that would keep them from taking a hegemonic position in the former Soviet Union cannot be reached, then the United States must consider rapidly abandoning its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and redeploying its forces to block Russian expansion. The threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War was far graver than the threat posed now by the fragmented Islamic world. In the end, the nations there will cancel each other out, and militant organizations will be something the United States simply has to deal with. This is not an ideal solution by any means, but the clock appears to have run out on the American war in the Islamic world.
We do not expect the United States to take this option. It is difficult to abandon a conflict that has gone on this long when it is not yet crystal clear that the Russians will actually be a threat later. (It is far easier for an analyst to make such suggestions than it is for a president to act on them.) Instead, the United States will attempt to bridge the Russian situation with gestures and half measures.
Nevertheless, American national strategy is in crisis. The United States has insufficient power to cope with two threats and must choose between the two. Continuing the current strategy means choosing to deal with the Islamic threat rather than the Russian one, and that is reasonable only if the Islamic threat represents a greater danger to American interests than the Russian threat does. It is difficult to see how the chaos of the Islamic world will cohere to form a global threat. But it is not difficult to imagine a Russia guided by the Medvedev Doctrine rapidly becoming a global threat and a direct danger to American interests.
We expect no immediate change in American strategic deployments — and we expect this to be regretted later. However, given U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s trip to the Caucasus region, now would be the time to see some movement in U.S. foreign policy. If Cheney isn’t going to be talking to the Russians, he needs to be talking to the Iranians. Otherwise, he will be writing checks in the region that the U.S. is in no position to cash.
Taken from: www.stratfor.com
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Terrorist Attacks Coming This Fall?
2008 Threat Season Heats Up
August 27, 2008
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Summer has arrived, bringing with it rumors of attacks against the U.S. homeland. Currently, we are hearing unconfirmed word of plans in place for jihadists to be dispatched from Pakistan to conduct coordinated suicide attacks against soft targets in as many as 10 U.S. cities.
This year, the rumors seem to be emerging a little later and with a little less fanfare than last year, when we saw a number of highly publicized warnings, such as that from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and a National Intelligence Estimate saying al Qaeda was gaining strength. Last year also brought warnings from a former Israeli counterterrorism official that al Qaeda was planning a simultaneous attack against five to seven American cities, and of a dirty bomb attack against New York.
These warnings were followed by the Sept. 7, 2007, release of a video message from Osama bin Laden, who had been unseen on video since October 2004 or heard on audiotape since July 2006. Some were convinced that his reappearance — and veiled threat — signaled a looming attack against the United States, or a message to supporters to commence attacks.
However, in spite of all these warnings — and bin Laden’s reappearance — no attack occurred last summer or autumn on U.S. soil. As we discussed last October, there are a number of reasons why such an attack did not happen.
We are currently working to collect more information regarding this summer’s rumors. So far we cannot gauge their credibility, but they pique our interest for several reasons. First is the issue of timing, and second is the ease with which such attacks could be coordinated.
Timing is Everything
It is a busy time in U.S. politics. The Democratic National Convention (DNC) takes place this week in Denver, and the Republican National Convention (RNC) takes place next week in St. Paul, Minn. After these conventions, politics will be on the front page until the November elections. In addition, Americans are returning from summer vacations, with schools and universities resuming classes. The anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is also coming up.
While the al Qaeda core generally conduct operations when they are ready — rather than according to external calendars and anniversaries — their pattern of releasing statements on the 9/11 anniversary demonstrates their awareness of its significance and the painful emotions it evokes in the American psyche.
In 2004, just days before the U.S. presidential election, Osama bin Laden made a rare video appearance. In the video, he said al Qaeda’s problem was not with the two candidates, George Bush or John Kerry, but with U.S. policy regarding the Muslim world and the situations in Iraq and Israel. Bin Laden also pointed out that neither Bush nor Kerry could be trusted to keep the United States secure from more attacks. By creating such a message and releasing it at that time, bin Laden was demonstrating his organization’s understanding of the U.S. presidential election dynamic.
Furthermore, the al Qaeda core has historically planned or supported substantial operations in advance of elections. In 2004 we saw this with the Madrid train bombings, which took place prior to Spanish elections. Several other plots might also fall into category. In the summer of 2004, for example, we saw a plot to target a number of financial targets in the U.S. thwarted.
Another election-year attempt was the 2006 al Qaeda-tied plot against a series of airline flights originating from London’s Heathrow airport. While the plot was hatched in the United Kingdom, the selection of flights bound for Washington, Chicago, San Francisco and New York meant that the attack was actually targeted primarily against the United States. For perspective, we look at Operation Bojinka in the mid-1990s, the predecessor to the 2006 plot. Although planned to be launched from Asia, the plot was clearly an attack against the United States.
In another example, Jose Padilla was arrested in May 2002, a congressional election year, as he attempted to enter the United States. Padilla, according to the interrogation of captured al Qaeda member Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had been sent to there to conduct attacks.
Attacks certainly occur in non-election years (and plots have been thwarted in off years), but the fact remains that jihadists appear mindful of election cycles in the United States. And al Qaeda is not alone in this thinking. Grassroots al Qaeda sympathizers have also attempted to interfere in election-related events. In August 2004, on the eve of the RNC in New York, authorities arrested a Pakistani man and his Pakistan-born U.S. citizen accomplice who claimed they were planning to attack a subway station in Manhattan two blocks from RNC site. The men were later convicted for the plot, with the main organizer receiving a 30-year sentence.
Speaking of elections, it is also interesting to consider that the last two U.S. presidents were forced to deal with jihadist strikes on American soil shortly after assuming office. Bill Clinton was inaugurated in January 1993, and the World Trade Center was bombed in late February 1993. George W. Bush was inaugurated in January 2001, and the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked in September 2001. In all likelihood this is a coincidence, but it is worth watching to see if the trend continues in 2009.
Of course, let’s put this in perspective. In the last 15 years — election year or not –- there has rarely been a time when some jihadist somewhere was not planning an attack against the United States. However, the al Qaeda core organization clearly attempted to conduct major attacks in 2002, 2004 and 2006, all of which were election years. These attempts (other than Madrid) were all thwarted. The fact that we haven’t seen an attempt during this year’s election cycle has us watchful — we sense that there must be plot out there somewhere.
Ease of Attack
Another thing that interests us about recent rumors is the concept behind the alleged plot: the simple and elegant idea of sending 10 independent actors to 10 cities. One factor that has sunk many past jihadist plots against the United States has been poor operational security and poor terrorist tradecraft. These mistakes have allowed U.S. authorities to identify and shut down the militant networks involved.
By using compartmentalized operatives, militants could more easily circumvent counterterrorist efforts. Furthermore, even if one or more of the operatives were detected and arrested by authorities, details of the operation at large would not be compromised. Each operative would only know about his own particular targeting instructions and would be unable to provide other details if captured.
In such a case, al Qaeda would most likely attempt to dispatch 10 “clean skin” operatives (those not obviously associated with the group) who are trained to construct improvised explosive devices using readily available materials and ultimately willing to undertake martyrdom missions. Due to changes in the immigration processes since the 2001 attacks, these operatives will likely be Westerners — U.S., Canadian or European citizens able to travel to the United States without the need to obtain a visa.
Recruiting such operatives could be easier that one might expect. Thousands of potential candidates who currently attend militant madrassas in Pakistan (including somewhere from 500 to 1,000 U.S. citizens) fit this description. In fact, no one really knows how many of these potential jihadist operatives exist at present. The government of Pakistan has not been forthcoming in answering requests from the United States and United Kingdom for lists of their citizens currently attending these institutions. Regardless, the idea of al Qaeda recruiting 10 “clean skins” for such an operation is not beyond the realm of possibility. Consider past recruits such as Mohammad Siddique Khan, the leader of the cell behind the July 7, 2005, London bombing, shoe bomber Richard Reid and Adam Gadahn (aka Azzam al-Amriki), or even the warnings o f German Muslims planning to conduct attacks in the West.
Levels of Severity
If this rumored operation is in fact legitimate, it would be the first one conducted using only operatives sent from the core al Qaeda group in Afghanistan or Pakistan since the 9/11 attacks. This is what we refer to as an al Qaeda 2.0 operational model. However, while sending operatives to work solo rather than in a group or with local grassroots jihadists increases operational security, it also reduces operational ability. Quite simply, it is more difficult for an individual to arrange a large attack than it is for a group working together. This means that lone operatives are unlikely to assemble major explosive devices like the truck-borne IED used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Instead we would anticipate attacks similar in scope to grassroots undertakings; suicide bombings such as the July 7, 2005, London bombings or the 2002 armed assault on the El Al Ticket counter in Los Angeles. These theoretical attacks also would likely be conducted against soft targets such as buses, subways or shopping malls, where they can create a high number of casualties, rather than harder targets like the White House or Pentagon, where they would prove ineffective.
The October 2005 incident in Norman, Okla., in which a University of Oklahoma student detonated an IED outside a packed football stadium highlights the ease with which a device can be manufactured from readily available items without detection. But suicide operatives could undertake a number of different types of attacks. Recently we have seen Palestinian suicide operatives embarking on extremely simple plots, such as driving heavy vehicles into crowds.
While the individual attacks themselves would likely be small in magnitude, when combined and spread across the country they could have a far larger impact, similar to past attacks in places such as Madrid, London, Amman in Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula and Bali, Indonesia. Although the botched attacks in London and Glasgow last summer were conducted by the same cell, the planners also clearly sought to use multiple devices in geographically diverse locations. While such attacks would not be a strategic threat to U.S. existence, they would certainly kill people and create a great deal of fear and confusion.
We are not attempting to hype anything here and we do not want to create any kind of panic. These are just rumors, and unconfirmed ones at that. We have not seen any formal announcements from the U.S. government raising the alert level. However, it certainly seems to us to be a prudent time to increase situational awareness and update contingency plans in anticipation of the worst.
Taken from Stratfor.com
August 27, 2008
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Summer has arrived, bringing with it rumors of attacks against the U.S. homeland. Currently, we are hearing unconfirmed word of plans in place for jihadists to be dispatched from Pakistan to conduct coordinated suicide attacks against soft targets in as many as 10 U.S. cities.
This year, the rumors seem to be emerging a little later and with a little less fanfare than last year, when we saw a number of highly publicized warnings, such as that from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and a National Intelligence Estimate saying al Qaeda was gaining strength. Last year also brought warnings from a former Israeli counterterrorism official that al Qaeda was planning a simultaneous attack against five to seven American cities, and of a dirty bomb attack against New York.
These warnings were followed by the Sept. 7, 2007, release of a video message from Osama bin Laden, who had been unseen on video since October 2004 or heard on audiotape since July 2006. Some were convinced that his reappearance — and veiled threat — signaled a looming attack against the United States, or a message to supporters to commence attacks.
However, in spite of all these warnings — and bin Laden’s reappearance — no attack occurred last summer or autumn on U.S. soil. As we discussed last October, there are a number of reasons why such an attack did not happen.
We are currently working to collect more information regarding this summer’s rumors. So far we cannot gauge their credibility, but they pique our interest for several reasons. First is the issue of timing, and second is the ease with which such attacks could be coordinated.
Timing is Everything
It is a busy time in U.S. politics. The Democratic National Convention (DNC) takes place this week in Denver, and the Republican National Convention (RNC) takes place next week in St. Paul, Minn. After these conventions, politics will be on the front page until the November elections. In addition, Americans are returning from summer vacations, with schools and universities resuming classes. The anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is also coming up.
While the al Qaeda core generally conduct operations when they are ready — rather than according to external calendars and anniversaries — their pattern of releasing statements on the 9/11 anniversary demonstrates their awareness of its significance and the painful emotions it evokes in the American psyche.
In 2004, just days before the U.S. presidential election, Osama bin Laden made a rare video appearance. In the video, he said al Qaeda’s problem was not with the two candidates, George Bush or John Kerry, but with U.S. policy regarding the Muslim world and the situations in Iraq and Israel. Bin Laden also pointed out that neither Bush nor Kerry could be trusted to keep the United States secure from more attacks. By creating such a message and releasing it at that time, bin Laden was demonstrating his organization’s understanding of the U.S. presidential election dynamic.
Furthermore, the al Qaeda core has historically planned or supported substantial operations in advance of elections. In 2004 we saw this with the Madrid train bombings, which took place prior to Spanish elections. Several other plots might also fall into category. In the summer of 2004, for example, we saw a plot to target a number of financial targets in the U.S. thwarted.
Another election-year attempt was the 2006 al Qaeda-tied plot against a series of airline flights originating from London’s Heathrow airport. While the plot was hatched in the United Kingdom, the selection of flights bound for Washington, Chicago, San Francisco and New York meant that the attack was actually targeted primarily against the United States. For perspective, we look at Operation Bojinka in the mid-1990s, the predecessor to the 2006 plot. Although planned to be launched from Asia, the plot was clearly an attack against the United States.
In another example, Jose Padilla was arrested in May 2002, a congressional election year, as he attempted to enter the United States. Padilla, according to the interrogation of captured al Qaeda member Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had been sent to there to conduct attacks.
Attacks certainly occur in non-election years (and plots have been thwarted in off years), but the fact remains that jihadists appear mindful of election cycles in the United States. And al Qaeda is not alone in this thinking. Grassroots al Qaeda sympathizers have also attempted to interfere in election-related events. In August 2004, on the eve of the RNC in New York, authorities arrested a Pakistani man and his Pakistan-born U.S. citizen accomplice who claimed they were planning to attack a subway station in Manhattan two blocks from RNC site. The men were later convicted for the plot, with the main organizer receiving a 30-year sentence.
Speaking of elections, it is also interesting to consider that the last two U.S. presidents were forced to deal with jihadist strikes on American soil shortly after assuming office. Bill Clinton was inaugurated in January 1993, and the World Trade Center was bombed in late February 1993. George W. Bush was inaugurated in January 2001, and the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked in September 2001. In all likelihood this is a coincidence, but it is worth watching to see if the trend continues in 2009.
Of course, let’s put this in perspective. In the last 15 years — election year or not –- there has rarely been a time when some jihadist somewhere was not planning an attack against the United States. However, the al Qaeda core organization clearly attempted to conduct major attacks in 2002, 2004 and 2006, all of which were election years. These attempts (other than Madrid) were all thwarted. The fact that we haven’t seen an attempt during this year’s election cycle has us watchful — we sense that there must be plot out there somewhere.
Ease of Attack
Another thing that interests us about recent rumors is the concept behind the alleged plot: the simple and elegant idea of sending 10 independent actors to 10 cities. One factor that has sunk many past jihadist plots against the United States has been poor operational security and poor terrorist tradecraft. These mistakes have allowed U.S. authorities to identify and shut down the militant networks involved.
By using compartmentalized operatives, militants could more easily circumvent counterterrorist efforts. Furthermore, even if one or more of the operatives were detected and arrested by authorities, details of the operation at large would not be compromised. Each operative would only know about his own particular targeting instructions and would be unable to provide other details if captured.
In such a case, al Qaeda would most likely attempt to dispatch 10 “clean skin” operatives (those not obviously associated with the group) who are trained to construct improvised explosive devices using readily available materials and ultimately willing to undertake martyrdom missions. Due to changes in the immigration processes since the 2001 attacks, these operatives will likely be Westerners — U.S., Canadian or European citizens able to travel to the United States without the need to obtain a visa.
Recruiting such operatives could be easier that one might expect. Thousands of potential candidates who currently attend militant madrassas in Pakistan (including somewhere from 500 to 1,000 U.S. citizens) fit this description. In fact, no one really knows how many of these potential jihadist operatives exist at present. The government of Pakistan has not been forthcoming in answering requests from the United States and United Kingdom for lists of their citizens currently attending these institutions. Regardless, the idea of al Qaeda recruiting 10 “clean skins” for such an operation is not beyond the realm of possibility. Consider past recruits such as Mohammad Siddique Khan, the leader of the cell behind the July 7, 2005, London bombing, shoe bomber Richard Reid and Adam Gadahn (aka Azzam al-Amriki), or even the warnings o f German Muslims planning to conduct attacks in the West.
Levels of Severity
If this rumored operation is in fact legitimate, it would be the first one conducted using only operatives sent from the core al Qaeda group in Afghanistan or Pakistan since the 9/11 attacks. This is what we refer to as an al Qaeda 2.0 operational model. However, while sending operatives to work solo rather than in a group or with local grassroots jihadists increases operational security, it also reduces operational ability. Quite simply, it is more difficult for an individual to arrange a large attack than it is for a group working together. This means that lone operatives are unlikely to assemble major explosive devices like the truck-borne IED used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Instead we would anticipate attacks similar in scope to grassroots undertakings; suicide bombings such as the July 7, 2005, London bombings or the 2002 armed assault on the El Al Ticket counter in Los Angeles. These theoretical attacks also would likely be conducted against soft targets such as buses, subways or shopping malls, where they can create a high number of casualties, rather than harder targets like the White House or Pentagon, where they would prove ineffective.
The October 2005 incident in Norman, Okla., in which a University of Oklahoma student detonated an IED outside a packed football stadium highlights the ease with which a device can be manufactured from readily available items without detection. But suicide operatives could undertake a number of different types of attacks. Recently we have seen Palestinian suicide operatives embarking on extremely simple plots, such as driving heavy vehicles into crowds.
While the individual attacks themselves would likely be small in magnitude, when combined and spread across the country they could have a far larger impact, similar to past attacks in places such as Madrid, London, Amman in Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula and Bali, Indonesia. Although the botched attacks in London and Glasgow last summer were conducted by the same cell, the planners also clearly sought to use multiple devices in geographically diverse locations. While such attacks would not be a strategic threat to U.S. existence, they would certainly kill people and create a great deal of fear and confusion.
We are not attempting to hype anything here and we do not want to create any kind of panic. These are just rumors, and unconfirmed ones at that. We have not seen any formal announcements from the U.S. government raising the alert level. However, it certainly seems to us to be a prudent time to increase situational awareness and update contingency plans in anticipation of the worst.
Taken from Stratfor.com
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Al Qaeda Leadership Under Fire
The Jihadist Threat and Grassroots Defense
August 13, 2008
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
It has been a rough couple of weeks for the Egyptian al Qaeda contingent in Pakistan. On Aug. 12, Pakistani security sources confirmed that an Aug. 8 operation in Bajaur resulted in the death of al Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, aka Sheikh Said al-Masri. Some posters on jihadist message boards have denied the reports, but al Qaeda itself has yet to release a statement on the issue. Al-Yazid was reportedly al Qaeda’s operational commander for Afghanistan, and some reports also claim he was responsible for planning attacks within Pakistan, such as the June 2 attack on the Danish Embassy.
If confirmed, al-Yazid’s death came just 11 days after the July 28 missile strike in South Waziristan that resulted in the death of al Qaeda’s lead chemical and biological weapons expert, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri. The strike against al-Sayid also killed three other Egyptian al Qaeda commanders. In an ironic twist, the official al Qaeda eulogy for al-Sayid and his companions was given by al-Yazid. Unconfirmed rumors also have swirled since the July 28 attack that al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri was either killed or seriously wounded in the same operation. An audiotape in which al-Zawahiri speaks out against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was recently released in an odd manner, in that it was given directly to a Pakistani news channel rather than via al Qaeda’s usual release pattern of having As-Sahab Media upload it directly to the Internet. The tape, in which al-Zawahiri speaks in English for the first time in a public pronouncement, is not convincing proof that al-Zawahiri was not wounded or killed. Obviously, al-Zawahiri’s loss would be another serious blow to the organization. Al Qaeda’s current problems are nothing new. In fact, the United States and its allies have been attacking al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure consistently since 9/11. While the United States has not yet located and killed the al Qaeda apex leadership, it has done a very good job of eliminating senior operational commanders — the men in the al Qaeda hierarchy who actually plan and direct the militant Islamist group’s operations. The nature of their position means the operational commanders must have more contact with the outside world, and therefore become more vulnerable to being located and killed or captured. Because of this campaign against al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure, Stratfor has been saying for some time now that we do not believe the core al Qaeda group poses a strategic in the death of al Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, aka Sheikh Said al-Masri. Some posters on jihadist message boards have denied the reports, but al Qaeda itself has yet to release a statement on the issue. Al-Yazid was reportedly al Qaeda’s operational commander for Afghanistan, and some reports also claim he was responsible for planning attacks within Pakistan, such as the June 2 attack on the Danish Embassy. If confirmed, al-Yazid’s death came just 11 days after the July 28 missile strike in South Waziristan that resulted in the death of al Qaeda’s lead chemical and biological weapons expert, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri. The strike against al-Sayid also killed three other Egyptian al Qaeda commanders. In an ironic twist, the official al Qaeda eulogy for al-Sayid and his companions was given by al-Yazid.
Unconfirmed rumors also have swirled since the July 28 attack that al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri was either killed or seriously wounded in the same operation. An audiotape in which al-Zawahiri speaks out against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was recently released in an odd manner, in that it was given directly to a Pakistani news channel rather than via al Qaeda’s usual release pattern of having As-Sahab Media upload it directly to the Internet. The tape, in which al-Zawahiri speaks in English for the first time in a public pronouncement, is not convincing proof that al-Zawahiri was not wounded or killed. Obviously, al-Zawahiri’s loss would be another serious blow to the organization.
Al Qaeda’s current problems are nothing new. In fact, the United States and its allies have been attacking al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure consistently since 9/11. While the United States has not yet located and killed the al Qaeda apex leadership, it has done a very good job of eliminating senior operational commanders — the men in the al Qaeda hierarchy who actually plan and direct the militant Islamist group’s operations. The nature of their position means the operational commanders must have more contact with the outside world, and therefore become more vulnerable to being located and killed or captured.
Because of this campaign against al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure, Stratfor has been saying for some time now that we do not believe the core al Qaeda group poses a strategic threat to the U.S. homeland. However, that does not mean that the United States is completely free of danger when it comes to the jihadist threat. While the core al Qaeda group has been damaged, it still poses a tactical threat — and still can kill people. Furthermore, as the jihadist threat has devolved from one based primarily on al Qaeda the organization to one based on al Qaeda the movement, al Qaeda’s regional franchises and a nebulous array of grassroots jihadists must also be accounted for.
With al Qaeda’s operational structure under continued attack and the fact that there are no regional franchises in the Western Hemisphere, perhaps the most pressing jihadist threat to the U.S. homeland at the present time stems from grassroots jihadists.
Beyond the Cliches
There are many cliches used to describe grassroots jihadists. As we have long discussed, grassroots operatives tend to think globally and act locally — meaning they tend to be inspired by events abroad and yet strike close to home. Additionally, these operatives tend to be a mile wide but an inch deep — meaning that while there are many of them, they are often quite inept at terrorist tradecraft. These cliches are not just cute; they have a sound basis in reality, as a study of grassroots jihadists demonstrates.
There are two basic operational models that involve grassroots jihadists. The first operational model is one where an experienced operational commander is sent from the core al Qaeda group to assist the local grassroots cell. This is what we refer to as the “al Qaeda 1.0 operational model” since it literally is the first one we became familiar with. We saw this model used in many early jihadist operations, such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa. It has also been employed in a number of thwarted plots, such as Operation Bojinka in 1995 and the millennium plots in 2000. This model also was used in the thwarted 2006 Heathrow airliner plot.
The second grassroots operational model involves operatives who launch attacks themselves without external funding or direct operational guidance. This is what we refer to as the “al Qaeda 3.0 operational model.” Examples of attacks committed using this model include the November 1990 assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York, the July 21, 2005, London bombings, the July 2002 armed assault of the El Al Airlines ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport and the botched June 2007 bombing attacks in London and Glasgow.
Something of a gray area exists around the borders of these two operational models, and at times it can be difficult to distinguish one from the other. For example, Mohammed Siddique Khan, the leader of the cell that carried out the July 7, 2005, London suicide bombings, had attended training camps in Pakistan with another member of the cell. While there, he had at least some contact with al Qaeda, since al Qaeda released a copy of the martyrdom videos the two made during their time in Pakistan.
Notably, these attacks show that most of these grassroots jihadists, whether as part of a 1.0 or a 3.0 structured cell, selected targets in close proximity to their place of residence. Even when such cells have established safe houses to store chemicals, to manufacture improvised explosive mixtures or to construct improvised explosive devices, those safe houses quite often have been close to the target and the attacker’s residence. Grassroots jihadists really do think globally and act locally.
A second notable aspect of several of these attacks is that these operatives lack terrorist tradecraft such as operational security and surveillance techniques. Blunders in these areas have frequently led to the groups being identified and nabbed before they could launch their attacks. Plain old police traffic stops have exposed jihadist cells such as the Virginia Jihad Network and have helped to thwart several other terror plots.
Even when a grassroots group is able to execute its attack without detection, it often has been hampered by a lack of bomb-making skill. The failed July 21, 2005, London bombings and the June 2007 London and Glasgow attacks exemplify this flaw. Grassroots groups simply do not have the same level of training and operational experience as the professional operatives comprising the core al Qaeda group. Operationally, they are a mile wide and tend to be an inch deep.
Another consideration that comes to light while contemplating past grassroots cases is that lacking funding from al Qaeda core, grassroots operatives are likely to indulge in petty crimes such as credit card theft, cargo theft or armed robbery to fund their activities. For example, in July 2005, a grassroots cell in Torrance, Calif., was uncovered during an investigation into a string of armed robberies. After arresting one suspect, Levar Haney Washington, police who searched his apartment uncovered material indicating that Washington was part of a militant jihadist group planning to attack a number of targets in the Los Angeles area.
Truthfully, most grassroots operatives are far more likely to commit a criminal act such as document fraud or receiving stolen property than they are to have telephone conversations with Osama bin Laden. When they do commit such relatively minor crimes, it is local cops rather than some federal agency that will have the first interaction with them. This means that local police are an important piece of the counterterrorism defenses — they are, in essence, grassroots defenders.
Beyond Grassroots Jihadists
A recent study led by Brent Smith of the Terrorism Research Center at the University of Arkansas’ Fulbright College suggests that these trends extend beyond the grassroots jihadist threat. In a July article in the National Institute of Justice Journal, Smith noted that his research team studied 60 terrorist incidents in the United States over the past 25 years. The terrorist actors were from a cross-section of different ideological backgrounds, including domestic left-wing, domestic right-wing, domestic single-issue and international terrorists.
In the study, Smith and his colleagues identified the residences of 431 terrorist suspects and found that, overall, 44 percent of the attacks were conducted within 30 miles of the perpetrator’s place of residence and 51 percent were conducted within 90 miles of the residence. When broken down by type, the numbers were actually highest for international terrorists, with 59 percent of the suspects living within 30 miles of their target and 76 percent of the suspects residing within 90 miles.
Smith’s study also noted that many of the preparatory actions for the attacks occurred close to the attack site, with 65 percent of the environmental terrorists and 59 percent of the international terrorists studied conducting preparations for their attacks within 30 miles of their target sites. Of course, some preparatory actions, such as preoperational surveillance, by their very nature must be conducted within close proximity to the attack site. But still, the percentage of activity conducted near attack sites is noteworthy.
One other interesting result of Smith’s study was the timeline within which preparation for an attack was completed. For international groups, the preparation could take a year or more. But environmentalist and left-wing groups proved to be far more spontaneous, with a large portion of their preparation (88 and 91 percent, respectively) completed within two weeks of the attack. This means that prior to an attack, international terrorists are generally vulnerable to detection for far longer than are members of a domestic left-wing or environmentalist group.
Application
While there are always exceptions to the percentages, with people like Timothy McVeigh and Mohammed Atta traveling long distances to conduct preparatory acts and execute attacks, most people conducting terrorist attacks tend to operate in areas they are familiar with and environments they are comfortable in.
When we examine the spectrum of potential terrorist actors — from domestic people such as McVeigh and Eric Rudolph to international figures such as Mohammed Atta and Ahmed Ajaj — it is clear that a large number of them have had no prior interaction with federal law enforcement or intelligence officials and therefore no prior record identifying them as potential terrorism suspects. That means that even if they were stopped by a local police officer (as Atta was for driving without a license), any national-level checks would turn up negative. Because of this, it is extremely important for police officers and investigators to trust their instincts and follow up on hunches if a subject just doesn’t feel right. The Oklahoma state trooper who arrested McVeigh, the New Jersey state trooper who nabbed Yu Kikumura, or the rookie Murphy, N.C., officer who apprehended Eric Rudolph are all examples of cops who did this.
Of course, following your instincts is difficult to do when management is pressuring police officers and agents investigating cases such as document and financial fraud to close cases and not to drag them out by pursuing additional leads. Indeed, when Ahmed Ajaj was arrested in September 1992 for committing passport fraud, the case was quickly closed and authorities pretty much ignored that he had been transporting a large quantity of jihadist material, including bomb-making manuals and videos. Instead, he was sentenced to six months in jail for committing passport fraud and was then scheduled for deportation.
Had authorities taken the time to carefully review the materials in Ajaj’s briefcase, they would have found two boarding passes and two passports with exit stamps from Pakistan. Because of that oversight, no one noticed that Ajaj was traveling with a companion — a companion named Abdel Basit who entered the United States on a fraudulent Iraqi passport in the name Ramzi Yousef and who built the large truck-borne explosive device used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
While many state and local departments have specialized intelligence or counterterrorism divisions, training on how to spot potential terrorist preparatory activity often does not go much further than those officers specifically assigned to the counterterrorism portfolio. In some jurisdictions, however, law enforcement managers not only give investigators the leeway to investigate potential terrorist activity, they also encourage their street officers to do so — and even provide training on how to identify such behavior.
In many jurisdictions, serious problems in information sharing persist. Much has been written about “the wall” that separated the FBI’s intelligence investigations from its criminal investigations and how that separation was detrimental to the U.S. government’s counterterrorism efforts prior to 9/11. The FBI is not the only place such a wall exists, however. In many state and local law enforcement departments, there is still a wide gulf separating the intelligence or counterterrorism division officers and the rest of the department. This means that information regarding cases that general crimes investigators are looking into — cases that very well could have a terrorism angle — does not make it to the officers working terrorism cases.
As the shift toward grassroots operatives continues, information pertaining to preparatory crimes will become even more critical. Identifying this activity and flagging it for follow-on investigation could mean the difference between a thwarted and a successful attack. As the grassroots threat emerges, the need for grassroots defense has never been greater.
From www.stratfor.com.
August 13, 2008
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
It has been a rough couple of weeks for the Egyptian al Qaeda contingent in Pakistan. On Aug. 12, Pakistani security sources confirmed that an Aug. 8 operation in Bajaur resulted in the death of al Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, aka Sheikh Said al-Masri. Some posters on jihadist message boards have denied the reports, but al Qaeda itself has yet to release a statement on the issue. Al-Yazid was reportedly al Qaeda’s operational commander for Afghanistan, and some reports also claim he was responsible for planning attacks within Pakistan, such as the June 2 attack on the Danish Embassy.
If confirmed, al-Yazid’s death came just 11 days after the July 28 missile strike in South Waziristan that resulted in the death of al Qaeda’s lead chemical and biological weapons expert, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri. The strike against al-Sayid also killed three other Egyptian al Qaeda commanders. In an ironic twist, the official al Qaeda eulogy for al-Sayid and his companions was given by al-Yazid. Unconfirmed rumors also have swirled since the July 28 attack that al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri was either killed or seriously wounded in the same operation. An audiotape in which al-Zawahiri speaks out against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was recently released in an odd manner, in that it was given directly to a Pakistani news channel rather than via al Qaeda’s usual release pattern of having As-Sahab Media upload it directly to the Internet. The tape, in which al-Zawahiri speaks in English for the first time in a public pronouncement, is not convincing proof that al-Zawahiri was not wounded or killed. Obviously, al-Zawahiri’s loss would be another serious blow to the organization. Al Qaeda’s current problems are nothing new. In fact, the United States and its allies have been attacking al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure consistently since 9/11. While the United States has not yet located and killed the al Qaeda apex leadership, it has done a very good job of eliminating senior operational commanders — the men in the al Qaeda hierarchy who actually plan and direct the militant Islamist group’s operations. The nature of their position means the operational commanders must have more contact with the outside world, and therefore become more vulnerable to being located and killed or captured. Because of this campaign against al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure, Stratfor has been saying for some time now that we do not believe the core al Qaeda group poses a strategic in the death of al Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, aka Sheikh Said al-Masri. Some posters on jihadist message boards have denied the reports, but al Qaeda itself has yet to release a statement on the issue. Al-Yazid was reportedly al Qaeda’s operational commander for Afghanistan, and some reports also claim he was responsible for planning attacks within Pakistan, such as the June 2 attack on the Danish Embassy. If confirmed, al-Yazid’s death came just 11 days after the July 28 missile strike in South Waziristan that resulted in the death of al Qaeda’s lead chemical and biological weapons expert, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri. The strike against al-Sayid also killed three other Egyptian al Qaeda commanders. In an ironic twist, the official al Qaeda eulogy for al-Sayid and his companions was given by al-Yazid.
Unconfirmed rumors also have swirled since the July 28 attack that al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri was either killed or seriously wounded in the same operation. An audiotape in which al-Zawahiri speaks out against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was recently released in an odd manner, in that it was given directly to a Pakistani news channel rather than via al Qaeda’s usual release pattern of having As-Sahab Media upload it directly to the Internet. The tape, in which al-Zawahiri speaks in English for the first time in a public pronouncement, is not convincing proof that al-Zawahiri was not wounded or killed. Obviously, al-Zawahiri’s loss would be another serious blow to the organization.
Al Qaeda’s current problems are nothing new. In fact, the United States and its allies have been attacking al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure consistently since 9/11. While the United States has not yet located and killed the al Qaeda apex leadership, it has done a very good job of eliminating senior operational commanders — the men in the al Qaeda hierarchy who actually plan and direct the militant Islamist group’s operations. The nature of their position means the operational commanders must have more contact with the outside world, and therefore become more vulnerable to being located and killed or captured.
Because of this campaign against al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure, Stratfor has been saying for some time now that we do not believe the core al Qaeda group poses a strategic threat to the U.S. homeland. However, that does not mean that the United States is completely free of danger when it comes to the jihadist threat. While the core al Qaeda group has been damaged, it still poses a tactical threat — and still can kill people. Furthermore, as the jihadist threat has devolved from one based primarily on al Qaeda the organization to one based on al Qaeda the movement, al Qaeda’s regional franchises and a nebulous array of grassroots jihadists must also be accounted for.
With al Qaeda’s operational structure under continued attack and the fact that there are no regional franchises in the Western Hemisphere, perhaps the most pressing jihadist threat to the U.S. homeland at the present time stems from grassroots jihadists.
Beyond the Cliches
There are many cliches used to describe grassroots jihadists. As we have long discussed, grassroots operatives tend to think globally and act locally — meaning they tend to be inspired by events abroad and yet strike close to home. Additionally, these operatives tend to be a mile wide but an inch deep — meaning that while there are many of them, they are often quite inept at terrorist tradecraft. These cliches are not just cute; they have a sound basis in reality, as a study of grassroots jihadists demonstrates.
There are two basic operational models that involve grassroots jihadists. The first operational model is one where an experienced operational commander is sent from the core al Qaeda group to assist the local grassroots cell. This is what we refer to as the “al Qaeda 1.0 operational model” since it literally is the first one we became familiar with. We saw this model used in many early jihadist operations, such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa. It has also been employed in a number of thwarted plots, such as Operation Bojinka in 1995 and the millennium plots in 2000. This model also was used in the thwarted 2006 Heathrow airliner plot.
The second grassroots operational model involves operatives who launch attacks themselves without external funding or direct operational guidance. This is what we refer to as the “al Qaeda 3.0 operational model.” Examples of attacks committed using this model include the November 1990 assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York, the July 21, 2005, London bombings, the July 2002 armed assault of the El Al Airlines ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport and the botched June 2007 bombing attacks in London and Glasgow.
Something of a gray area exists around the borders of these two operational models, and at times it can be difficult to distinguish one from the other. For example, Mohammed Siddique Khan, the leader of the cell that carried out the July 7, 2005, London suicide bombings, had attended training camps in Pakistan with another member of the cell. While there, he had at least some contact with al Qaeda, since al Qaeda released a copy of the martyrdom videos the two made during their time in Pakistan.
Notably, these attacks show that most of these grassroots jihadists, whether as part of a 1.0 or a 3.0 structured cell, selected targets in close proximity to their place of residence. Even when such cells have established safe houses to store chemicals, to manufacture improvised explosive mixtures or to construct improvised explosive devices, those safe houses quite often have been close to the target and the attacker’s residence. Grassroots jihadists really do think globally and act locally.
A second notable aspect of several of these attacks is that these operatives lack terrorist tradecraft such as operational security and surveillance techniques. Blunders in these areas have frequently led to the groups being identified and nabbed before they could launch their attacks. Plain old police traffic stops have exposed jihadist cells such as the Virginia Jihad Network and have helped to thwart several other terror plots.
Even when a grassroots group is able to execute its attack without detection, it often has been hampered by a lack of bomb-making skill. The failed July 21, 2005, London bombings and the June 2007 London and Glasgow attacks exemplify this flaw. Grassroots groups simply do not have the same level of training and operational experience as the professional operatives comprising the core al Qaeda group. Operationally, they are a mile wide and tend to be an inch deep.
Another consideration that comes to light while contemplating past grassroots cases is that lacking funding from al Qaeda core, grassroots operatives are likely to indulge in petty crimes such as credit card theft, cargo theft or armed robbery to fund their activities. For example, in July 2005, a grassroots cell in Torrance, Calif., was uncovered during an investigation into a string of armed robberies. After arresting one suspect, Levar Haney Washington, police who searched his apartment uncovered material indicating that Washington was part of a militant jihadist group planning to attack a number of targets in the Los Angeles area.
Truthfully, most grassroots operatives are far more likely to commit a criminal act such as document fraud or receiving stolen property than they are to have telephone conversations with Osama bin Laden. When they do commit such relatively minor crimes, it is local cops rather than some federal agency that will have the first interaction with them. This means that local police are an important piece of the counterterrorism defenses — they are, in essence, grassroots defenders.
Beyond Grassroots Jihadists
A recent study led by Brent Smith of the Terrorism Research Center at the University of Arkansas’ Fulbright College suggests that these trends extend beyond the grassroots jihadist threat. In a July article in the National Institute of Justice Journal, Smith noted that his research team studied 60 terrorist incidents in the United States over the past 25 years. The terrorist actors were from a cross-section of different ideological backgrounds, including domestic left-wing, domestic right-wing, domestic single-issue and international terrorists.
In the study, Smith and his colleagues identified the residences of 431 terrorist suspects and found that, overall, 44 percent of the attacks were conducted within 30 miles of the perpetrator’s place of residence and 51 percent were conducted within 90 miles of the residence. When broken down by type, the numbers were actually highest for international terrorists, with 59 percent of the suspects living within 30 miles of their target and 76 percent of the suspects residing within 90 miles.
Smith’s study also noted that many of the preparatory actions for the attacks occurred close to the attack site, with 65 percent of the environmental terrorists and 59 percent of the international terrorists studied conducting preparations for their attacks within 30 miles of their target sites. Of course, some preparatory actions, such as preoperational surveillance, by their very nature must be conducted within close proximity to the attack site. But still, the percentage of activity conducted near attack sites is noteworthy.
One other interesting result of Smith’s study was the timeline within which preparation for an attack was completed. For international groups, the preparation could take a year or more. But environmentalist and left-wing groups proved to be far more spontaneous, with a large portion of their preparation (88 and 91 percent, respectively) completed within two weeks of the attack. This means that prior to an attack, international terrorists are generally vulnerable to detection for far longer than are members of a domestic left-wing or environmentalist group.
Application
While there are always exceptions to the percentages, with people like Timothy McVeigh and Mohammed Atta traveling long distances to conduct preparatory acts and execute attacks, most people conducting terrorist attacks tend to operate in areas they are familiar with and environments they are comfortable in.
When we examine the spectrum of potential terrorist actors — from domestic people such as McVeigh and Eric Rudolph to international figures such as Mohammed Atta and Ahmed Ajaj — it is clear that a large number of them have had no prior interaction with federal law enforcement or intelligence officials and therefore no prior record identifying them as potential terrorism suspects. That means that even if they were stopped by a local police officer (as Atta was for driving without a license), any national-level checks would turn up negative. Because of this, it is extremely important for police officers and investigators to trust their instincts and follow up on hunches if a subject just doesn’t feel right. The Oklahoma state trooper who arrested McVeigh, the New Jersey state trooper who nabbed Yu Kikumura, or the rookie Murphy, N.C., officer who apprehended Eric Rudolph are all examples of cops who did this.
Of course, following your instincts is difficult to do when management is pressuring police officers and agents investigating cases such as document and financial fraud to close cases and not to drag them out by pursuing additional leads. Indeed, when Ahmed Ajaj was arrested in September 1992 for committing passport fraud, the case was quickly closed and authorities pretty much ignored that he had been transporting a large quantity of jihadist material, including bomb-making manuals and videos. Instead, he was sentenced to six months in jail for committing passport fraud and was then scheduled for deportation.
Had authorities taken the time to carefully review the materials in Ajaj’s briefcase, they would have found two boarding passes and two passports with exit stamps from Pakistan. Because of that oversight, no one noticed that Ajaj was traveling with a companion — a companion named Abdel Basit who entered the United States on a fraudulent Iraqi passport in the name Ramzi Yousef and who built the large truck-borne explosive device used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
While many state and local departments have specialized intelligence or counterterrorism divisions, training on how to spot potential terrorist preparatory activity often does not go much further than those officers specifically assigned to the counterterrorism portfolio. In some jurisdictions, however, law enforcement managers not only give investigators the leeway to investigate potential terrorist activity, they also encourage their street officers to do so — and even provide training on how to identify such behavior.
In many jurisdictions, serious problems in information sharing persist. Much has been written about “the wall” that separated the FBI’s intelligence investigations from its criminal investigations and how that separation was detrimental to the U.S. government’s counterterrorism efforts prior to 9/11. The FBI is not the only place such a wall exists, however. In many state and local law enforcement departments, there is still a wide gulf separating the intelligence or counterterrorism division officers and the rest of the department. This means that information regarding cases that general crimes investigators are looking into — cases that very well could have a terrorism angle — does not make it to the officers working terrorism cases.
As the shift toward grassroots operatives continues, information pertaining to preparatory crimes will become even more critical. Identifying this activity and flagging it for follow-on investigation could mean the difference between a thwarted and a successful attack. As the grassroots threat emerges, the need for grassroots defense has never been greater.
From www.stratfor.com.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Iraq: Positive Signs
Here is an interesting article from Stratfor.com.
Iraq: Positive Signs
By George Friedman
The latest reports concerning the war in Iraq suggest the situation is looking up for the United States. First, U.S. military and Iraqi civilian casualties continue to fall. Second, there are confirmed reports that Sunni insurgents controlled by local leaders have turned on al Qaeda militants, particularly those from outside the country. Third, the head of U.S. Central Command, in an interview with the Financial Times, implied that an attack against Iran is a distant possibility.
It is tempting to say the United States has turned the corner on the war. The temptation might not be misplaced, but after many disappointments since 2003, it is prudent to be cautious in declaring turning points -- and it is equally prudent not to confuse a turning point with a victory. That said, given expectations that the United States would be unable to limit violence in Iraq, and that Sunni insurgents would remain implacable -- not to mention the broad expectation of a U.S. attack against Iran -- these three points indicate a reversal -- and must be taken seriously.
The most startling point is the decline in casualties, and particularly the apparent decline in sectarian violence. Explaining this is difficult. It could simply be the result of the more efficient use of U.S. troops in suppressing the insurgency and controlling the Shiite militias. If that were the only explanation, however, it would be troubling. Standard guerrilla warfare doctrine holds that during periods of intense enemy counterinsurgency operations, guerrillas should cease fighting, hide weapons and equipment and blend into the civilian population. Only after the enemy shifts its area of operations or reduces operational tempo should the guerrillas resume combat operations. Under no circumstances should insurgents attempt to fight a surge.
Therefore, if we were considering U.S. military operations alone, few conclusions could be drawn until after the operations shifted or slowed. In addition, in a country of 25 million, the expectation that some 167,000 troops -- many of them not directly involved in combat -- could break the back of an entrenched insurgency is optimistic. The numbers simply don't work, particularly when Shiite militias are added to the equation. Therefore, if viewed simply in terms of military operations, the decline in casualties would not validate a shift in the war until much later, and our expectation is that the insurgency would resume prior levels of activity over time.
What makes the situation more hopeful for the United States is the clear decline in civilian casualties. Most of those were caused not by U.S. combat operations but by sectarian conflict, particularly between Sunnis and Shia. Part of the decline can be explained by U.S. operations, but when we look at the scope and intensity of sectarian fighting, it is difficult to give U.S. operations full credit. A more likely explanation is political, a decision on the part of the various sectarian organizations to stop operations not only against the Americans but also against each other.
There were two wars going on in Iraq. One was against the United States. The more important war, from the Iraqi point of view, was the Sunni-Shiite struggle to determine who would control Iraq's future. Part of this struggle, particularly on the Shiite side, was intrasectarian violence. All of it was political and, in a real sense, it was life and death. It involved the control of neighborhoods, of ministries, of the police force and so on. It was a struggle over the shape of everyday life. If either side simply abandoned the struggle, it would leave a vacuum for the other. U.S. operations or not, that civil war could not be suspended. To a significant extent, however, it has been suspended.
That means that some political decisions were made, at least on the local level and likely at higher levels as well, as several U.S. authorities have implied recently. Civilian casualties from the civil war would not have dropped as much as they have without some sort of political decisions to restrain forces, and those decisions could not be made unilaterally or simply in response to U.S. military pressure. It required a set of at least temporary political arrangements. And that, in many ways, is more promising than simply a decline because of U.S. combat operations. The political arrangements open the door to the possibility that the decline in casualties is likely to be longer lasting.
This brings us to the second point, the attacks by the Sunnis against the jihadists. Immediately after the invasion in 2003, the United States essentially attempted to strip the Sunnis -- the foundation of Saddam Hussein's strength -- of their power. The U.S. de-Baathification laws had the effect of eliminating the Sunni community's participation in the future of Iraq. Viewing the Shia -- the victims of Hussein's rule -- as likely interested not only in dominating Iraq but also in retribution against the Sunnis, the Sunni leadership, particularly at the local level, supported and instigated an insurgency against U.S. forces. The political purpose of the insurgency was to force the United States to shift its pro-Shiite policy and include the Sunnis, from religious to Baathist, in the regime.
Given the insurgency's political purpose, the power of U.S. forces and the well-organized Shiite militias, the Iraqi Sunnis were prepared to form alliances wherever they could find them. A leading source of support for the Iraqi Sunnis came from outside Iraq, among the Sunni jihadist fighters who organized themselves under the banner of al Qaeda and, weapons in hand, infiltrated the country from outside, particular through Syria.
Nevertheless, there was underlying tension between the local Sunnis and the jihadists. The Iraqi Sunnis were part of the local power structure, many having been involved in the essentially secular Baath Party, and others, more religious, having remained outside the regime but ruled by traditional tribal systems. The foreign jihadists were revolutionaries not only in the sense that they were prepared to fight the Americans but also in that they wanted to revolutionize -- radically Islamize -- the local Sunni community. By extension, they wanted to supplant the local leadership with their own by supporting and elevating new local leaders dependent for their survival on al Qaeda power.
For an extended period of time, the United States saw the Sunni insurgency as consisting of a single fabric. The local insurgents and the jihadists were viewed as the same, and the adopted name of the jihadists, al Qaeda, caused the Americans to see them as the primary enemy. Over time, and particularly since the death of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the United States has adopted a more nuanced view of the Sunni insurgency, drawing a distinction between the largely native Iraqi insurgents and the largely foreign jihadists.
Once this occurred and the United States began to make overtures to the native Iraqi insurgents, the underlying tensions between the foreign jihadists and the Iraqi insurgents emerged. The Sunnis, over time, came to see the jihadists as a greater danger to them than the Americans, and by the time U.S. President George W. Bush last visited Iraq, several Sunni leaders were prepared to be seen publicly with him. The growing animosities eventually turned into active warfare between the two factions, with al Qaeda being outnumbered and outgunned and the natives enjoying all of the perks of having the home-court advantage.
From the U.S. point of view, splitting the Sunni insurgency politically and militarily was important not only for the obvious reasons but also for influencing the Shia. From a Shiite point of view -- and now let's introduce Iran, the primary external backer of Iraq's Shiites -- the worst-case scenario would be the re-establishment of a predominantly Sunni government in Baghdad backed by the U.S. military. The political accommodation between the United States and the Iraqi Sunnis represented a direct threat to the Shia.
It is important to recall that Hussein and his Baathist predecessors -- all Sunnis leading a predominantly Sunni government -- were able to dominate the more numerous Shia for decades. The reason was that the Shia were highly fragmented politically, more so than the Sunnis. This historic factionalization made the Shia much weaker than their numbers would have indicated. It was no accident that the Sunnis dominated the Shia.
And the Shia remained fragmented. While the Sunnis were fighting an external force, the Shia were fighting both the Sunnis and one another. Given those circumstances, it was not inconceivable that the United States would try, and perhaps succeed, to re-establish the status quo ante of a united Iraq under a Sunni government -- backed by U.S. power until Iraq could regenerate its own force. Of course, that represented a reversal of the original U.S. goal of establishing a Shiite regime.
For Iran, this was an intolerable outcome because it would again raise the possibility of an Iran-Iraq war -- in which Iran might take another million casualties. The Iranian response was to use its influence among the competing Shiite militias to attack the Sunnis and to inflict casualties on American troops, hoping to force a withdrawal. Paradoxically, while the jihadists are the Iranians' foe, they were useful to Tehran because the more they attacked the Shia -- and the more the Shia retaliated -- the more the Sunnis and al Qaeda aligned -- which kept the United States and the Sunnis apart. Iran, in other words, wanted a united Sunni-jihadist movement because it would wreck the emerging political arrangements. In addition, when the Iranians realized that the Democrats in the U.S. Congress were not going to force a U.S. withdrawal, their calculations about the future changed.
Caught between al Qaeda and the militias, the Sunnis were under intense pressure. The United States responded by conducting operations against the jihadists -- trying to limit engagements with Iraqi Sunni insurgents -- and most important, against Shiite militias. The goal was to hold the Sunnis in the emerging political matrix while damaging the militias that were engaging the Sunnis. The United States was trying increase the cost to the Shia of adhering to the Iranian strategy.
At the same time, the United States sought to intimidate the Iranians by raising, and trying to make very real, the possibility that the United States would attack them as well. As we have argued, the U.S. military options are limited, so an attack would make little military sense. The Iranians, however, could not be certain that the United States was being rational about the whole thing, which was pretty much what the United States wanted. The United States wanted the Shia in Iraq to see the various costs of following the Iranian line -- including creating a Sunni-dominated government -- while convincing the Iranians that they were in grave danger of American military action.
In this context, we find the third point particularly interesting. Adm. William Fallon's interview with the Financial Times -- in which he went out of its way to downplay the American military threat to Iran -- was not given by accident. Fallon does not agree to interviews without clearance. The United States was using the interview to telegraph to Iran that it should not have undue fear of an American attack.
The United States can easily turn up the heat again psychologically, though for the moment it has chosen to lower it. By doing so, we assume Washington is sending two messages to Iran. First, it is acknowledging that creating a predominantly Sunni government is not its first choice. Also, it is rewarding Iran for the decline in violence by the Shiite militias, which undoubtedly required Tehran to shift its orders to its covert operatives in Iraq.
The important question is whether we are seeing a turning point in Iraq. The answer is that it appears so, but not primarily because of the effectiveness of U.S. military operations. Rather, it is the result of U.S. military operations coupled with a much more complex and sophisticated approach to Iraq. To be more precise, a series of political initiatives that the United States had undertaken over the past two years in fits and starts has been united into a single orchestrated effort. The result of these efforts was a series of political decisions on the part of various Iraqi parties not only to reduce attacks against U.S. troops but also to bring the civil war under control.
A few months ago, we laid out four scenarios for Iraq, including the possibility that that United States would maintain troops there indefinitely. At the time, we argued against this idea on the assumption that what had not worked previously would not work in the future. Instead, we argued that resisting Iranian power required that efforts to create security be stopped and troops moved to blocking positions along the Saudi border. We had not calculated that the United States would now supplement combat operations with a highly sophisticated and nuanced political offensive. Therefore, we were wrong in underestimating the effectiveness of the scenario.
That said, a turning point is not the same as victory, and the turning point could turn into a failure. The key weaknesses are the fragmented Shia and the forces and decisions that might emerge there, underwritten by Iran. Everything could be wrecked should Iran choose to take the necessary risks. For the moment, however, the Iranians seem to be exercising caution, and the Shia are responding by reducing violence. If that trend continues, then this really could be a turning point. Of course, any outcome that depends on the Shia and Iranians doing what the United States hopes they will do is fragile. Iran in particular has little interest in giving the United States a graceful solution unless it is well compensated for it. On the other hand, for the moment, Tehran is cooperating. This could simply be another instance of Iran holding off before disappointing the United States, or it could mean it has reason to believe it will be well compensated. Revealing that compensation -- if it is coming -- is the next turn of the wheel.
Iraq: Positive Signs
By George Friedman
The latest reports concerning the war in Iraq suggest the situation is looking up for the United States. First, U.S. military and Iraqi civilian casualties continue to fall. Second, there are confirmed reports that Sunni insurgents controlled by local leaders have turned on al Qaeda militants, particularly those from outside the country. Third, the head of U.S. Central Command, in an interview with the Financial Times, implied that an attack against Iran is a distant possibility.
It is tempting to say the United States has turned the corner on the war. The temptation might not be misplaced, but after many disappointments since 2003, it is prudent to be cautious in declaring turning points -- and it is equally prudent not to confuse a turning point with a victory. That said, given expectations that the United States would be unable to limit violence in Iraq, and that Sunni insurgents would remain implacable -- not to mention the broad expectation of a U.S. attack against Iran -- these three points indicate a reversal -- and must be taken seriously.
The most startling point is the decline in casualties, and particularly the apparent decline in sectarian violence. Explaining this is difficult. It could simply be the result of the more efficient use of U.S. troops in suppressing the insurgency and controlling the Shiite militias. If that were the only explanation, however, it would be troubling. Standard guerrilla warfare doctrine holds that during periods of intense enemy counterinsurgency operations, guerrillas should cease fighting, hide weapons and equipment and blend into the civilian population. Only after the enemy shifts its area of operations or reduces operational tempo should the guerrillas resume combat operations. Under no circumstances should insurgents attempt to fight a surge.
Therefore, if we were considering U.S. military operations alone, few conclusions could be drawn until after the operations shifted or slowed. In addition, in a country of 25 million, the expectation that some 167,000 troops -- many of them not directly involved in combat -- could break the back of an entrenched insurgency is optimistic. The numbers simply don't work, particularly when Shiite militias are added to the equation. Therefore, if viewed simply in terms of military operations, the decline in casualties would not validate a shift in the war until much later, and our expectation is that the insurgency would resume prior levels of activity over time.
What makes the situation more hopeful for the United States is the clear decline in civilian casualties. Most of those were caused not by U.S. combat operations but by sectarian conflict, particularly between Sunnis and Shia. Part of the decline can be explained by U.S. operations, but when we look at the scope and intensity of sectarian fighting, it is difficult to give U.S. operations full credit. A more likely explanation is political, a decision on the part of the various sectarian organizations to stop operations not only against the Americans but also against each other.
There were two wars going on in Iraq. One was against the United States. The more important war, from the Iraqi point of view, was the Sunni-Shiite struggle to determine who would control Iraq's future. Part of this struggle, particularly on the Shiite side, was intrasectarian violence. All of it was political and, in a real sense, it was life and death. It involved the control of neighborhoods, of ministries, of the police force and so on. It was a struggle over the shape of everyday life. If either side simply abandoned the struggle, it would leave a vacuum for the other. U.S. operations or not, that civil war could not be suspended. To a significant extent, however, it has been suspended.
That means that some political decisions were made, at least on the local level and likely at higher levels as well, as several U.S. authorities have implied recently. Civilian casualties from the civil war would not have dropped as much as they have without some sort of political decisions to restrain forces, and those decisions could not be made unilaterally or simply in response to U.S. military pressure. It required a set of at least temporary political arrangements. And that, in many ways, is more promising than simply a decline because of U.S. combat operations. The political arrangements open the door to the possibility that the decline in casualties is likely to be longer lasting.
This brings us to the second point, the attacks by the Sunnis against the jihadists. Immediately after the invasion in 2003, the United States essentially attempted to strip the Sunnis -- the foundation of Saddam Hussein's strength -- of their power. The U.S. de-Baathification laws had the effect of eliminating the Sunni community's participation in the future of Iraq. Viewing the Shia -- the victims of Hussein's rule -- as likely interested not only in dominating Iraq but also in retribution against the Sunnis, the Sunni leadership, particularly at the local level, supported and instigated an insurgency against U.S. forces. The political purpose of the insurgency was to force the United States to shift its pro-Shiite policy and include the Sunnis, from religious to Baathist, in the regime.
Given the insurgency's political purpose, the power of U.S. forces and the well-organized Shiite militias, the Iraqi Sunnis were prepared to form alliances wherever they could find them. A leading source of support for the Iraqi Sunnis came from outside Iraq, among the Sunni jihadist fighters who organized themselves under the banner of al Qaeda and, weapons in hand, infiltrated the country from outside, particular through Syria.
Nevertheless, there was underlying tension between the local Sunnis and the jihadists. The Iraqi Sunnis were part of the local power structure, many having been involved in the essentially secular Baath Party, and others, more religious, having remained outside the regime but ruled by traditional tribal systems. The foreign jihadists were revolutionaries not only in the sense that they were prepared to fight the Americans but also in that they wanted to revolutionize -- radically Islamize -- the local Sunni community. By extension, they wanted to supplant the local leadership with their own by supporting and elevating new local leaders dependent for their survival on al Qaeda power.
For an extended period of time, the United States saw the Sunni insurgency as consisting of a single fabric. The local insurgents and the jihadists were viewed as the same, and the adopted name of the jihadists, al Qaeda, caused the Americans to see them as the primary enemy. Over time, and particularly since the death of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the United States has adopted a more nuanced view of the Sunni insurgency, drawing a distinction between the largely native Iraqi insurgents and the largely foreign jihadists.
Once this occurred and the United States began to make overtures to the native Iraqi insurgents, the underlying tensions between the foreign jihadists and the Iraqi insurgents emerged. The Sunnis, over time, came to see the jihadists as a greater danger to them than the Americans, and by the time U.S. President George W. Bush last visited Iraq, several Sunni leaders were prepared to be seen publicly with him. The growing animosities eventually turned into active warfare between the two factions, with al Qaeda being outnumbered and outgunned and the natives enjoying all of the perks of having the home-court advantage.
From the U.S. point of view, splitting the Sunni insurgency politically and militarily was important not only for the obvious reasons but also for influencing the Shia. From a Shiite point of view -- and now let's introduce Iran, the primary external backer of Iraq's Shiites -- the worst-case scenario would be the re-establishment of a predominantly Sunni government in Baghdad backed by the U.S. military. The political accommodation between the United States and the Iraqi Sunnis represented a direct threat to the Shia.
It is important to recall that Hussein and his Baathist predecessors -- all Sunnis leading a predominantly Sunni government -- were able to dominate the more numerous Shia for decades. The reason was that the Shia were highly fragmented politically, more so than the Sunnis. This historic factionalization made the Shia much weaker than their numbers would have indicated. It was no accident that the Sunnis dominated the Shia.
And the Shia remained fragmented. While the Sunnis were fighting an external force, the Shia were fighting both the Sunnis and one another. Given those circumstances, it was not inconceivable that the United States would try, and perhaps succeed, to re-establish the status quo ante of a united Iraq under a Sunni government -- backed by U.S. power until Iraq could regenerate its own force. Of course, that represented a reversal of the original U.S. goal of establishing a Shiite regime.
For Iran, this was an intolerable outcome because it would again raise the possibility of an Iran-Iraq war -- in which Iran might take another million casualties. The Iranian response was to use its influence among the competing Shiite militias to attack the Sunnis and to inflict casualties on American troops, hoping to force a withdrawal. Paradoxically, while the jihadists are the Iranians' foe, they were useful to Tehran because the more they attacked the Shia -- and the more the Shia retaliated -- the more the Sunnis and al Qaeda aligned -- which kept the United States and the Sunnis apart. Iran, in other words, wanted a united Sunni-jihadist movement because it would wreck the emerging political arrangements. In addition, when the Iranians realized that the Democrats in the U.S. Congress were not going to force a U.S. withdrawal, their calculations about the future changed.
Caught between al Qaeda and the militias, the Sunnis were under intense pressure. The United States responded by conducting operations against the jihadists -- trying to limit engagements with Iraqi Sunni insurgents -- and most important, against Shiite militias. The goal was to hold the Sunnis in the emerging political matrix while damaging the militias that were engaging the Sunnis. The United States was trying increase the cost to the Shia of adhering to the Iranian strategy.
At the same time, the United States sought to intimidate the Iranians by raising, and trying to make very real, the possibility that the United States would attack them as well. As we have argued, the U.S. military options are limited, so an attack would make little military sense. The Iranians, however, could not be certain that the United States was being rational about the whole thing, which was pretty much what the United States wanted. The United States wanted the Shia in Iraq to see the various costs of following the Iranian line -- including creating a Sunni-dominated government -- while convincing the Iranians that they were in grave danger of American military action.
In this context, we find the third point particularly interesting. Adm. William Fallon's interview with the Financial Times -- in which he went out of its way to downplay the American military threat to Iran -- was not given by accident. Fallon does not agree to interviews without clearance. The United States was using the interview to telegraph to Iran that it should not have undue fear of an American attack.
The United States can easily turn up the heat again psychologically, though for the moment it has chosen to lower it. By doing so, we assume Washington is sending two messages to Iran. First, it is acknowledging that creating a predominantly Sunni government is not its first choice. Also, it is rewarding Iran for the decline in violence by the Shiite militias, which undoubtedly required Tehran to shift its orders to its covert operatives in Iraq.
The important question is whether we are seeing a turning point in Iraq. The answer is that it appears so, but not primarily because of the effectiveness of U.S. military operations. Rather, it is the result of U.S. military operations coupled with a much more complex and sophisticated approach to Iraq. To be more precise, a series of political initiatives that the United States had undertaken over the past two years in fits and starts has been united into a single orchestrated effort. The result of these efforts was a series of political decisions on the part of various Iraqi parties not only to reduce attacks against U.S. troops but also to bring the civil war under control.
A few months ago, we laid out four scenarios for Iraq, including the possibility that that United States would maintain troops there indefinitely. At the time, we argued against this idea on the assumption that what had not worked previously would not work in the future. Instead, we argued that resisting Iranian power required that efforts to create security be stopped and troops moved to blocking positions along the Saudi border. We had not calculated that the United States would now supplement combat operations with a highly sophisticated and nuanced political offensive. Therefore, we were wrong in underestimating the effectiveness of the scenario.
That said, a turning point is not the same as victory, and the turning point could turn into a failure. The key weaknesses are the fragmented Shia and the forces and decisions that might emerge there, underwritten by Iran. Everything could be wrecked should Iran choose to take the necessary risks. For the moment, however, the Iranians seem to be exercising caution, and the Shia are responding by reducing violence. If that trend continues, then this really could be a turning point. Of course, any outcome that depends on the Shia and Iranians doing what the United States hopes they will do is fragile. Iran in particular has little interest in giving the United States a graceful solution unless it is well compensated for it. On the other hand, for the moment, Tehran is cooperating. This could simply be another instance of Iran holding off before disappointing the United States, or it could mean it has reason to believe it will be well compensated. Revealing that compensation -- if it is coming -- is the next turn of the wheel.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
No Terrorist Attacks this Summer
I received the following bulletin from Stratfor.com
SUMMER 2007: THE ATTACK
THAT NEVER OCCURRED
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
The summer of 2007 was marked by threats and warnings of an
imminent terrorist attack against the United States. In addition to the
well-publicized warnings from Homeland Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff and a National Intelligence Estimate that al Qaeda was
gaining strength, a former Israeli counterterrorism official warned that
al Qaeda was planning a simultaneous attack against five to seven
American cities. Another warning of an impending dirty bomb attack
prompted the New York Police Department to set up vehicle
checkpoints near the financial district in Lower Manhattan. In
addition to these public warnings, U.S. government counterterrorism
sources also told us privately that they were seriously concerned
about the possibility of an attack.
All these warnings were followed by the Sept. 7 release of a video
message from Osama bin Laden, who had not been seen on video
since October 2004 or heard on audio tape since July 2006. Some
were convinced that his reappearance -- and his veiled threat -- was
the sign of a looming attack against the United States, or perhaps a
signal for an attack to commence.
In spite of all these warnings and bin Laden's reappearance -- not
the mention the relative ease with which an attack can be conducted
-- no attack occurred this summer. Although our assessment is that
the al Qaeda core has been damaged to the point that it no longer
poses a strategic threat to the U.S. homeland, tactical attacks
against soft targets remain simple to conduct and certainly are within
the reach of jihadist operatives -- regardless of whether they are
linked to the al Qaeda core.
We believe there are several reasons no attack occurred this
summer -- or since 9/11 for that matter.
No Conscious Decision
Before we discuss these factors, we must note that the lack of an
attack against the U.S. homeland since 9/11 has not been the result
of a calculated decision by bin Laden and the core al Qaeda
leadership. Far too many plots have been disrupted for that to be the
case. Many of those foiled and failed attacks, such as the 2006
foiled plot to destroy airliners flying from London to the United
States, the Library Tower Plot, Richard Reid's failed attempt to take
down American Airlines flight 63 in December 2001 and Jose
Padilla's activities -- bear connection to the core al Qaeda
leadership.
So, if the core al Qaeda has desired, and even attempted, to strike
the United States, why has it failed? Perhaps the greatest single
factor is attitude -- among law enforcement and intelligence
agencies, the public at large, the Muslim community and even the
jihadists themselves.
Law Enforcement and Intelligence
Prior to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the FBI denied the
existence of an international terrorism threat to the U.S. homeland, a
stance reflected in the bureau's "Terrorism in the United States"
publications in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Even after the radical
Zionist Rabbi Meir Kahane was killed by a jihadist with connections
to the Brooklyn Jihad Office and "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdul-
Rahman, the FBI and Department of Justice denied the act was
terrorism and left the investigation and the prosecution of the
gunman, ElSayyid Nosair, to New York police and the Manhattan
District Attorney's Office. (Though they were greatly aided on the
federal level by the Diplomatic Security Service, which ran
investigative leads for them in Egypt and elsewhere.)
It was only after Nosair's associates detonated a large truck bomb in
the parking garage of the World Trade Center in 1993 that the
existence of a threat to the United States was recognized. Yet, even
after that bombing and the disruption of other plots -- the July 1997
plot to bomb the New York subway system and the December 1999
Millennium Bomb Plot -- the apathy toward counterterrorism
programs remained. This was most evident in the low levels of
funding and manpower devoted to counterterrorism programs prior to
9/11. As noted in the 9/11 Commission Report, counterterrorism
programs simply were not a priority.
Even the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing made no real
difference. Some changes were made, such as physical security
enhancements at federal buildings, but they were merely window
dressing. The real problems, underlying structural problems in the
U.S. government's counterterrorism efforts -- resources, priorities
and intelligence-sharing -- were not addressed in a meaningful way.
Prior to 9/11, experts (including the two of us) lecturing to law
enforcement and intelligence groups about the al
Qaeda/transnational terrorist threat to the United States were met
with indifference. Of course, following 9/11 some of those same
groups paid careful attention to what the experts had to say.
Transnational terrorism had become real to them. The 9/11 attacks
sparked a sea change in attitudes within law enforcement and
intelligence circles. Counterterrorism -- aggressively collecting
intelligence pertaining to terrorism and pursuing terrorist leads -- is
now a priority.
Citizen Awareness
Before the 1993 World Trade Center bombing the American public
also was largely unconcerned about international terrorism. Even
after that bombing, the public remained largely apathetic about the
terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland. This was partly the result of the
media's coverage of the 1993 bombing, which seemed to focus on
the hapless, bumbling Mohamed Salameh and not the cunning and
dangerous Abdel Basit (who is more widely known by his alias,
Ramzi Yousef). Furthermore, the follow-on plot to that attack, the
1993 New York bomb plot -- for which Abdul-Rahman and some of
his followers were accused of planning strikes against the Lincoln
Tunnel and other New York City landmarks -- was thwarted. This led
many to believe that the government had a handle on terrorism and
that the United States was protected from such attacks. The second
plot was thwarted before it could be executed, and most Americans
never saw the gigantic crater (nearly 100 feet across) that the
February 1993 truck bomb created through several floors of Building
One's reinforced concrete parking garage. Instead, they saw only a
bit of smoke billowing from the damaged building. The 1993 cases
lacked the stunning visual displays of the 9/11 attacks.
The events of 9/11 also created a 180-degree change in how people
think about terrorism and how they perceive and respond to
suspicious activity. "If you see something, say something" has
become a popular mantra, especially in New York and other large
cities. Part of this stems from the changed attitudes of law
enforcement officials, who not only have issued appeals in the press
but also have made community outreach visits to nearly every flight
school, truck driving school, chemical supply company, fertilizer
dealer and storage rental company in the United States. Through
media reports of terrorist plots and attacks, the public also has
become much more aware of the precursor chemicals for improvised
explosive mixtures and applies far more scrutiny to anyone
attempting to procure them in bulk.
U.S. citizens also are far more aware of the importance of
preoperational surveillance and -- fair or not -- it is now very difficult
for a person wearing traditional Muslim dress to take a photograph of
anything without being reported to the authorities by a concerned
citizen.
This change in attitude is particularly significant in the Muslim
community itself. Contrary to the hopes of bin Laden -- and the fears
of the U.S. government -- the theology of jihadism has not taken root
in the United States. Certainly there are individuals who have come
to embrace this ideology, as the arrests of some grassroots activists
demonstrate, but such people are very much the exception. In spite
of some problems, the law enforcement community has forged some
strong links to the Muslim community, and in several cases Muslims
have even reported potential jihadists to law enforcement.
Even in places where jihadism has more successfully infiltrated the
Muslim community, such as Europe, North Africa and Saudi Arabia,
the jihadists still consider it preferable to wage the "real" jihad
against "crusader troops" in places such as Iraq, rather than to
attack soft civilian targets in the West or elsewhere. As unpopular as
it is to say, in many ways Iraq has served as a sort of jihadist
magnet, drawing young men from around the world to "martyr"
themselves. Pragmatically, every young jihadist who travels from
Europe or the Middle East to die in Baghdad or Ar Ramadi is one
less who could attack Boston, London, Brussels or Rome.
Attitude is Everything
In late 1992 and early 1993, amateur planning was all that was
required to conduct a successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil. In
addition to the almost comical mistakes made by Salameh, serious
gaffes also were made by Ahmed Ajaj and Basit as they prepared
for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. However, because of the
prevailing apathetic attitude among law enforcement officials and the
public in general, those mistakes were not fatal to the operation.
Given the changes in attitude since 9/11, however, no operation
conducted as poorly as the 1993 bombing would succeed today.
Before the bombing, the FBI investigated the cell that carried it out,
made the determination that the men were harmless fanatics and
closed the investigation. That would not happen today, as even
slightly goofy, wannabe terrorists such as the Miami Seven are
vigorously investigated and prosecuted when possible.
When Ajaj and Basit flew into JFK Airport in September 1992,
authorities pretty much ignored the fact that Ajaj was found
transporting a large quantity of jihadist material, including
bombmaking manuals and videos. Instead, he was sentenced to six
months in jail for committing passport fraud -- a mere slap on the
wrist -- and was then to be deported. Had authorities taken the time
to carefully review the materials in Ajaj's briefcase, they would have
found two boarding passes and two passports with exit stamps from
Pakistan. Because of that oversight, no one noticed that Ajaj was
traveling with a companion. Even when his co-conspirators called
Ajaj in jail seeking his help in formulating their improvised explosive
mixtures and recovering the bombmaking manuals, the calls were
not traced. It was not until after the bombing that Ajaj's involvement
was discovered, and he was convicted and sentenced.
These kinds of oversights would not occur now. Furthermore, the
attitude of the public today makes it far more difficult for a
conspirator like Niday Ayyad to order chemicals used to construct a
bomb, or for the conspirators to receive and store such chemicals in
a rented storage space without being reported to the authorities.
Another change in attitude has been on the legal front. Prior to the
1993 World Trade Center bombing, there were no "terrorism"
statutes concerning the use of weapons of mass destruction or acts
of terrorism transcending national borders. Instead, prosecutors in
terrorism cases struggled to apply existing laws. The defendants in
the 1993 New York bomb plot case were not charged with
conspiring to build bombs or commit acts of international terrorism.
Rather, they were convicted on "seditious conspiracy" charges.
Similarly, Salameh was convicted of violating the Special Agricultural
Worker program and with damaging U.S. Secret Service cars stored
in the basement of the World Trade Center building.
The U.S. security environment has indeed improved dramatically
since 1993, largely as a result of the sweeping changes in attitude,
though also to some extent due to the magnet effect of the war in
Iraq. Success can engender complacency, however, and the lack of
attacks could allow attitudes -- and thus counterterrorism resources -
- to swing back toward the other end of the spectrum.
SUMMER 2007: THE ATTACK
THAT NEVER OCCURRED
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
The summer of 2007 was marked by threats and warnings of an
imminent terrorist attack against the United States. In addition to the
well-publicized warnings from Homeland Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff and a National Intelligence Estimate that al Qaeda was
gaining strength, a former Israeli counterterrorism official warned that
al Qaeda was planning a simultaneous attack against five to seven
American cities. Another warning of an impending dirty bomb attack
prompted the New York Police Department to set up vehicle
checkpoints near the financial district in Lower Manhattan. In
addition to these public warnings, U.S. government counterterrorism
sources also told us privately that they were seriously concerned
about the possibility of an attack.
All these warnings were followed by the Sept. 7 release of a video
message from Osama bin Laden, who had not been seen on video
since October 2004 or heard on audio tape since July 2006. Some
were convinced that his reappearance -- and his veiled threat -- was
the sign of a looming attack against the United States, or perhaps a
signal for an attack to commence.
In spite of all these warnings and bin Laden's reappearance -- not
the mention the relative ease with which an attack can be conducted
-- no attack occurred this summer. Although our assessment is that
the al Qaeda core has been damaged to the point that it no longer
poses a strategic threat to the U.S. homeland, tactical attacks
against soft targets remain simple to conduct and certainly are within
the reach of jihadist operatives -- regardless of whether they are
linked to the al Qaeda core.
We believe there are several reasons no attack occurred this
summer -- or since 9/11 for that matter.
No Conscious Decision
Before we discuss these factors, we must note that the lack of an
attack against the U.S. homeland since 9/11 has not been the result
of a calculated decision by bin Laden and the core al Qaeda
leadership. Far too many plots have been disrupted for that to be the
case. Many of those foiled and failed attacks, such as the 2006
foiled plot to destroy airliners flying from London to the United
States, the Library Tower Plot, Richard Reid's failed attempt to take
down American Airlines flight 63 in December 2001 and Jose
Padilla's activities -- bear connection to the core al Qaeda
leadership.
So, if the core al Qaeda has desired, and even attempted, to strike
the United States, why has it failed? Perhaps the greatest single
factor is attitude -- among law enforcement and intelligence
agencies, the public at large, the Muslim community and even the
jihadists themselves.
Law Enforcement and Intelligence
Prior to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the FBI denied the
existence of an international terrorism threat to the U.S. homeland, a
stance reflected in the bureau's "Terrorism in the United States"
publications in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Even after the radical
Zionist Rabbi Meir Kahane was killed by a jihadist with connections
to the Brooklyn Jihad Office and "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdul-
Rahman, the FBI and Department of Justice denied the act was
terrorism and left the investigation and the prosecution of the
gunman, ElSayyid Nosair, to New York police and the Manhattan
District Attorney's Office. (Though they were greatly aided on the
federal level by the Diplomatic Security Service, which ran
investigative leads for them in Egypt and elsewhere.)
It was only after Nosair's associates detonated a large truck bomb in
the parking garage of the World Trade Center in 1993 that the
existence of a threat to the United States was recognized. Yet, even
after that bombing and the disruption of other plots -- the July 1997
plot to bomb the New York subway system and the December 1999
Millennium Bomb Plot -- the apathy toward counterterrorism
programs remained. This was most evident in the low levels of
funding and manpower devoted to counterterrorism programs prior to
9/11. As noted in the 9/11 Commission Report, counterterrorism
programs simply were not a priority.
Even the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing made no real
difference. Some changes were made, such as physical security
enhancements at federal buildings, but they were merely window
dressing. The real problems, underlying structural problems in the
U.S. government's counterterrorism efforts -- resources, priorities
and intelligence-sharing -- were not addressed in a meaningful way.
Prior to 9/11, experts (including the two of us) lecturing to law
enforcement and intelligence groups about the al
Qaeda/transnational terrorist threat to the United States were met
with indifference. Of course, following 9/11 some of those same
groups paid careful attention to what the experts had to say.
Transnational terrorism had become real to them. The 9/11 attacks
sparked a sea change in attitudes within law enforcement and
intelligence circles. Counterterrorism -- aggressively collecting
intelligence pertaining to terrorism and pursuing terrorist leads -- is
now a priority.
Citizen Awareness
Before the 1993 World Trade Center bombing the American public
also was largely unconcerned about international terrorism. Even
after that bombing, the public remained largely apathetic about the
terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland. This was partly the result of the
media's coverage of the 1993 bombing, which seemed to focus on
the hapless, bumbling Mohamed Salameh and not the cunning and
dangerous Abdel Basit (who is more widely known by his alias,
Ramzi Yousef). Furthermore, the follow-on plot to that attack, the
1993 New York bomb plot -- for which Abdul-Rahman and some of
his followers were accused of planning strikes against the Lincoln
Tunnel and other New York City landmarks -- was thwarted. This led
many to believe that the government had a handle on terrorism and
that the United States was protected from such attacks. The second
plot was thwarted before it could be executed, and most Americans
never saw the gigantic crater (nearly 100 feet across) that the
February 1993 truck bomb created through several floors of Building
One's reinforced concrete parking garage. Instead, they saw only a
bit of smoke billowing from the damaged building. The 1993 cases
lacked the stunning visual displays of the 9/11 attacks.
The events of 9/11 also created a 180-degree change in how people
think about terrorism and how they perceive and respond to
suspicious activity. "If you see something, say something" has
become a popular mantra, especially in New York and other large
cities. Part of this stems from the changed attitudes of law
enforcement officials, who not only have issued appeals in the press
but also have made community outreach visits to nearly every flight
school, truck driving school, chemical supply company, fertilizer
dealer and storage rental company in the United States. Through
media reports of terrorist plots and attacks, the public also has
become much more aware of the precursor chemicals for improvised
explosive mixtures and applies far more scrutiny to anyone
attempting to procure them in bulk.
U.S. citizens also are far more aware of the importance of
preoperational surveillance and -- fair or not -- it is now very difficult
for a person wearing traditional Muslim dress to take a photograph of
anything without being reported to the authorities by a concerned
citizen.
This change in attitude is particularly significant in the Muslim
community itself. Contrary to the hopes of bin Laden -- and the fears
of the U.S. government -- the theology of jihadism has not taken root
in the United States. Certainly there are individuals who have come
to embrace this ideology, as the arrests of some grassroots activists
demonstrate, but such people are very much the exception. In spite
of some problems, the law enforcement community has forged some
strong links to the Muslim community, and in several cases Muslims
have even reported potential jihadists to law enforcement.
Even in places where jihadism has more successfully infiltrated the
Muslim community, such as Europe, North Africa and Saudi Arabia,
the jihadists still consider it preferable to wage the "real" jihad
against "crusader troops" in places such as Iraq, rather than to
attack soft civilian targets in the West or elsewhere. As unpopular as
it is to say, in many ways Iraq has served as a sort of jihadist
magnet, drawing young men from around the world to "martyr"
themselves. Pragmatically, every young jihadist who travels from
Europe or the Middle East to die in Baghdad or Ar Ramadi is one
less who could attack Boston, London, Brussels or Rome.
Attitude is Everything
In late 1992 and early 1993, amateur planning was all that was
required to conduct a successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil. In
addition to the almost comical mistakes made by Salameh, serious
gaffes also were made by Ahmed Ajaj and Basit as they prepared
for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. However, because of the
prevailing apathetic attitude among law enforcement officials and the
public in general, those mistakes were not fatal to the operation.
Given the changes in attitude since 9/11, however, no operation
conducted as poorly as the 1993 bombing would succeed today.
Before the bombing, the FBI investigated the cell that carried it out,
made the determination that the men were harmless fanatics and
closed the investigation. That would not happen today, as even
slightly goofy, wannabe terrorists such as the Miami Seven are
vigorously investigated and prosecuted when possible.
When Ajaj and Basit flew into JFK Airport in September 1992,
authorities pretty much ignored the fact that Ajaj was found
transporting a large quantity of jihadist material, including
bombmaking manuals and videos. Instead, he was sentenced to six
months in jail for committing passport fraud -- a mere slap on the
wrist -- and was then to be deported. Had authorities taken the time
to carefully review the materials in Ajaj's briefcase, they would have
found two boarding passes and two passports with exit stamps from
Pakistan. Because of that oversight, no one noticed that Ajaj was
traveling with a companion. Even when his co-conspirators called
Ajaj in jail seeking his help in formulating their improvised explosive
mixtures and recovering the bombmaking manuals, the calls were
not traced. It was not until after the bombing that Ajaj's involvement
was discovered, and he was convicted and sentenced.
These kinds of oversights would not occur now. Furthermore, the
attitude of the public today makes it far more difficult for a
conspirator like Niday Ayyad to order chemicals used to construct a
bomb, or for the conspirators to receive and store such chemicals in
a rented storage space without being reported to the authorities.
Another change in attitude has been on the legal front. Prior to the
1993 World Trade Center bombing, there were no "terrorism"
statutes concerning the use of weapons of mass destruction or acts
of terrorism transcending national borders. Instead, prosecutors in
terrorism cases struggled to apply existing laws. The defendants in
the 1993 New York bomb plot case were not charged with
conspiring to build bombs or commit acts of international terrorism.
Rather, they were convicted on "seditious conspiracy" charges.
Similarly, Salameh was convicted of violating the Special Agricultural
Worker program and with damaging U.S. Secret Service cars stored
in the basement of the World Trade Center building.
The U.S. security environment has indeed improved dramatically
since 1993, largely as a result of the sweeping changes in attitude,
though also to some extent due to the magnet effect of the war in
Iraq. Success can engender complacency, however, and the lack of
attacks could allow attitudes -- and thus counterterrorism resources -
- to swing back toward the other end of the spectrum.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Traitor
Stephen Coonts has written a compelling post 9-11 spy novel entitled The Traitor. Tommy Carmalini is a CIA agent who specializes in breaking and entering in order to plant surveillance bugs and cameras. In this novel, he is sent to France to help secure the meeting place for the G-8 Summit where all the leaders of the G-8 nations will meet for a historic conference. Tommy is assigned to help determine the nature of the relationship between a French Intelligence official and his supposed Al Qaeda informant.
Coonts does an excellent job of maintaining suspense and keeping the interest high. There is plenty of action, but it is balanced by detailed description and valuable cultural and intelligence information. He adeptly switches between first person and third person perspectives, letting us in on the mental, emotional and psychological workings of a master spy while also providing access to information and events that Tommy can’t experience.
I felt that by reading the book I had tasted a little bit of French culture and got a whirlwind tour of Paris. The differences in political and intelligence operations between France and the United States was also interesting. While the story is pretty realistic and believable, Tommy, in his own words, repeated several times in the book, is too lucky. However, the unfolding of events and the unraveling of limited information, with desperate attempts to make sense of insufficient data, while trying to determine what is true and what is misinformation, makes the plot compelling. It sheds light on the difficulty of tacking, thwarting and capturing terrorists while also revealing how difficult it is for terrorists to carry out their plots without being detected and stopped.
One of the mysteries of the story is determining who the traitor is.
Coonts does an excellent job of maintaining suspense and keeping the interest high. There is plenty of action, but it is balanced by detailed description and valuable cultural and intelligence information. He adeptly switches between first person and third person perspectives, letting us in on the mental, emotional and psychological workings of a master spy while also providing access to information and events that Tommy can’t experience.
I felt that by reading the book I had tasted a little bit of French culture and got a whirlwind tour of Paris. The differences in political and intelligence operations between France and the United States was also interesting. While the story is pretty realistic and believable, Tommy, in his own words, repeated several times in the book, is too lucky. However, the unfolding of events and the unraveling of limited information, with desperate attempts to make sense of insufficient data, while trying to determine what is true and what is misinformation, makes the plot compelling. It sheds light on the difficulty of tacking, thwarting and capturing terrorists while also revealing how difficult it is for terrorists to carry out their plots without being detected and stopped.
One of the mysteries of the story is determining who the traitor is.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
State of Fear
Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park, tackles “politicized science” in his 2004 novel, State of Fear. While I thought the novel was chunky, filled with unpolished dialog, and hindered by hard to believe plot twists, I had to admire Crichton for taking on such a politically charged issue as global warming.
The basic premise of the book is that certain environmentalist groups are plotting to force action to be taken to stop global warming by launching a series of ecological catastrophes that validate their claims that global warming is an imminent threat to life on earth. Explosives are laid in Antarctica to break off a large chunk of ice, thunderstorms in Arizona are fueled by electrostatic generators to create a monster storm, and undersea explosives to create a tsunami that would swamp the western coast of the United States, all in conjunction with a global warming seminar.
Crichton is even-handed in his treatment of the subject of global warming, giving all sides adequate exposure. His main theme is that certain ecological groups have created a “State of Fear” by twisting data and manipulating computer simulations. He calls for a clear-minded approach that takes into account all the data as well as the consequences of intended actions. Check out his conclusions at: http://www.crichton-official.com/fear/.
The appendix and author’s conclusion are some of the most helpful parts of the book. Crichton shows how little we really know about climate change and managing the environment. He gives some very powerful incidents where regulations were implemented that had disastrous ecological and economic results. Many of the proposed “solutions” are worse than the problem they claim to cure while others are so costly and provide minimal help, that the costs far exceed any useful benefit.
I found the author’s conclusion extremely helpful and valuable in sorting out the issues in global warming:
1. We know astonishingly little about every aspect of the environment, from its past history to its present state, how to preserve and protect it.
2. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing and human activity is the probable cause.
3. We are also in the midst of a natural warming trend that began about 1850 as we emerged from a 400-year cold spell known as “the little ice age.”
4. Nobody knows how much of the present warming trend might be a natural phenomena.
5. Nobody knows how much of the present warming trend might be man-made.
6. Nobody knows how much warming will occur in the next century. The computer models vary by 400 percent, de facto proof that nobody knows.
7. Before making expensive policy decisions on the basis of climate models I think it is reasonable to require the models to predict future temperatures accurately for a period of ten years, and twenty would be better.
8. There are many reason to shift away from fossil fuels and we will do so in the next century without legislation, financial incentives, carbon conservation programs, or the interminable yammering of fear-mongers. As far as I know, nobody had to ban horse transportation in the early twentieth century.
9. I find most environmental principles, such as “sustainable development” or the “precautionary principle,” have the effect of preserving the economic advantages of the West, and thus constitute modern imperialism toward the third world. They are a nice way of saying, “We got ours but we don’t want you to get yours because you’ll cause too much pollution.”
10. I believe people are well intentioned but I have great respect for the corrosive influence of bias, systematic distortions of thought, the power of rationalization, the guises of self-interest, and the inevitability of unintended consequences.
11. We haven’t the foggiest notion of how to preserve what we term “wilderness” and we had better study it in the field and learn how to do so. I see no evidence that we are conduction such research in a systematic way. I, therefore, hold little hope for wilderness management in the twenty-first century. I blame environmentalist groups as much as developers and strip miners; there is no difference in outcomes to greed and incompetence.
12. We need a new environmental movement with new goals and new organizations. We need more people working in the field, in the actual environment, and fewer people behind computer screens. We need more scientists and fewer lawyers.
13. We cannot hope to manage a complex system, such as the environment, through litigation.
14. We desperately need a non-partisan, blinded funding mechanism to conduct scientific research that may have policy implications. Scientists are only too aware of who they are working for; as a result environmental organizational studies are every bit as biased and suspect as industry sponsored studies. Government studies are similarly biased according to who is running the department or administration at the time. I am certain there is too much certainty in the world
15. I personally experience a profound pleasure being in nature. My happiest days each year are those spent in wilderness. I wish natural environments to be preserved for future generations. I am not satisfied that they will be preserved in sufficient quantities or with sufficient skill. I conclude the exploiters of the environment include: environmental organizations, government organizations, and big business. All have equally dismal track records.
16. Everybody has an agenda, except me.
The basic premise of the book is that certain environmentalist groups are plotting to force action to be taken to stop global warming by launching a series of ecological catastrophes that validate their claims that global warming is an imminent threat to life on earth. Explosives are laid in Antarctica to break off a large chunk of ice, thunderstorms in Arizona are fueled by electrostatic generators to create a monster storm, and undersea explosives to create a tsunami that would swamp the western coast of the United States, all in conjunction with a global warming seminar.
Crichton is even-handed in his treatment of the subject of global warming, giving all sides adequate exposure. His main theme is that certain ecological groups have created a “State of Fear” by twisting data and manipulating computer simulations. He calls for a clear-minded approach that takes into account all the data as well as the consequences of intended actions. Check out his conclusions at: http://www.crichton-official.com/fear/.
The appendix and author’s conclusion are some of the most helpful parts of the book. Crichton shows how little we really know about climate change and managing the environment. He gives some very powerful incidents where regulations were implemented that had disastrous ecological and economic results. Many of the proposed “solutions” are worse than the problem they claim to cure while others are so costly and provide minimal help, that the costs far exceed any useful benefit.
I found the author’s conclusion extremely helpful and valuable in sorting out the issues in global warming:
1. We know astonishingly little about every aspect of the environment, from its past history to its present state, how to preserve and protect it.
2. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing and human activity is the probable cause.
3. We are also in the midst of a natural warming trend that began about 1850 as we emerged from a 400-year cold spell known as “the little ice age.”
4. Nobody knows how much of the present warming trend might be a natural phenomena.
5. Nobody knows how much of the present warming trend might be man-made.
6. Nobody knows how much warming will occur in the next century. The computer models vary by 400 percent, de facto proof that nobody knows.
7. Before making expensive policy decisions on the basis of climate models I think it is reasonable to require the models to predict future temperatures accurately for a period of ten years, and twenty would be better.
8. There are many reason to shift away from fossil fuels and we will do so in the next century without legislation, financial incentives, carbon conservation programs, or the interminable yammering of fear-mongers. As far as I know, nobody had to ban horse transportation in the early twentieth century.
9. I find most environmental principles, such as “sustainable development” or the “precautionary principle,” have the effect of preserving the economic advantages of the West, and thus constitute modern imperialism toward the third world. They are a nice way of saying, “We got ours but we don’t want you to get yours because you’ll cause too much pollution.”
10. I believe people are well intentioned but I have great respect for the corrosive influence of bias, systematic distortions of thought, the power of rationalization, the guises of self-interest, and the inevitability of unintended consequences.
11. We haven’t the foggiest notion of how to preserve what we term “wilderness” and we had better study it in the field and learn how to do so. I see no evidence that we are conduction such research in a systematic way. I, therefore, hold little hope for wilderness management in the twenty-first century. I blame environmentalist groups as much as developers and strip miners; there is no difference in outcomes to greed and incompetence.
12. We need a new environmental movement with new goals and new organizations. We need more people working in the field, in the actual environment, and fewer people behind computer screens. We need more scientists and fewer lawyers.
13. We cannot hope to manage a complex system, such as the environment, through litigation.
14. We desperately need a non-partisan, blinded funding mechanism to conduct scientific research that may have policy implications. Scientists are only too aware of who they are working for; as a result environmental organizational studies are every bit as biased and suspect as industry sponsored studies. Government studies are similarly biased according to who is running the department or administration at the time. I am certain there is too much certainty in the world
15. I personally experience a profound pleasure being in nature. My happiest days each year are those spent in wilderness. I wish natural environments to be preserved for future generations. I am not satisfied that they will be preserved in sufficient quantities or with sufficient skill. I conclude the exploiters of the environment include: environmental organizations, government organizations, and big business. All have equally dismal track records.
16. Everybody has an agenda, except me.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
America’s Secret War
In America’s Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and Its Enemies, George Friedman, chairman and founder of Stratfor, has written an excellent book on the history behind the current war on terror, tracing its roots back to the Carter administration and explaining the reasons things are the way they are. Stratfor provides strategic intelligence on global business, economic, security and geopolitical affairs. According to their website, “Stratfor - the world's leading private intelligence firm -- provides corporations, governments and individuals with geopolitical analysis and forecasts that enable them to manage risk and anticipate political, economic and security issues vital to their interests.” As Stratfor’s founder and chairman, Friedman is highly qualified to write on this topic.
Friedman sees this current war as the fourth modern global conflict. Just as World War II grew out of World War I, and the Cold War grew out of World War II, the current global war on terror has grown out of the Cold War. The situation we face today is the direct result of the geopolitical changes that occurred as a result of the fall of the Soviet Empire. Both the events leading up to the collapse and the resulting global situation after the collapse set the stage for the conflict between radical Islam and the West.
One of the Soviet’s favorite techniques to weaken American power around the world was to support insurgents and guerillas in order to bog down U.S. forces. One of the most successful was the support of the North Vietnamese, ultimately driving the U.S. from the region. America, on the other hand had a lousy track record with supporting guerillas. When the Soviets attacked Afghanistan, it was an opportunity for the U.S. to use this technique against them. This was an opportunity to “make the Soviets bleed” like they made us bleed. President Carter authorized the recruitment, organization and supplying of guerilla warfare in Afghanistan by utilizing indigenous forces that were already rising to resist the Soviets. Carter signed the first “Intelligence Finding” authorizing covert military operations in Afghanistan in order to “harass” soviet troops. It was this “Finding” that served as the legal basis for the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. It was also this “Finding” that would culminate, via a long, circuitous and unpredictable route, in September 11.
The first problem was how to fund the covert war. Ever since senator Church passed legislation requiring the CIA to get authorization for such funding, it would impossible to get money from Congress, and if it tried, then the operation would no longer be secret. Saudi Arabia realized that an America weakened by the oil embargo of the 1970s was dangerous to its national security, because if the Soviets or Iran won out in the region, they would be destroyed as a nation. Therefore, Saudi Arabia had a greater interest in what was happening in Afghanistan than America did. The United States was worried that the Soviets were attacking Afghanistan in order to push into the Middle East and capture the oil fields for itself.
Second, the United States had very little intelligence on Afghanistan, and what we did have was only from the CIA agents monitoring the narcotics trade and the poppy fields in the country. Therefore, America had to turn to Saudi Arabia for money and intelligence, making an alliance with the Wahabis in order to gain what we needed.
The U.S. structure a deal with the Saudis to provide funding and personnel to work with the CIA to build a guerilla force to bog down the Soviets in Afghanistan. This was the beginning of an alliance between the U.S. and Muslim fundamentalists.
The third fractor was Pakistan, a long-term American ally. It was torn between the secularism of its founders and the radical Islam of the majority of its population. It was also afraid of being trapped between a Soviet dominated Afghanistan and a pro-Soviet India. Pakistan had a lot of intelligence on Afghanistan and a long contiguous border where training camps, logistic systems, and bases of operations could be set up. The North Vietnamese had Laos and Cambodia; the U.S. had Pakistan.
A three-way alliance was formed. The United States would provide training, coordination and strategic intelligence; the Saudis would provide the money and the guerillas; the Pakistanis would provide the territory and the intelligence needed.
Jimmy Carter was the one who presided over this alliance. Yet, his goal was not to destroy the Soviet Union but to find a balance while restoring America’s power in the world after its decline over the last decade. Carter had no idea that the war in Afghanistan would lead to the destruction of the Soviet Union and the rise of Al Qaeda. When Reagan took office in 1981, he intensified Carter’s alliance and wove it into a larger plan to destroy the Soviet Union and intensify America’s global power.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Al Qaeda was well-trained and well-equipped, possessing many Soviet and American weapons along with the expertise to use them. The Soviets were brutal in their attempts to squash the guerillas, killing many, so that those who lasted the decade-long war were well-trained, experienced, hardened and determined. These radical Islamic fighters saw the fall of the Soviet Union as a Muslim victory, as it was the first victory a Muslim army had achieved against a non-Muslim force in centuries. After the war, these Islamic fighters were irate at America because it threw them away without any hint of gratitude.
The United States saw the war in Afghanistan differently. The war in Afghanistan was only a part in a larger plan that brought the Soviet Union down. America felt it also played the major role, providing the support and training needed for victory. Without the U.S. backing, the guerillas would have been completely annihilated by the Soviets. Because the U.S. ignored their allies and expected them to maintain some kind of bond with us after the war, a rift was created between the Jihadists and America.
In the same way, the first Bush administration mistakenly believed that the Arab countries would be happy with America for helping them free Kuwait and a bond would be created between us and the Arab states. President Bush expected gratitude; he never expected rage. It is clear that the United States was ignorant of the Islamic world and made some serious blunders that caused so much anger and hatred that laid the foundation for Al Qaeda.
While Shiite Muslims are a minority in the whole Arab world, they are the majority in the Gulf region, especially in Iran. The Saudis, by contrast, are not only Sunni, but they are Wahabi, the most radical of the Sunnis. So the Saudis saw the Shiites of Iran not only as a threat to their religion but also a threat to their oil fields. The problem for Saudi Arabia was how to contain Iran and the Soviets at the same time, and the answer was Iraq. Both nations wanted to contain Iran and the Soviets, so America felt is was the best policy to back them as well. Unwittingly, however, the U.S. ended up supporting the most radical form of Islam as a negative unintended consequence. And this radical Wahabi Islam has proved to be even more dangerous to the United States than Shiite Iran.
In order to bog down Iran, the United States sent signals to Iraq that it wouldn’t oppose them if they decided to attack Iran. The resulting war tied up both countries for a decade, costing millions of lives and billions of dollars on both sides. The United States kept shifting its policy towards Iraq to keep it destabilized and to prolong the war. The United States knew that Iraq could not beat Iran, and the Saudis gladly backed the war in order to keep both armies bogged down for nearly ten years.
American foreign policy has chosen to make alliances of necessity with evil states in order to oppose even more evil states. The U.S. made alliances with Stalin and Mao in order to counter worse leaders. America also tends to create solutions that solve the short-term problem at the risk of creating greater problems down the road.
Saddam Hussein wanted to take over Iran and Kuwait in order to become the dominant power in the region. The U.S. quietly assured him, with deniability, that if he won the war we would allow him to have Kuwait as well. Then for the next ten years the U.S. kept shifting the balance of power to make sure Iraq never accomplished its goal and achieved its prize. After ten years, Iraq was less exhausted than Iran, and Saddam declared victory and demanded his prize. The American Ambassador, unaware of the intricacies and policy shifts, assured Saddam Hussein that while the U.S. was opposed to his taking Iraq, they would do nothing to stop him. As soon as Iraq invaded Kuwait, the U.S. worked with the Saudis to launch Operation Desert Shield and then Desert Storm.
The soldiers returning to Saudi Arabia from Afghanistan were outraged by the presence of non-Muslim forces on holy soil. They believed that Muslim states were not naturally weak and could defend themselves if they were willing to sacrifice and persevere. But they also believed that the current Muslim leaders were corrupt and incapable of defending their countries. Therefore, they felt that America had to be humiliated in order to break the psychological dependency on the United States and to generate confidence among the Islamic masses.
These fighters knew America’s strengths, but they also knew its weaknesses. They knew how the American intelligence agencies worked and how they carried out covert operations. These returning fighters were not the poor and disposed, but many were from wealthy families, educated and some even had advanced degrees in secular fields. They also had financial backing from the Saudi royal family and other wealthy Saudis. The financial network that had supported the guerillas in Afghanistan had never been shut down and now it was being used to fund Al Qaeda long after America had lost interest in it.
They knew they needed to take a long time to prepare to strike hard at the United States in order to pull it into a full-scale war against the Islamic world. By doing this they hoped to discredit secular Islamic states in the region and to sap American strength. Through a series of increasing attacks on American targets, the Embassies in Africa, the barracks in Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, they hoped to illicit a hard response from America. Bill Clinton, however, didn’t want to seem impotent and make Al Qaeda look powerful, nor did he want to be drawn into a full-scale war, so he chose to respond in a half-hearted way.
The first mistake America made was to pull the plug on the resistance fighters in Afghanistan and not give them back their papers so they could return home. This was not solely America’s fault, since most of the governments didn’t want these fighters to come back and cause trouble at home. Stranded in a strange land, scarred by war, this band of about 1,000 soldiers united and became a fierce fighting force in the battles for supremacy after the war with the Soviets was won. Most ended up going back home, but the bond between them was strong. Being abandoned by the U.S. and rejected by their home governments was not only seen as a personal affront but as endemic of the malaise that shrouded all the Islamic governments in the Middle East. They viewed the outside threats to Islam, America and the Soviet Union, as manageable and insignificant compared to the inner threats of corrupt Islamic governments.
The first major incident leading up to the current situation goes way back to the Crusades and the loss of the Caliphate. At the height of its power, the Muslim Empire was actually larger than the Roman Empire. The goal of Al Qaeda was to take over one Islamic state in order to set an example and to establish a base of operations. Afghanistan became that base, with the Taliban running the internal affairs and Al Qaeda operating around the world. Al Qaeda hoped to sweep the Muslim world and establish fundamentalist governments throughout the Middle East, unifying the Islamic world and reestablishing the Caliphate.
The key element in their strategy was to show that America is weak and vulnerable in order to break the illusion of the super power’s dominance and remove the Muslim world’s fear and subservience. They felt that the United States lacked to power and moral character to assert its will in the long run. Vietnam, the Iran hostage crisis, Beirut, Somalia, and failure to depose Saddam Hussein all seemed to demonstrate the fact that America could strike a hard first blow but could not sustain a prolonged conflict.
Al Qaede realized that it had to strike a blow to the United States that was enormous and for which there was no easy defense, in order to send a clear message to the Islamic masses. The plan was to draw the United States into a prolonged conflict with multiple Islamic states to solidify the Islamic world and to drain the U.S. military dry.
In a society with many unguarded targets, a small group with explosives is very difficult to stop. The fewer the operatives, the more difficult it is to find them. The nearly infinite number of targets and the sparsity of operatives is what makes defending against terrorism a nightmare. The physical damage caused by terrorists is minimal while the psychological damage is extraordinary, making it a powerful political tool.
Al Qaeda’s strategy and ideology were different, and it wasn’t trying to send a message to the United States but to the Islamic world. They saw the United States as an actor that could be manipulated into behaving as they wanted it to behave.
After the end of the Cold War, America didn’t have a major enemy that could threaten its security. Attention was focused on rogue states, such as North Korea, Libya, Yugoslavia, Iran and Cuba, and these were not allied together against the United States. The major threat was threat was that they might develop nuclear weapons. The secondary threat was that they might invade their neighbors. The third level of threat was that they might violate the human rights of their own citizens. All of these were considered containable and manageable through international organizations, such as the United Nations.
The way the United States responded to the small crises throughout the world was triggering unexpected responses in the Islamic world. While the United States saw itself as neutral, impartial and doing good, the Islamic world saw America encroaching on Islamic territory and siding with those who were against Muslims. The intervention by the United States in Kosovo and Somalia, for example, were considered by the Muslim world as struggles between America and Muslims. The United States failed to realize that there was no such thing as a neutral intervention. The United States also saw the fact that these nations were Islamic as incidental while the rest of the Muslim world saw it as fundamental. Al Qaeda used these incidents to mobilize support against Americal Confusion was also created when the United States declined to get involved in other conflicts, making it seem as if America had no coherent foreign policy in place.
The United States also wrongly assumed that nations would be willing to trade a little bit of their sovereignty in order to have stability and security. This was true for many countries, but it infuriated the Muslim nations. The great powers in Europe were also uneasy about America’s growing power and unpredictability, and many were hoping, and even helping, that America would trip and fall, in order to limit America’s power and make us easier to predict and control. After the Cold War ended, America saw the global economy as the most important issue and assumed everyone else did too. However, most nations, especially Islamic countries, viewed national autonomy as more important than prosperity and security. The United States thought that all countries would welcome transnational prosperity, but some Islamic countries were ready to resist, even to the death.
When Al Qaeda started its global terrorism operation, most analysts either ignored it or misunderstood it. They viewed Al Qaeda like any other Palestinian terrorist organization, with limited political goals and operations. The term “terrorist” tended to obscure the issue, since there are vast differences between different organizations as to their ideology and strategy. They didn’t understand how different Al Qaeda was from any other terrorist organization. Al Qaeda wasn’t interested in symbolic gestures and affecting local politics but had a much more complex ideology that drove its global strategy to implement their international political goals. While most other terrorist organizations were based on Arab ethnicity and were trained by the Soviets to further local political agendas, Al Qaeda was based on Islam and they had a global religious agenda that was based on centuries of Islamic history and tradition. By merely focusing on its attacks and not its ideology, the United States totally misunderstood what Al Qaeda was about.
While the United States didn’t create Al Qaeda, we created the atmosphere and climate for it to grow and flourish. When Bill Clinton responded in a half-hearted manner to the embassy bombings and the attack on the Cole, he unwittingly empowered and emboldened Al Qaeda.
This is a summary of the first few chapters of the book which I found extremely helpful in understanding these events. Friedman goes on to dissect the problems with the American intelligence system and why it missed 9/11. He then goes on to explain how America’s military had been stripped down after the Cold War and was totally unprepared for a major military conflict on the scale that was needed to confront Al Qaeda. Friedman’s detailed analysis of what was involved in the September 11 attacks is impressive and chilling, clearly showing that Al Qaeda is highly trained, extremely disciplined and very determined to destroy the United States. He then shows how it is impossible to defend against such attacks and explains why most of what is being done in response to 9/11 is worthless.
I thought Friedman’s detailed account of how the United States prepared for and implemented a major military offensive against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan in less than a month was amazing. While Al Qaeda knew we would attack, they expected a massive assault in the following spring, but Operation Enduring Freedom was totally unconventional and unexpected, catching Al Qaeda by surprise. He goes on to describe how America fought the war, the alliances that had to be made with former, and current, enemies, and the problems of working with nationalistic forces within Afghanistan.
The book goes on to cover the war in Iraq up to the end of July, 2004. Friedman concludes that the United States is winning the war. Al Qaeda has failed to achieve any of its strategic goals. There has been no uprising in the Islamic world, no regimes toppled. In fact, most Islamic governments have increased their cooperation with the United States. Al Qaeda has been backed against a wall. The game is far from over, but the U.S. certainly has the lead -- in spite of an extraordinary array of blunders, some inexplicable.
You can read chapter summaries and learn more about the book at: http://www.americassecretwar.com/index.html
Friedman sees this current war as the fourth modern global conflict. Just as World War II grew out of World War I, and the Cold War grew out of World War II, the current global war on terror has grown out of the Cold War. The situation we face today is the direct result of the geopolitical changes that occurred as a result of the fall of the Soviet Empire. Both the events leading up to the collapse and the resulting global situation after the collapse set the stage for the conflict between radical Islam and the West.
One of the Soviet’s favorite techniques to weaken American power around the world was to support insurgents and guerillas in order to bog down U.S. forces. One of the most successful was the support of the North Vietnamese, ultimately driving the U.S. from the region. America, on the other hand had a lousy track record with supporting guerillas. When the Soviets attacked Afghanistan, it was an opportunity for the U.S. to use this technique against them. This was an opportunity to “make the Soviets bleed” like they made us bleed. President Carter authorized the recruitment, organization and supplying of guerilla warfare in Afghanistan by utilizing indigenous forces that were already rising to resist the Soviets. Carter signed the first “Intelligence Finding” authorizing covert military operations in Afghanistan in order to “harass” soviet troops. It was this “Finding” that served as the legal basis for the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. It was also this “Finding” that would culminate, via a long, circuitous and unpredictable route, in September 11.
The first problem was how to fund the covert war. Ever since senator Church passed legislation requiring the CIA to get authorization for such funding, it would impossible to get money from Congress, and if it tried, then the operation would no longer be secret. Saudi Arabia realized that an America weakened by the oil embargo of the 1970s was dangerous to its national security, because if the Soviets or Iran won out in the region, they would be destroyed as a nation. Therefore, Saudi Arabia had a greater interest in what was happening in Afghanistan than America did. The United States was worried that the Soviets were attacking Afghanistan in order to push into the Middle East and capture the oil fields for itself.
Second, the United States had very little intelligence on Afghanistan, and what we did have was only from the CIA agents monitoring the narcotics trade and the poppy fields in the country. Therefore, America had to turn to Saudi Arabia for money and intelligence, making an alliance with the Wahabis in order to gain what we needed.
The U.S. structure a deal with the Saudis to provide funding and personnel to work with the CIA to build a guerilla force to bog down the Soviets in Afghanistan. This was the beginning of an alliance between the U.S. and Muslim fundamentalists.
The third fractor was Pakistan, a long-term American ally. It was torn between the secularism of its founders and the radical Islam of the majority of its population. It was also afraid of being trapped between a Soviet dominated Afghanistan and a pro-Soviet India. Pakistan had a lot of intelligence on Afghanistan and a long contiguous border where training camps, logistic systems, and bases of operations could be set up. The North Vietnamese had Laos and Cambodia; the U.S. had Pakistan.
A three-way alliance was formed. The United States would provide training, coordination and strategic intelligence; the Saudis would provide the money and the guerillas; the Pakistanis would provide the territory and the intelligence needed.
Jimmy Carter was the one who presided over this alliance. Yet, his goal was not to destroy the Soviet Union but to find a balance while restoring America’s power in the world after its decline over the last decade. Carter had no idea that the war in Afghanistan would lead to the destruction of the Soviet Union and the rise of Al Qaeda. When Reagan took office in 1981, he intensified Carter’s alliance and wove it into a larger plan to destroy the Soviet Union and intensify America’s global power.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Al Qaeda was well-trained and well-equipped, possessing many Soviet and American weapons along with the expertise to use them. The Soviets were brutal in their attempts to squash the guerillas, killing many, so that those who lasted the decade-long war were well-trained, experienced, hardened and determined. These radical Islamic fighters saw the fall of the Soviet Union as a Muslim victory, as it was the first victory a Muslim army had achieved against a non-Muslim force in centuries. After the war, these Islamic fighters were irate at America because it threw them away without any hint of gratitude.
The United States saw the war in Afghanistan differently. The war in Afghanistan was only a part in a larger plan that brought the Soviet Union down. America felt it also played the major role, providing the support and training needed for victory. Without the U.S. backing, the guerillas would have been completely annihilated by the Soviets. Because the U.S. ignored their allies and expected them to maintain some kind of bond with us after the war, a rift was created between the Jihadists and America.
In the same way, the first Bush administration mistakenly believed that the Arab countries would be happy with America for helping them free Kuwait and a bond would be created between us and the Arab states. President Bush expected gratitude; he never expected rage. It is clear that the United States was ignorant of the Islamic world and made some serious blunders that caused so much anger and hatred that laid the foundation for Al Qaeda.
While Shiite Muslims are a minority in the whole Arab world, they are the majority in the Gulf region, especially in Iran. The Saudis, by contrast, are not only Sunni, but they are Wahabi, the most radical of the Sunnis. So the Saudis saw the Shiites of Iran not only as a threat to their religion but also a threat to their oil fields. The problem for Saudi Arabia was how to contain Iran and the Soviets at the same time, and the answer was Iraq. Both nations wanted to contain Iran and the Soviets, so America felt is was the best policy to back them as well. Unwittingly, however, the U.S. ended up supporting the most radical form of Islam as a negative unintended consequence. And this radical Wahabi Islam has proved to be even more dangerous to the United States than Shiite Iran.
In order to bog down Iran, the United States sent signals to Iraq that it wouldn’t oppose them if they decided to attack Iran. The resulting war tied up both countries for a decade, costing millions of lives and billions of dollars on both sides. The United States kept shifting its policy towards Iraq to keep it destabilized and to prolong the war. The United States knew that Iraq could not beat Iran, and the Saudis gladly backed the war in order to keep both armies bogged down for nearly ten years.
American foreign policy has chosen to make alliances of necessity with evil states in order to oppose even more evil states. The U.S. made alliances with Stalin and Mao in order to counter worse leaders. America also tends to create solutions that solve the short-term problem at the risk of creating greater problems down the road.
Saddam Hussein wanted to take over Iran and Kuwait in order to become the dominant power in the region. The U.S. quietly assured him, with deniability, that if he won the war we would allow him to have Kuwait as well. Then for the next ten years the U.S. kept shifting the balance of power to make sure Iraq never accomplished its goal and achieved its prize. After ten years, Iraq was less exhausted than Iran, and Saddam declared victory and demanded his prize. The American Ambassador, unaware of the intricacies and policy shifts, assured Saddam Hussein that while the U.S. was opposed to his taking Iraq, they would do nothing to stop him. As soon as Iraq invaded Kuwait, the U.S. worked with the Saudis to launch Operation Desert Shield and then Desert Storm.
The soldiers returning to Saudi Arabia from Afghanistan were outraged by the presence of non-Muslim forces on holy soil. They believed that Muslim states were not naturally weak and could defend themselves if they were willing to sacrifice and persevere. But they also believed that the current Muslim leaders were corrupt and incapable of defending their countries. Therefore, they felt that America had to be humiliated in order to break the psychological dependency on the United States and to generate confidence among the Islamic masses.
These fighters knew America’s strengths, but they also knew its weaknesses. They knew how the American intelligence agencies worked and how they carried out covert operations. These returning fighters were not the poor and disposed, but many were from wealthy families, educated and some even had advanced degrees in secular fields. They also had financial backing from the Saudi royal family and other wealthy Saudis. The financial network that had supported the guerillas in Afghanistan had never been shut down and now it was being used to fund Al Qaeda long after America had lost interest in it.
They knew they needed to take a long time to prepare to strike hard at the United States in order to pull it into a full-scale war against the Islamic world. By doing this they hoped to discredit secular Islamic states in the region and to sap American strength. Through a series of increasing attacks on American targets, the Embassies in Africa, the barracks in Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, they hoped to illicit a hard response from America. Bill Clinton, however, didn’t want to seem impotent and make Al Qaeda look powerful, nor did he want to be drawn into a full-scale war, so he chose to respond in a half-hearted way.
The first mistake America made was to pull the plug on the resistance fighters in Afghanistan and not give them back their papers so they could return home. This was not solely America’s fault, since most of the governments didn’t want these fighters to come back and cause trouble at home. Stranded in a strange land, scarred by war, this band of about 1,000 soldiers united and became a fierce fighting force in the battles for supremacy after the war with the Soviets was won. Most ended up going back home, but the bond between them was strong. Being abandoned by the U.S. and rejected by their home governments was not only seen as a personal affront but as endemic of the malaise that shrouded all the Islamic governments in the Middle East. They viewed the outside threats to Islam, America and the Soviet Union, as manageable and insignificant compared to the inner threats of corrupt Islamic governments.
The first major incident leading up to the current situation goes way back to the Crusades and the loss of the Caliphate. At the height of its power, the Muslim Empire was actually larger than the Roman Empire. The goal of Al Qaeda was to take over one Islamic state in order to set an example and to establish a base of operations. Afghanistan became that base, with the Taliban running the internal affairs and Al Qaeda operating around the world. Al Qaeda hoped to sweep the Muslim world and establish fundamentalist governments throughout the Middle East, unifying the Islamic world and reestablishing the Caliphate.
The key element in their strategy was to show that America is weak and vulnerable in order to break the illusion of the super power’s dominance and remove the Muslim world’s fear and subservience. They felt that the United States lacked to power and moral character to assert its will in the long run. Vietnam, the Iran hostage crisis, Beirut, Somalia, and failure to depose Saddam Hussein all seemed to demonstrate the fact that America could strike a hard first blow but could not sustain a prolonged conflict.
Al Qaede realized that it had to strike a blow to the United States that was enormous and for which there was no easy defense, in order to send a clear message to the Islamic masses. The plan was to draw the United States into a prolonged conflict with multiple Islamic states to solidify the Islamic world and to drain the U.S. military dry.
In a society with many unguarded targets, a small group with explosives is very difficult to stop. The fewer the operatives, the more difficult it is to find them. The nearly infinite number of targets and the sparsity of operatives is what makes defending against terrorism a nightmare. The physical damage caused by terrorists is minimal while the psychological damage is extraordinary, making it a powerful political tool.
Al Qaeda’s strategy and ideology were different, and it wasn’t trying to send a message to the United States but to the Islamic world. They saw the United States as an actor that could be manipulated into behaving as they wanted it to behave.
After the end of the Cold War, America didn’t have a major enemy that could threaten its security. Attention was focused on rogue states, such as North Korea, Libya, Yugoslavia, Iran and Cuba, and these were not allied together against the United States. The major threat was threat was that they might develop nuclear weapons. The secondary threat was that they might invade their neighbors. The third level of threat was that they might violate the human rights of their own citizens. All of these were considered containable and manageable through international organizations, such as the United Nations.
The way the United States responded to the small crises throughout the world was triggering unexpected responses in the Islamic world. While the United States saw itself as neutral, impartial and doing good, the Islamic world saw America encroaching on Islamic territory and siding with those who were against Muslims. The intervention by the United States in Kosovo and Somalia, for example, were considered by the Muslim world as struggles between America and Muslims. The United States failed to realize that there was no such thing as a neutral intervention. The United States also saw the fact that these nations were Islamic as incidental while the rest of the Muslim world saw it as fundamental. Al Qaeda used these incidents to mobilize support against Americal Confusion was also created when the United States declined to get involved in other conflicts, making it seem as if America had no coherent foreign policy in place.
The United States also wrongly assumed that nations would be willing to trade a little bit of their sovereignty in order to have stability and security. This was true for many countries, but it infuriated the Muslim nations. The great powers in Europe were also uneasy about America’s growing power and unpredictability, and many were hoping, and even helping, that America would trip and fall, in order to limit America’s power and make us easier to predict and control. After the Cold War ended, America saw the global economy as the most important issue and assumed everyone else did too. However, most nations, especially Islamic countries, viewed national autonomy as more important than prosperity and security. The United States thought that all countries would welcome transnational prosperity, but some Islamic countries were ready to resist, even to the death.
When Al Qaeda started its global terrorism operation, most analysts either ignored it or misunderstood it. They viewed Al Qaeda like any other Palestinian terrorist organization, with limited political goals and operations. The term “terrorist” tended to obscure the issue, since there are vast differences between different organizations as to their ideology and strategy. They didn’t understand how different Al Qaeda was from any other terrorist organization. Al Qaeda wasn’t interested in symbolic gestures and affecting local politics but had a much more complex ideology that drove its global strategy to implement their international political goals. While most other terrorist organizations were based on Arab ethnicity and were trained by the Soviets to further local political agendas, Al Qaeda was based on Islam and they had a global religious agenda that was based on centuries of Islamic history and tradition. By merely focusing on its attacks and not its ideology, the United States totally misunderstood what Al Qaeda was about.
While the United States didn’t create Al Qaeda, we created the atmosphere and climate for it to grow and flourish. When Bill Clinton responded in a half-hearted manner to the embassy bombings and the attack on the Cole, he unwittingly empowered and emboldened Al Qaeda.
This is a summary of the first few chapters of the book which I found extremely helpful in understanding these events. Friedman goes on to dissect the problems with the American intelligence system and why it missed 9/11. He then goes on to explain how America’s military had been stripped down after the Cold War and was totally unprepared for a major military conflict on the scale that was needed to confront Al Qaeda. Friedman’s detailed analysis of what was involved in the September 11 attacks is impressive and chilling, clearly showing that Al Qaeda is highly trained, extremely disciplined and very determined to destroy the United States. He then shows how it is impossible to defend against such attacks and explains why most of what is being done in response to 9/11 is worthless.
I thought Friedman’s detailed account of how the United States prepared for and implemented a major military offensive against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan in less than a month was amazing. While Al Qaeda knew we would attack, they expected a massive assault in the following spring, but Operation Enduring Freedom was totally unconventional and unexpected, catching Al Qaeda by surprise. He goes on to describe how America fought the war, the alliances that had to be made with former, and current, enemies, and the problems of working with nationalistic forces within Afghanistan.
The book goes on to cover the war in Iraq up to the end of July, 2004. Friedman concludes that the United States is winning the war. Al Qaeda has failed to achieve any of its strategic goals. There has been no uprising in the Islamic world, no regimes toppled. In fact, most Islamic governments have increased their cooperation with the United States. Al Qaeda has been backed against a wall. The game is far from over, but the U.S. certainly has the lead -- in spite of an extraordinary array of blunders, some inexplicable.
You can read chapter summaries and learn more about the book at: http://www.americassecretwar.com/index.html
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