Via WaPo: Intelligence Puts Rationale For War on Shakier Ground
a new National Intelligence Estimate [...] concludes that al-Qaeda “has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability” by reestablishing a haven in Pakistan and reconstituting its top leadership. The report also notes that al-Qaeda has been able “to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks,” by associating itself with an Iraqi subsidiary.
While the administration continues to point out the lack of an attack on the US since 9/11 (not counting, of course, the still unsolved anthrax attacks), it is difficult for them to claim success for their counter-terrorism policies if al Qaeda is able to reorganize in Waziristan. The Pakistani government’s inability/unwillingness to deal with this fact is highly problematic for Bush’s policies against al Qaeda. Indeed, the situation in Pakistan underscores that the “Bush Doctrine” of holding states responsible for sponsoring or harboring terrorists is extremely problematic in terms of application, given that the idea was to essentially scare states into kicking such groups out of their territories or risk action by the US. Since the US has been bolstering the Pervez Musharraf regime, the irony is that the administration short-circuited its own policy as we needed Pakistan’s help in Afghanistan, and we can’t afford to put too much pressure on the Paks. Along those same lines, Saudi Arabia has been a major source of foreign fighters in Iraq, not to mention a key source of 9/11 attackers and yet we hear barely a peep out of the administration about that fact (yet we saber-rattle over Iranian influence).
I am not suggesting that we should go to war with either, but simply noting that the initial policy formulation offered by the President has become ultimately inoperative (and, indeed, it is language that he hasn’t used of late). The lack of success in Iraq, of course, has a lot to do with that fact. Not only does the Iraq war underscore the fact that while invasion is easy, control is hard, it has also meant that our military is quite busy, therefore making coercive diplomacy harder to pull off.
Further, one should note that many critics of the war have been proven right: the Iraq war has served as a major recruiting tool for al Qaeda.
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July 18th, 2007 at 9:19 am
While the administration continues to point out the lack of an attack on the US since 9/11 (not counting, of course, the still unsolved anthrax attacks), it is difficult for them to claim success for their counter-terrorism policies if al Qaeda is able to reorganize in Waziristan.
I’m sorry to break this to you, Steven, but Pakistan is old news. As Bush said earlier this week, Iraq is where Al Quaeda–”the same people who attacked us on 9/11″–are operating.
Further, one should note that many critics of the war have been proven right: the Iraq war has served as a major recruiting tool for al Qaeda.
This assessment wasn’t limited to critics–the intelligence communities in US, Australia & Britain all predicted that the war would have this effect.
July 18th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Just about anything the U.S. did against al Qaeda could and would be used to help Islamist recruiting. If the U.S. stood by and did nothing after the Sep. 11 attacks bin Laden would have used this line: “The paper tiger is weak and won’t fight even after 3000 of her people died. Join me to finish off the Crusaders.” The point is specious.
July 18th, 2007 at 10:03 am
I take the basic point, but the general failure in Iraq has allowed both recruitment for AQ because of the invasion and the ability of AQ leadership to point out our failure there. As such, it is the worse of both worlds and not a specious point at all.
I don’t think, for example, the ouster of the Taliban was as successful a recruiting tool, although no doubt there were some who rallied to the AQ flag as a result of that action.
It is difficult to escape the fact that the Iraq policy has invigorated AQ and that while the Zarqawi network was in in Iraq before the invasion that it took the invasion to transform it into AQI and that it clearly has grown in size and scope since the invasion.
July 18th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
This still bugs me. 9/11/2001, Pentagon. Where is the Boeing 757-sized hole? In fact, where is the Boeing 757? - http://i19.tinypic.com/4t7idnb.png
July 18th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
The policies were doomed to have, at best, limited success from the very beginning.
Clausewitz originated the principles of war. They were taught to me even as a cadet before I was even on active duty. Basics, and we forget. The first three principles - Mass, Objective, and Offensive - were violated from the beginning.
A “war on terror” is a policy that could be successfully pursued by a superpower, but not with the military at its current size, and not without making major sacrifices economically on the home front. A truly global war on terror would be just that - a major military undertaking in many nations all over the globe. It would require a massive mobilization of national resources.
Also, because terrorism has its roots in civilian populations, it would be impossible to wage this type of war in a truly effective manner without attacking population centers. A successful war on terror would mean total war with any nation that directly (Iran) or indirectly (Pakistan) enables terrorism. It would be a bloody, horrible thing for the world to go through. I don’t know if the juice would be worth the squeeze - but the principles of war tell us that you can’t win without an a big enough force, you can’t win without defining the task, and you can’t win without staying on the offensive.
A long and bloody insurgency did not follow in Germany and Japan after WW2 largely - in my opinion - because the populations that had supported the Nazis and Imperial Japan were so traumatized by the enormous toll in lives and property after the firebombings and other massive attacks that they just wanted it all to stop. In my opinion nothing else can really explain how quickly those cultures turned themselves inside out following the war to rebuild in a way that would enable peaceful coexistance with the rest of the world - Japan, in particular, which cast aside hundreds of years of Bushido traditions and an extremely militaristic culture without too much resistance.
I am not convinced that the radical islam that is taught in these mosques and schools is any different. It is the root of the terrorism just as Bushido was the root of militarism in Japan, and to attack one without attacking the other will always be an exercise in vanity.
Of course the Iraq war has been a recruiting tool for Al Qaida. Everything short of an attack on the enemy’s strength will be used by the enemy for their gain. In any conflict, of any kind, energy spent by one side pursuing the wrong objective will improve the position of the opposing side, even if that side does nothing but sit and wait. The side that spends resources pursuing the wrong objective looses resources doing so, just as if those resources had been attrited in direct combat.
If we were to actually make war on terrorism and the states that sponsor it, we would need to draft a huge military, radically increase military spending, and take drastic measures to mobilize the rest of the nation to war. We would then engage in World War 3, turn the world inside out, burn through some tens or perhaps hundreds of millions of lives, and at the end have something that may or may not be better than what we have now. I don’t know.
BUT - I do know that, when it comes to war, you need to SPIT or GET OFF THE POT. Be HOT or be COLD. DO or DO NOT.
In that sense - boob though he may be - President Bush was always in an impossible situation. After 9/11 there was an expectation that he make war on the people who did it, but, I think, even right after 9/11, the idea of taking WW2-like measures (drafting, perhaps rationing resources, etc.) would have been impossible for America to swallow. We would have had to make war on people that we’d been friendly with (Pakistan, Saudi - most of the gulf states). I think it would take something like watching a few major cities get vaporized to get that kind of reaction, because as horrible as 9/11 was, I don’t think it really caused any lasting fear. Fear is what motivates people like that - there was fear after Pearl Harbor that America would be invaded, the West Coast would be bombed. That’s what made entry into WW2 possible. People here were so scared they rounded up Japanese-Americans and sent them off to internment camps. For good or bad, 9/11 just didn’t scare people on that level.
So, whether he even knew it or not, he was always, from the day 9/11 happened, destined to end up this way. He could not have pursued a successful military policy if he wanted to; and if he had done nothing, he would have been scorned for that, as well.
Mind you, I don’t really support the WW3 approach. I’m not sure what I support these days. I’m just a soldier, and my training doesn’t really go into the why’s, only the how’s. We’re led to beleive otherwise, but really war hasn’t changed a whole lot - it comes down to identifying the source of your opponent’s strength, and then attacking it mercilessly, brutally, and relentlessly.
We still haven’t done that in this war.