Losing the War on Terror
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Botching the War on Terrorism
Clearly, Bush's identification of rogue regimes as the center of gravity of the terrorist enemy has proven faulty; nor, in light of this failure, has he been able to correctly identify the true center. As suggested by most serious scholars of Islamic extremism, the real crux of the jihadists' strength lies in their ability to articulate and propagate a message of radical struggle that inspires and activates thousands of disaffected young Muslims around the world. As summarized by Hoffman of RAND, Al Qaeda has evolved into "an amorphous movement tenuously held together by a loosely networked constituency rather than a monolithic, international organization with an identifiable command and control apparatus.... It has become a vast enterprise -- an international movement or franchise operation with like-minded local representatives, loosely connected to a central ideological or motivational base but advancing its goals independently."
Obviously, defeating this "movement" requires a very different strategy than the one now employed by the United States. Instead of military assaults on rogue states, it requires a capacity to identify and apprehend the often self-appointed "local representatives" of Al Qaeda, to disable the movement's propaganda apparatus, and, most of all, to discredit its prime messages. On a grand scale, this requires positioning the United States with progressive forces in the Middle East, withdrawing from Iraq, and ending U.S. support for repressive, regressive regimes like those in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. On a purely tactical level, it means developing harmonious relations with professional intelligence officials in other countries and developing a communications strategy aimed at delegitimizing the jihadists' violent appeals within the Islamic world -- an effort that can only be successful if it enjoys the assistance of moderate Muslims willing to cooperate with the United States.
The need for a strategy of this sort has been voiced by at least some terrorism experts in the U.S. and by many knowledgeable officials in Europe. But even those American experts who have advocated such an approach have been repeatedly stymied by the President's unswerving commitment to his own, demonstrably failed approach. No divergence from the official White House blueprint has been permitted. To make matters worse, Bush and his top advisers have insisted on micro-managing the war on terror, choosing tactics that amplify the damage caused by their defective strategy.
The greatest damage has been caused by decisions made by top administration officials, including the President, Vice President, and Secretary of Defense, regarding the methods used to apprehend, confine, and extract information from terrorist suspects and those associated with them. Most significantly, this includes decisions to permit the abduction of suspects on the territory of friendly nations, to use Europe as a stopover point for the transport or "rendition" of suspects to Asian and Middle Eastern countries where torture is routinely employed to extract confessions, to allow U.S. interrogators to use methods that by any reasonable definition constitute torture, and to tolerate the mistreatment of Muslim prisoners in U.S. custody (whether at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, or in secret CIA-run prisons in Afghanistan, Europe, and elsewhere). Separately and together, these decisions have severely alienated the very governments and religious figures whose assistance is desperately needed to mount an effective campaign against Al Qaeda and its offshoots.
To give just one example of the problems this has caused the United States: On December 24, an Italian judge issued arrest warrants for 22 purported CIA operatives who abducted an Egyptian cleric in Milan in 2003 and "rendered" him to Egypt, where he was subsequently tortured by Egyptian security officers. This case has caused a major uproar in Italy, forcing even Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, normally a reliable White House ally, to distance himself from U.S. policies -- hardly the way to hold on to, no less gain, allies in the war against terror.
Equally worrisome is the growing anti-Americanism espoused by supposedly "mainstream" Islamic clerics in Europe. Prompted by what they view as an unrelenting American campaign against the Islamic world -- the abuses uncovered at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and elsewhere providing but the most recent confirmations of this outlook -- these clerics are promulgating a militant message that, European intelligence officers contend, is inspiring young Muslim men to volunteer for combat in Iraq or to form their own, homegrown Al Qaeda-type organizations. It was a group of this sort, experts believe, that staged the bombings in the London Underground on July 7 that killed 52 people.
It is impossible to exaggerate the damage caused by the President's improvident decisions. Yes, these tactics are immoral. Yes, they violate American norms and values. Yes, they are in many respects illegal. All this, by itself, is enough to warrant condemnation by Congress and the public. But it is the lethal effect of these decisions on America's capacity for success in the war on terrorism that most concerns us here. By employing tactics that only serve to heighten the destructive consequences of a failing strategy, President Bush has essentially guaranteed America's failure. In the final analysis, the President's incompetent management of the war on terror has helped the jihadists take better advantage of their strengths while exploiting America's weaknesses. This does not bode well for the future of global peace and stability.
For too long, the American public has accepted the myth of presidential effectiveness in the war on terrorism. But as the practical implications of Bush's incompetence become ever more apparent -- lamentably, through the continued spread and potency of radical jihadism -- this last, crucial prop of the President's support could soon fall away. As 2005 was the year in which Bush's fatal incompetence in domestic affairs was revealed to all through the tragedy of Katrina and New Orleans, 2006 could prove to be the year in which his failed leadership in the war on terror finally comes back to haunt him.
Michael T. Klare is the Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum (Owl Books) as well as Resource Wars, The New Landscape of Global Conflict.
Copyright 2005 Michael T. Klare
This piece first appeared, with an introduction by Tom Engelhardt, at Tomdispatch.com.
