CIAO DATE: 09/07
The National Interest
How Well Should You Be Sleeping?
Antony T. Sullivan
Full Text
Five years after 9/11 the United States is not winning the inaptly named "war" on terrorism. Individual victories have been won, and some enemy capabilities have been significantly degraded. But the larger struggle rages on, and seems likely to continue to do so for a very long time.
Al-Qaeda today has become an ideological movement rather than merely a single entity. Indeed, this transformation may constitute the greatest threat now posed by Al-Qaeda. Ideologies are much more difficult to destroy than organizations. While the strategic threat from what has been called "Al-Qaeda prime" may have lessened, the tactical threat posed by grassroots groups that now operate worldwide under its ideological umbrella has multiplied. As American complacency deepens and memories of 9/11 fade, Al-Qaeda, or its offshoots, wait. Unlike Americans, jihadists have a glacial sense of time.
Osama bin Laden knows all this. And that is why he probably continues to smile. Despite Al-Qaeda's failure to overthrow any Arab regime, or to mount another terrorist attack within the United States, Osama bin Laden undoubtedly believes that the long-term correlation of forces remains in his favor.
From the jihadist point of view, the war of attrition in the Middle East is succeeding in weakening American and Western resolve to keep substantial numbers of military forces in the region. In their judgment, that war of attrition needs only to be sustained for ultimate victory to be attained. Jihadists know that many other parties in the region, for their own reasons, will continue to abet their efforts. That too is a reason for their likely long-term, continuing, geostrategic optimism.
Iran may now be preparing an "army of martyrs" in case the United States attacks its nuclear infrastructure. Forty-thousand suicide bombers are said to have already been trained, out of a projected total of 55,000. This army is reportedly slated to attack U.S., Israeli and Western interests throughout the world, in the event war between the United States and Iran should erupt. Certainly, even without any attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, that army provides Iran another arrow in its quiver for a possible deployment in Iraq, Lebanon, or elsewhere.
In Iraq, reports indicate that Iran now has officers from its Revolutionary Guard and intelligence services spread throughout the southern Shi'a part of the country. In addition, Iranian experts are said to have well-established relationships with Iraqi Shi'a involved in the oil industry in southern Iraq. Iranian agents have penetrated Sadr City in Baghdad and are participating with Iraqi Shi'a in the campaign to ethnically separate Sunnis from Shi'a in Baghdad.
American, Israeli and NATO intelligence services are investigating unconfirmed reports that Iran may have transferred some of its uranium enrichment facilities to such Syrian cities as Latakia, Tartus and Deir el Zour. It is believed by some that Syria has become a dirty and dangerous complex for Iranian nuclear, chemical and biological activities.
The Iranian shadow across the Middle East is long. Iran is already a major power broker in Lebanon, through its control of the Lebanese Hizballah movement. Recently, Hizballah reportedly received a large infusion of military equipment from Iran through Syria, including drones, anti-tank and surface-to-surface missiles. These weapons have clearly been used in the long-prepared Hizballah war against Israel. The 12,000 to 20,000 Hizballah missiles pointed southward toward Israel that are capable of reaching at least as far as Haifa confront Israel with a perhaps unprecedented geostrategic problem.
For its part, the Lebanese army is said to have facilitated the delivery of these arms, arguing that Hizballah remains an indigenous resistance movement against Israel. Hizballah apparently has further reinforced its military position in south Lebanon, facing Israel. For example, Hizballah is said to have recently paid handsome compensation to hundreds of homeowners in southern Lebanon, transforming the former homes into "closed bases for Iranian-supplied missiles." Reports indicate that Hizballah may now have become a "front-line division of the Iranian army." All of this accounts for the heavy price Israel has paid as a result of its thrust into Lebanon.
As if all this were not enough, a variety of groups are reported now to be arming in Lebanon and creating or recreating their own militias or alternative sources of support. Walid Jumblatt, the leader of the Druze community and a strongly anti-Syrian Lebanese politician, is creating a militia in the Shouf Mountains. Samir Geagea, a veteran Maronite commander in the Lebanese Civil War, is doing the same in north Lebanon. For their part, Saad Hariri, the son of the late Rafik Hariri and a leading Sunni power broker in Beirut, as well as the Lebanese Sunni Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, are said to be now pushing to naturalize and enfranchise all of the 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon in order to ensure that they are political allies. Specifically, and with the support of Saudi Arabia, the Lebanese Sunni leadership is reported to be considering the creation of its own Sunni Palestinian Islamic army to counter the Shi'a and Iranian challenge in the country. Does a reprise of the Lebanese Civil War loom?
Meanwhile, Syria has now entirely rebuilt its intelligence network in Lebanon so that it will be able to negotiate with America over its future relationship with Lebanon from a position of greater strength than it has now. Simultaneously, Syria is maintaining a steady flow of arms to the Palestinian movements under its influence in Lebanon. It is reported that Syria is counting on its Palestinian allies in Lebanon to instigate strife in the country, should Damascus come under increasing pressure as a result of the investigation of the slaying of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
While all of this is happening, Al-Qaeda is reported to be reconstituting its cells across the Middle East and in Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia under a younger leadership. Local cells are said now to have freedom to undertake operations without reference to any higher authority. If this is true, decapitation of the monster (for example by the elimination of Bin Laden or Zawahiri) may accomplish little.
Al-Qaeda reportedly also has developed plans to undertake sophisticated military operations against American, European and Israeli targets as well as to assassinate government officials. In the tradition of the Taliban's destruction of the monumental Buddhist statues in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda-related groups are even reported to have discussed the possible destruction of the pyramids or even the Sphinx in Egypt. However far-fetched this may be, it does suggest that informed opinion in the Muslim Middle East believes that Al-Qaeda is far from moribund. That itself is significant.
In addition to the cells it is reported to have formed in Palestinian camps and elsewhere in Lebanon, Al-Qaeda may now have infiltrated cadres and arms into the Occupied Territories. The weapons reportedly include hundreds of machine guns and pistols, as well as new types of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It is also reported that Al-Qaeda has established a cell in the Occupied Territories named the Islamic Army of Jerusalem. Members of the cell are said to have infiltrated from Jordan and Egypt.
Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates is reported to be functioning as a center for terrorist financing. Terrorist money transfers are said to be concentrated in Dubai. As a result, the UAE is said to have been spared attacks by jihadists, and is likely to continue to enjoy favored status as long as this situation holds.
All of this suggests that the United States is going to find it increasingly difficult to achieve any of its (various) originally proclaimed objectives in Iraq and, by extension, for the rest of the Middle East. Both the death rate of U.S. servicemen and the number of insurgent attacks so far this year is running ahead of those rates in 2004 and 2005. All that remains is for the United States to find the proper face-saving formula to begin significant troop withdrawals, perhaps a cosmetic agreement between Sunnis, Shi'a and Kurds (with no guarantee of any durability).
Do not bet against Al-Qaeda, in some form, establishing a long-term presence in Iraq, as it already has in the Caucasus and is regaining in Afghanistan. Also, do not bet against Iran becoming the most influential outside player in Mesopotamia. In the end, a war whose originally (and still) proclaimed purposes have been to defeat terrorism, eliminate weapons of mass destruction, and make Iraq safe for democracy, will likely prove a failure on all counts. Al-Qaeda and its allies continue to receive a graduate education in guerrilla tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran seems ever more determined to push ahead with its nuclear program, and democracy is now widely understood as a cover for long-term U.S. occupation. One can only wonder at the ignorance, or perversity, of those neoconservative ideologues and their ignorant fellow travelers who orchestrated a war that has driven American popularity to all-time lows, put Iran on the threshold of becoming the dominant power in the Persian Gulf and made Osama bin Laden a far more admired figure in parts of the Islamic world than President George Bush. The Great American War to bring democracy to Iraq, and indeed to the rest of the Arab world, will probably end with there being less democracy, more terrorism and a greater number of weapons of mass destruction in the region than before it began. The corridors of history are cunning.
In addition, Al-Qaeda has announced publicly that it is placing new emphasis on winning the war in Afghanistan, and events on the ground clearly reflect that determination.
In the Middle East and Islamic world, one may expect more of the same, perhaps in more places, over the next five years, rather than any single, spectacular strike against American facilities there. From the viewpoint of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, its strategy in the Middle East is working reasonably well, and needs only be continued to achieve the objective of forcing withdrawal of most American and allied forces from the region.
Al-Qaeda has certainly been watching with interest the establishment of a new Islamist regime in Somalia. In addition to Iraq and Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda may now believe that its presence in the geostrategically vital Horn of Africa may be significantly upgraded. The hinge of Somalia may offer new possibilities for it to penetrate Saudi Arabia as well as the entire Arabian peninsula, and indeed of much of the African continent.
At the same time, there is no doubt that Al-Qaeda prime's strategic capabilities have been significantly degraded since 9/11. To quantify the unquantifiable--and on a scale of 0–10 with zero equaling "not at all" and ten "totally", or "virtually certain"--informed estimates suggest a 6-7 reduction of Al-Qaeda's global capability during the last five years. During the same period, however, an army of potential jihadists has been created inside the U.S. prison system. As these jihadists are released into the larger society, Al-Qaeda may regain some of its former capability. It would certainly have available a new army of potential American domestic-terrorist operatives.
On an international scale, Al-Qaeda prime remains dangerous. It, or one of the affiliates it has inspired, remains capable of mounting another major attack within the borders of the United States. Those borders are of course poorly secured, especially the U.S.-Canadian border. Canada today is home to countless potential terrorists who would not find movement into the United States a major problem.
In fact, within, say, the next five years, again on a scale of 0–10, informed professional estimates suggest that the probability of a major terrorist attack inside the United States is close to an eight on the same ten-point scale. Of course, the sophistication of such attacks, the amount of possible radioactive or biological dispersion into the atmosphere, and the sorts of unconventional weapons that might be used, remain wild cards. Currently, Al-Qaeda almost certainly does not have the capability to mount any major operation in the United States. But there are an almost unlimited number of potential targets. And five years is a long time.
In this regard, it is often assumed that any Al-Qaeda operation would necessarily be designed to achieve a greater body count than 9/11. This may not be true. Whatever else it is, terrorism is psychological warfare. Recall the enormous psychological impact of the anthrax attacks, and their ability to cause mass hysteria and paralyze the federal government, despite the fact that only a handful of victims died. The fact is that Al-Qaeda may now not consider an enormous body count to be necessary, when nearly the same societal impact might be obtained by using a stinger missile (for example) to knock down one civilian aircraft landing or taking off, or placing a few bombs in different malls around the country, or (as was planned in 2000 for the Radisson Hotel in Amman, Jordan) by placing poison in a luxury hotel's circulation system. In any such case, public hysteria would explode, and a significant part of the U.S. infrastructure would grind to a standstill. Certainly, any such attacks would not require enormous sophistication, deployment of nuclear weapons, or the training of a large number of operatives. Precisely for those reasons, they would probably be much harder for law enforcement to detect. But their effect would in all probability be similar to those of a dirty bomb or the use of chemical or biological weapons. Hence their possible attractiveness. In particular, the U.S. subway and rail system, especially the Washington-New York railroad link, offers a very inviting soft target that could be hit effectively without the use of the most sophisticated weaponry. In the War on Terror, the United States remains highly vulnerable.
Al-Qaeda is patient. Eight years passed between the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 and 9/11. Since 9/11, only five years have elapsed. For Al-Qaeda the movement, that is merely a moment in time. Al-Qaeda may well believe that it is right on schedule as far as mounting another major terrorist strike in the United States is concerned.
Meanwhile, operations by Al-Qaeda or its grassroots imitators have not slowed since 9/11. Such operations have stretched from Jordan to Saudi Arabia and on through Indonesia, Spain and the United Kingdom. Clearly, Al-Qaeda and its imitators remain very much alive.
Sleep well, sweet prince. And pleasant dreams.
1Hilaire Belloc, The Great Heresies (Rockford, IL: Tan Publishers, Inc., 1991), pp. 73-76.
2Rami G. Khouri, "Bush's Fantasy Foreign Policy", which can be found at http://www.tompaine.com, October 11, 2005.