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CIAO DATE: 12/03
Crushing al Qaeda Is Only a Start
On The Issues
February 2002
Anti-Americanism and militant Islam are exacerbated by a perception that the United States is afraid to rile its "allies" in the Middle East. A quick victory in Afghanistan has shaken that impression, but only a war against Saddam Hussein will decisively restore the awe that protects American interests abroad and citizens at home.
Before the Afghan War, Osama bin Laden constantly underscored American cowardice in battle. When "one American pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu," he gleefully remarked, "you left the area in disappointment, humiliation, and defeat." The enormous growth of anti-Americanism and the holy-warrior ethic in the Middle East has in great part been fueled by the widespread perception that the United States is, as bin Laden put it, "a paper tiger."
Daisy-cutter bombs, B-52s, and American soldiers in Afghanistan have certainly helped change Middle Eastern views. The Bush administration has demonstrated a tenacity toward al Qaeda and the Taliban that bin Laden and Mullah Omar probably didn't expect. In the past, bin Laden referred to the futility of confronting America militarily, and thus the need for sustained "clandestine . . . guerrilla operations." The Saudi holy warrior finally provoked that which he'd most feared. And the inevitable repercussions have already started.
In Sudan, Yemen, and Lebanon-all possible future targets of America's war against terrorism-official voices now distance themselves from anti-Americanism and militant Islam. Bin Laden has in defeat publicly fallen from grace. Clerical Iran, the progenitor of modern Islamic terrorism, even gives sermons against the Saudi's methods if not his anti-American spirit.
It is at such an optimistic juncture that we need to be resolutely skeptical of the durability of our own achievement in Afghanistan and the amity of any burgeoning antiterrorist coalition. We would do well to remember how quickly the triumphant Gulf War became in Middle Eastern eyes, if not in American, a failure. Though bin Laden is rhetorically skilled in enumerating the many instances of timidity through the Clinton years, America's superpower image was decisively cracked in the Middle East by the failure of Washington to checkmate Saddam Hussein.
It is quite reasonable to suppose that if Washington had attacked and dismantled Saddam's regime before 1996-the year when the Iraqi dictator very publicly executed American-backed coup plotters and routed American-backed opposition forces in the north-September 11 might well not have happened. The entire Middle East would have been on notice-particularly the Taliban, who welcomed bin Laden in 1996-that America crushes its foes. Our Arab Muslim "allies"-especially the oligarchies in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where most of the September 11 terrorists were born and nurtured-would have been less cavalier in their state-sponsored anti-American media and schools.
The liberation of Iraq, with its revelations of Stalinist horrors, would quite likely have provoked a great debate about the moral bankruptcy of the entire region. Instead of listening to bin Laden's powerfully evocative images of Iraqi suffering under American sanctions, we would have heard directly from Iraqis finally free from totalitarianism.
Running from the Fight
Now, we are at a crossroads. We will either understand that the jet-fuel behind the virulent anti-Americanism in the Muslim Middle East hasn't been the age-old confrontation between the West and Islam, or its baby offspring, the war between Israelis and Palestinians, but the wholly understandable impression that America was on the run.
Or we will default to the State Department's understanding of the Middle East, which does not see the respect that America enjoys in the Muslim world as being primarily connected to the awe that America inspires. Since 1948, the Near East Bureau in the Department of State has advanced the utterly unhistorical premise that Israel-not our own Western preeminence-is the primary source of Arab-Muslim hostility toward the United States. Sensitivity to Arab and Muslim pride-and the Saudis and Egyptians are always quick to explain for us the exact contours of these sensitivities-becomes synonymous in Foggy Bottom with advancing U.S. national interests. American foreign policy is thus held hostage to the mythical "Arab street," the barometer of the tolerance level that the average Arab Muslim supposedly has for pro-Israeli U.S. policy and "pro-American" Arab dictators.
War with Iraq and a prolonged military confrontation with Islamic terrorism, in this view, could thus easily aggravate raw Arab nerves surrounding U.S.-Israeli relations. The unapologetic pro-Western use of American power-in effect, having the U.S. play realpolitik on terms immediately comprehensible to Middle Easterners-tempts fate by always threatening to awaken the Arab street.
The Egyptians and Saudis, of course, aren't stupid, which is why they constantly underscore with U.S. officials the Israeli menace to regional stability. That America actually loses face in Muslim eyes by not enforcing an unabashedly pro-Western, pro-Israeli agenda runs counter to the raison d'?tre of the Middle Eastern crew inside the State Department. A proper understanding of bin-Ladenism (the purest form of Middle Eastern power politics) or an unconditional war against Iraq aimed at establishing the Arab world's first democracy would intellectually unhinge the Near East Bureau, casting doubt on decades of advice offered to senior U.S. officials.
Which way America will go from here is very unclear. The White House's resolve in Afghanistan and its coldness toward the Middle East's most successful terrorist, Yasser Arafat, gives hope of a fundamental change in our views. Yet there will be, as always from the bureaucracies, extraordinary resistance to change.
The Near East Bureau's preferences, which appear to mirror closely the views of Secretary of State Colin Powell, inevitably resurface forcefully in the bureaucratic battles that shape foreign policy. Mr. Powell and the bureau, both strong fans of "new-and-improved" sanctions against Iraq, obviously don't want to go to war. And as U.S. embassies in the Middle East and Arab ambassadors in Washington deluge the administration with dire warnings about the worsening Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, President Bush might well allow the State Department's peace processors back into the fray.
With images of attacking Israeli tanks and helicopters on the nightly news, it could be difficult for the president to see through the "expert" counsel into the damning irony that anti-Americanism in the Arab world became white-hot during the years when the peace process, at least in Western eyes, held the most promise. President Bush will have to know in his gut, as he appeared to know early on, that engaging Washington in the "peace process"-which really means trying to find another Israeli concession that will finally slake the Palestinian thirst-can now only belittle the United States in the region.
And the Defense Department, too, can't shake itself from the trap of looking at the Middle East as a balancing act between Israeli and Arab interests. The Pentagon now has hugely expensive, if not strategically critical, bases in Saudi Arabia and large, annual military exercises in Egypt. For the military brass, bases and exercises become an end in themselves. At Defense, Egypt and Saudi Arabia loom large as essential allies even though both governments have relentlessly fanned hatred of the United States and encouraged the Palestinians to take uncompromising positions. The Pentagon is even backing the sale of $400 million worth of antiship missiles to Egypt when the only plausible targets of these weapons in the future will be Israeli and American vessels.
Restoring Our Power
If we really intend to extinguish the hope that has fueled the rise of al Qaeda and the violent anti-Americanism throughout the Middle East, we have no choice but to reinstill in our foes and friends the fear and respect that attaches to any great power.
Winning the war in Afghanistan will not do it alone. Nor will a war against al Qaeda's networks elsewhere. Indeed, such a campaign is much more likely to fritter away our Afghan victory. We simply will not have the live-time intelligence required to engage successfully in cat-and-mouse military operations against the region's terrorist cells.
Only a war against Saddam Hussein will decisively restore the awe that protects American interests abroad and citizens at home. We've been running from this fight for ten years. In the Middle East, everybody knows it. We're the only ones deluding ourselves.
Reuel Marc Gerecht is a resident fellow at AEI.
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