Assessing the War on Terror 9781626370975

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Assessing the War on Terror

A project of the Michigan State University Muslim Studies Program

Assessing the

War on Terror edited by

Mohammed Ayoob Etga Ugur

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

Published in the United States of America in 2013 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 2013 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Assessing the war on terror / edited by Mohammed Ayoob & Etga Ugur. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58826-978-2 (alk. paper) 1. War on Terrorism, 2001–2009. 2. Terrorism—United States—Prevention. 3. Terrorism—Middle East. 4. Terrorism—Europe. 5. United States— Foreign relations—Islamic countries. 6. United States—Military policy— 21st century. I. Ayoob, Mohammed, 1942– II. Ugur, Etga, 1979– HV6432.A77 2013 363.3250973—dc23 2013005002 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5 4 3 2 1

For Lou Anna K. Simon for her vision, Paulette Granberry-Russell for her support, and both for their friendship

Contents

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Acknowledgments 1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8

Assessing the War on Terror Mohammed Ayoob

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The War on Terror: Comparisons with the Cold War Mark N. Katz

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Understanding Al-Qaeda: Disentangling Myth from Reality Fawaz A. Gerges

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Afghanistan: The First Theater of the War Michael Semple

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Pakistan: Perfidious Ally in the War on Terror C. Christine Fair

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The Arab World: Grappling with Multiple Consequences Andrew Flibbert

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Iran and Turkey: Pivotal Regional Powers Mohammed Ayoob

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Europe: Reinforcing Existing Trends Rik Coolsaet

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Contents

9 The United States: Civil Society’s Defense of the Rule of Law David Cole

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10 Trapped, or Not, in the Legacy of the War on Terror Ian S. Lustick

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List of Acronyms Bibliography The Contributors Index About the Book

193 195 209 211 225

Acknowledgments

This book is the product of a genuinely collaborative effort. It could not have been brought to completion had it not been for the understanding and consideration with which chapter authors responded to our suggestions and comments and the alacrity with which they met deadlines for the several drafts demanded of them. We are extremely grateful to our colleagues for their patience and good humor. We would also like to express our gratitude to the various units within Michigan State University (MSU) that helped finance the project that led to this book, including a conference on the subject at the university on September 15, 2011. These units include the Office of the Provost, Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives, the Muslim Studies Program, and the Office of the Associate Provost for University Outreach and Engagement. The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a think tank based in Michigan and Washington, DC, also provided valuable financial support. The project could not have been brought to fruition without their support. Several individuals played crucial roles in the development of the book. We cannot thank all of them by name, but a few deserve particular mention: Venice Smith of the Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives; Julia Grimm of the Muslim Studies Program; and our former student Donald Matlock, who is currently a graduate student in international relations at the London School of Economics

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Acknowledgments

and Political Science. We would also like to thank Lynne Rienner and her staff for doing such a superb job in publishing this book in record time. Lou Anna K. Simon, president of Michigan State University and a true visionary, helped lay the foundation of the thriving Muslim Studies Program. Paulette Granberry-Russell, director of MSU’s Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives, has been a staunch supporter of the Muslim Studies Program and all its projects, including this one. This volume is dedicated to them for their vision, support, and friendship. —Mohammed Ayoob —Etga Ugur

1 Assessing the War on Terror Mohammed Ayoob

The George W. Bush administration and its allies launched the war on terror following the terrorist attacks on the US homeland on September 11, 2001. The war on terror has wound down considerably especially since the Barack Obama administration took office. US troops had withdrawn almost completely from Iraq by the end of 2011, and US and allied troops are scheduled to withdraw from Afghanistan—the initial theater of the war on terror—by the end of 2014. In fact, there are indications that the withdrawal from Afghanistan may happen even sooner given the difficulties of counterinsurgency operations in that country and the rocky relations between Washington and the Hamid Karzai government in Kabul. There is a good chance that US and allied troop presence will have been considerably reduced in Afghanistan by the time this book is published. This is a good time, therefore, to take stock of the achievements and failures of the war on terror. This is what we set out to do in this volume. We raise and where possible answer the following questions: Was the war on terror, especially the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, necessary in response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11? What did these invasions achieve, and what have been their legacies for the two countries that became the immediate targets of the war on terror? What was the impact of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq on the greater Middle Eastern region in general and on Pakistan, the Arab

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world, Iran, and Turkey in particular? How did the war on terror play out in terms of official policies and public opinion among America’s European allies? And, finally, what has been the impact of the war on terror and domestic policies associated with it on US society and the rule of law in the United States? The volume begins with Mark Katz’s chapter comparing the Cold War era with that of the war on terror, with the assumption that just as the Cold War provided the contours of international relations between 1945 and 1990, the war on terror did the same for the first decade of this century. Katz argues that “the terms the Cold War and the war on terror have something in common: they refer not just to one conflict, but many conflicts that, to a greater or lesser extent, were—or are—linked to one another.” In the latter case, these conflicts have included far-flung theaters that include Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Just as in the case of the Cold War, local dynamics have played a major role—often greater than global dynamics—in the unfolding of the war on terror in these diverse places, and analysts have often had trouble distinguishing the local from the global dimensions of this conflict. Again, like the Cold War, the war on terror seems to be ending in a whimper with US forces going home without achieving most of Washington’s political objectives. At the same time, al-Qaeda and its affiliates have been rendered totally irrelevant in the context of the democratic uprisings in the Arab and Muslim world, not because of the successes achieved in the war on terror but because of al-Qaeda’s inherent shortcomings that had from the very beginning made it a marginal phenomenon within the Muslim world.1 It is these shortcomings that form the centerpiece of the third chapter. Fawaz Gerges attempts to reveal al-Qaeda’s deficiencies by addressing six major misconceptions—call them myths if you like— that have dominated much of the Western analyses of the al-Qaeda phenomenon and made it appear much larger than life-size. He explodes these myths one at a time and argues that “al-Qaeda poses only a security irritant, not a serious threat,” and that its threat was always overblown. According to Gerges, the Achilles heel of alQaeda was the fact that it was unable to find traction in Muslim societies because it did not address the social, economic, and political concerns of Muslim populations. He concludes: “Tyranny, dismal social conditions, authoritarian political systems, and the absence of hope provide the fuel that powers radical, absolutist ideologies in the

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Muslim world. It is not enough to focus on the violent ideology of alQaeda without devoting sufficient attention to the social conditions that gave rise to it. If the Arab revolutions [of 2011–2013] manage to fill the gap of legitimate political authority, they will annihilate the last dregs of al-Qaeda and like-minded local branches. Only then will al-Qaeda, like Osama bin Laden, not only die, but finally be buried.” While the Arab uprisings have provided some political space to alQaeda affiliates, as in Libya, overall Gerges’s conclusions seem remarkably prescient. The fourth chapter by Michael Semple deals with the initial theater of the war on terror, Afghanistan. It analyzes not only the military campaign and its outcome but also the political, social, and economic ramifications of the US invasion, as well as the reordering of regional relations that followed the invasion of, and regime change in, Afghanistan. It concludes that while al-Qaeda was pushed out of Afghanistan as a result of the military campaign, US and allied strategies have failed to crush the Taliban that have reemerged as major political and military players in the country. A major reason for the resurgence of the Taliban has been the failure of the war on terror to address the endemic social, economic, and political problems of the country ranging from warlordism to rampant corruption. According to Semple, “The counter terror intervention held up a promise of societal transformation but then empowered those who lacked any such vision. Afghans were condemned to relive the old lesson that a combination of forces that can achieve regime change may prove wholly inadequate for establishing a just new order.” Semple refers to the intrusion of regional rivalries into the postTaliban Afghan scene, a subject that forms a major theme of the fifth chapter by Christine Fair in the shape of the India-Pakistan rivalry in Afghanistan. Although initially Pakistan was not a theater of the war on terror, its relation with this war from the very beginning has been both intimate and multifaceted. In fact, it would not be wrong to argue that as the decade progressed it was Pakistan that became the central focus of the war on terror, with Afghanistan and Iraq serving as laboratories for regime change and counterinsurgency rather than counterterrorism. The facts that Osama bin Laden found refuge in Pakistan close to a major military installation and that the Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan became the rear base of the Afghan Taliban and the central arena of al-Qaeda activity are testimony to the importance of

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Pakistan in this war. Christine Fair brings out the complexities of Pakistan’s relationship with the war on terror very lucidly, arguing that “despite Pakistan’s historic contributions to the US-led war effort in Afghanistan and its assistance in apprehending al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, its continued reliance upon the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, among others, has placed Pakistan at increasing odds with the international community, which has come to see Pakistan as both the firefighter and the arsonist.” The India-Pakistan rivalry has added to Pakistan’s ambivalent approach toward the war on terror, especially as the United States has moved closer to India and as this has had repercussions on Pakistan’s position in Afghanistan, enhancing the utility of Islamist militant groups in the eyes of the Pakistani establishment.2 However, the latter’s flirtation with Islamist militant groups has also come to haunt Islamabad as several of these groups have turned their guns on Pakistan’s security apparatus, leading to a no-holds-barred fratricidal conflict. As a consequence, Pakistan has increasingly descended into chaos—an outcome that might have been averted in the absence of the war on terror.3 In the sixth chapter, Andrew Flibbert addresses the impact of the war on terror on the Arab world including Iraq. According to him, the war on terror was a “war of choice” as far as Iraq was concerned. Flibbert argues that “the architects of US policy in the Bush administration came to agree, by and large, on a few core strategic ideas that drove the war on terror and its central initiatives: the efficacy of military force for the United States; the need to address the domestic origins of international threats and challenges; the imperative of a dominant, if presumptively benevolent, United States, reshaping the world for the American and common good; and an emphatically bimodal, Manichean reading of international life—a starkly defined world of friends and enemies.” This overconfident and Manichean approach was evident most starkly in the conduct of the war on terror in the Arab world, not only in Iraq but also in other countries such as Yemen, and is likely to leave a lasting impact on the future course of relations between the United States and the Arab world. State failure in Iraq, with all its attendant anarchical effects, and the fact that “the war . . . allowed [Israeli] party leaders to harness the antipathy toward Islamism in the United States by reframing its conflict with the Palestinians as part of

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an American-led war on terror” added to the negative perception of the war on terror in the Arab world. Flibbert goes on to argue that despite these negative effects and the impossibility of establishing a direct causal linkage between the war on terror and the Arab Spring, the war on terror did unsettle the Arab world to such an extent that one can reasonably speculate that it provided the possibility for challenges to the existing order to emerge, culminating in the Arab Spring. Flibbert concedes that this is an argument impossible to confirm because of the unfeasibility of reconstructing history that leaves out the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the subsequent US invasion of Iraq. It is worth noting, however, that others have argued that the US invasion of Iraq, which was ostensibly in the name of democratization but led to state failure and sectarian strife, delayed the outbreak of the Arab Spring by discrediting democratic transitions at least temporarily in the eyes of many in the Arab world.4 In the seventh chapter, Mohammed Ayoob deals with the implications of the war on terror for the two pivotal powers in the Middle East—Turkey and Iran—neither of whom were direct targets of the war but nonetheless were impacted in major ways by the twin invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the enormous consequences of these wars for the region. He argues that one of the major unintended outcomes of the war on terror was the dramatic improvement in Iran’s regional security environment with the elimination of the Taliban and the regime of Saddam Hussein, Tehran’s implacable foes in the region. At the same time, the twin invasions heightened Iran’s sense of insecurity because of major US military presence on its two flanks. Iran, therefore, became both emboldened and more apprehensive, a combination that may have led among other things to its decision to pursue an opaque nuclear program that would preserve its weaponization option. The war on terror, Ayoob argues, coincided with major changes in Turkey’s domestic power balance both between the military and civilian elites and between the Kemalist establishment and the newly ascendant religiously observant political forces represented by the Justice and Development Party (AKP). These transformations produced a Turkish model of democracy that many in the Middle East found attractive and worth emulating. At the same time, the US invasion of Iraq, which the Turks initially opposed, paradoxically opened up opportunities for Ankara to increase its economic and political in-

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fluence, not only in northern Iraq but in the Fertile Crescent as a whole. A combination of domestic and regional changes, therefore, enhanced Turkish prestige in the region while at the same time promoting greater Turkish activism in the Arab world and vis-à-vis Iran.5 The chapter concludes on the note that “in pursuing the war on terror through the medium of the twin invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States suffered simultaneously from goal confusion and imperial overstretch. The combination of these two traits that have defined both the Afghan and Iraq wars has provided the two preeminent powers in the region, Iran and Turkey, wider scope to promote their interests autonomously of US concerns and quite often against America’s definition of its own interests. This is likely to be one of the lasting legacies of the war on terror as far as the broader Middle East is concerned.” In the eighth chapter, Rik Coolsaet looks at Europe, not a theater in the war on terror itself but a region that has suffered from acts of terrorism resulting from a backlash against the war on terror on the part of a very small minority of Muslim immigrants of diverse backgrounds residing in Europe. Major European powers’ participation in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq has been the principal motivation for such retaliatory terrorism, which reflects among other things a deep sense of alienation among segments of immigrant Muslims settled in Europe. However, such acts of terrorism have heightened existing European concerns about the lack of assimilation of Muslim immigrants—from North Africa in France, from Turkey in Germany, from South Asia in Britain—into mainstream European societies. This has proven to be a political bonanza for the extreme-right parties that thrive on anti-immigrant agendas in France, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. The current dramatic increase in anti-immigrant rhetoric in Europe can, therefore, be traced to the war on terror and its impact on major European societies.6 Coolsaet addresses this set of complex and intricately connected issues. He begins by asserting that 9/11 and its corollary the war on terror “reinforced pre-existing trends and tendencies, crystallized positions, and hardened points of view” in Europe. Although the fear of terrorism, despite the London and Madrid bombings, was never as high in Europe as it was in the United States, the presence of substantial Muslim immigrant populations in several major European countries helped give the terrorism issue a particular twist by linking

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it with the issue of immigration and the alleged lack of assimilation of Muslim immigrants into European host societies. Coolsaet helps illuminate the fact that while this may have been one of the unintended consequences of the war on terror, it has left a lasting impact on the psyche of both the host and immigrant communities in Europe—heightening and legitimizing the former’s Islamophobia and adding to the latter’s sense of alienation and discrimination. The penultimate chapter by David Cole addresses the impact of 9/11 and the war on terror on American society and especially on the exercise of civil rights during the decade defined by the obsession— part genuine part contrived—with terrorism. Cole argues that “one of the most important lessons of the past decade may be that the rule of law, seemingly so vulnerable in the attacks’ aftermath, proved far more resilient than many would have predicted.” He attributes this resiliency to the fact that “restraint of government was brought about neither by judicial enforcement of constitutional law nor by legislative checks on executive power, but by civil society’s demands for adherence to basic principles of human rights.” Cole’s bottom line is that while certain excesses, especially against the civil liberties of Muslims and Arabs, did take place in the United States following the terrorist attacks of 2001, the constraints imposed by a civil society committed to due process and the protection of human rights mitigated and minimized the effects of such excesses and forced the Bush administration to renounce several actions that it had initially considered legitimate in dealing with “terror suspects.” Cole concludes that the US experience after 9/11 “underscores the continuing need for an engaged civil society committed to the ideals of liberty and law. The past decade suggests that the rule of law may be stronger than cynics thought. It teaches that adherence to values of liberty, equality, and dignity is more likely to further than to obstruct our security interests. But it also illustrates our collective reluctance to confront our past, a reluctance that threatens to erode our most important values.” The record may, therefore, be mixed, but the outlook for the prevalence of the rule of law in the United States, even in the most exceptional circumstances, is not as gloomy as some human rights advocates had predicted in the wake of 9/11 and the launching of the war on terror by the Bush administration. In the final chapter, Ian Lustick evaluates the legacies of the war on terror both domestically and internationally. He argues that the war on terror, especially the invasion of Iraq, “deeply divided the

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country, distracted it from urgent economic and social problems, and inflicted incalculable damage to US credibility and prestige abroad.” Additionally, it was responsible for “the reduction in our privacy and restrictions on our civil liberties associated with the ‘Patriot’ Act’s techniques of blanket surveillance and incarceration of ‘suspects.’” After a thorough cost-benefit analysis of the war on terror, Lustick, in a damning indictment of the entire war on terror exercise, concludes that “for all these reasons—imbalanced and hysterical media coverage, political pandering, incentivization of terrorism discovery, huge economic opportunities associated with acting as if there is a serious terrorism threat, and fundamental psychological predispositions—we can be virtually certain that whatever our ‘natural’ or uncritical assessment of the terrorism threat, it is exaggerated. And here, in fact, is the most serious threat associated with terrorism. Terrified as we have been, and powerful as we are, we must stand guard against tendencies to unleash our power against nonexistent or minimally dangerous terrorist threats, while cutting resources from more significant problems and opportunities.” Whether one agrees completely with Lustick’s assessment or not, the note of warning that he sounds at the end of the chapter is well worth serious consideration: “Overall, if we refuse to distinguish between threats (including terrorism) and serious threats (which, excluding nuclear weapons, do not include terrorism), and if we define ourselves as ‘at war’ with the terrorists, then the terrorists will have succeeded. They will not defeat us with their own strength. But they can devastate us by using our own strength against us. That is what has happened. We must not permit it to continue.” In short, the volume presents an array of analyses and reflections on the war on terror by a group of serious scholars engaged in studying different facets of the subject. I leave it to the readers to form their own conclusions after reading the chapters that follow about the necessity and utility of the war on terror and how well it has served US foreign policy objectives and the cause of international peace and security. There are aspects of the subject that have not been dealt with adequately in this book, for example the impact of the war on terror on Muslim Americans and their relationship with the state, as well as the use of the war on terror by countries such as China to justify their own policies of suppressing Muslim minorities. However, I believe that this volume, by raising the most important questions and trying to answer them as objectively as possible, will be instrumental

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in paving the way for more comprehensive appraisals of the war on terror in the years to follow.

Notes 1. Gerges, The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda. 2. Padukone, “India and Pakistan’s Afghan Endgames.” 3. Rashid, Descent into Chaos. 4. For example, see “Without Iraq ‘Arab Spring May Have Broken Out Earlier,’” Spiegel Online International, December 16, 2011, http://www .spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,804204,00.html. Also, see Michael Wahid Hanna, “The Iraqi Revolution We’ll Never Know,” Foreign Policy Online, January 17, 2012, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/17 /the_iraqi_revolution_we_ll_never_know. 5. Anthony Shadid, “In Riddle of Mideast Upheaval, Turkey Offers Itself as an Answer,” New York Times, September 26, 2011, http://www .nytimes.com/2011/09/27/world/europe/in-mideast-riddle-turkey-offers -itself-as-an-answer.html?scp=3&sq=erdogan%20in%20cairo&st=cse. 6. See the essays in Cesari, Muslims in the West After 9/11.

2 The War on Terror: Comparisons with the Cold War Mark N. Katz

In a New York Times op-ed piece published on February 2,

1981, Henry S. Bienen (an Africa specialist then teaching at Princeton University) discussed how “globalists” and “regionalists” advocated differing foreign policy approaches for the United States. “Globalists,” Bienen noted, “believe that weakening military positions will lead ineluctably to weakening economic ones and that, in any case, security interests, defined first in military terms, must be paramount in any discussion of United States policy.” Bienen, though, declared that he preferred the regionalist approach, “since this perspective starts with the assumption that unless one knows what is possible in specific contexts, and unless one has a good understanding of local factors that are operating, policies are likely to fail or to be counterproductive. No accurate analysis of the trade-offs between costs and benefits of different policies can be made without a deep understanding of the specific configurations of power in given countries.”1 Bienen wrote this article during the Cold War, which in 1981 was not going well for the United States—especially in what was then known as the Third World. After years of fighting an unpopular war there, the United States had withdrawn from Indochina in 1973. This was followed by the fall of US-backed regimes not just in this

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region but in several others during the 1970s. It was also followed by military interventions (which in 1981 appeared to be largely successful) on the part of the Soviets and their allies in Angola, the Horn of Africa, Cambodia, and Afghanistan. The globalists saw this as their worst fear coming true: US withdrawal leading to Communist expansion. For the regionalists, though, it was ill-conceived US foreign policies that had underestimated the importance of local factors and overestimated the influence of the USSR that resulted in America’s Cold War adversaries making gains vis-à-vis the United States. The Cold War is long over, but what Bienen wrote about US foreign policy back in 1981 is also true with regard to US foreign policy toward the war on terror ever since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Globalists have been primarily concerned about the “global threat” posed by al-Qaeda and its allies (both actual and perceived) and with defeating this threat militarily. Regionalists, by contrast, were fearful that America’s deepening military involvements in Afghanistan and Iraq were so unpopular in these countries and the region surrounding them that they were creating more enemies than they were eliminating. Further, these two interventions (especially the one in Iraq) were not defeating alQaeda, but instead were diverting attention and resources away from doing so. But just as with the Cold War, it was the globalists and not the regionalists who were in control of formulating US foreign policy toward the war on terror—especially during the George W. Bush administration. In this chapter, I argue the following: (1) notwithstanding the many differences between the Cold War and the war on terror, the dominance of globalists over US foreign policy toward both of them led to military interventions that did not turn out well for the United States; (2) despite this, certain factors that served to undermine the Soviet Union and its Marxist-Leninist allies after the US withdrawal from Indochina in the Cold War era are either already at work, or could become so, in undermining al-Qaeda and its allies now that the United States has withdrawn militarily from Iraq and is in the process of doing so from Afghanistan; and (3) the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2011 raises the possibility (but by no means the inevitability) that the war on terror might end the way the Cold War did, with a burst of democratization.

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US Foreign Policy During the Cold War and the War on Terror: Similar Weaknesses The terms the Cold War and the war on terror have something in common: they refer not just to one conflict, but many conflicts that, to a greater or lesser extent, were—or are—linked to one another. While the Soviet-US competition was the predominant feature of the Cold War, many other conflicts occurred in many regions of the world during this era. These conflicts had their own distinct origins and causes—such as the quest for independence from European colonial rule, ethnoreligious rivalry, border disputes, secessionist attempts, efforts to oust unpopular authoritarian regimes, and others. In addition to the local stakes involved, however, the competition between Moscow and Washington was so pervasive and widespread that most (if not all) conflicts occurring during the Cold War era also had a Soviet-US dimension. Indeed, this dimension was often seen (whether correctly or incorrectly) as more important than the local dimensions of various regional conflicts—and even as the primary cause of such conflicts.2 Similarly, while the US government on the one hand and alQaeda and many of its affiliates on the other see themselves as engaged in an all-pervasive, worldwide struggle against each other, the war on terror era includes many other conflicts in which the US versus al-Qaeda element is present (to a greater or lesser degree), but which also have their own distinct origins and causes. These include the Israeli-Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan, Yemeni, Somali, IndianPakistani, and many other inter- and intrastate conflicts. 3 Indeed, although the Cold War ended some two decades ago, some of the regional conflicts that were part of it continued and have become part of the war on terror. These include the Israeli-Palestinian, Indian-Pakistani, and Afghan conflicts. In his 1996 comparative case study entitled From People’s War to People’s Rule: Insurgency, Intervention, and the Lessons of Vietnam, Timothy J. Lomperis showed that external intervention on behalf of a beleaguered government fighting against an insurgent opposition succeeded or failed depending on how the external intervention affected the internal legitimacy of that government. In some cases (the post–World War II British interventions in Greece and Malaya as well as US intervention in the Philippines), foreign intervention actu-

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ally enhanced the legitimacy of the local government, and the insurgency was defeated. However, in other cases—including the US intervention in Vietnam—foreign intervention served to undermine the legitimacy of the government being defended, and the effort failed.4 The achievement of US globalist foreign policy aims in Vietnam, then, were frustrated by Washington’s inability to positively shape— or perhaps even understand—the local political dynamics inside that country. Similarly, the Bush administration intervened militarily first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq in the belief that this would defeat what it saw as the global terrorist threat of al-Qaeda and its affiliates. The linkage between the Taliban government in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda was clear since al-Qaeda was present on Afghan territory when the 9/11 attacks occurred. The Saddam Hussein regime, though, had little or no connection to al-Qaeda, but the Bush administration globalists—especially Vice President Richard Cheney—not only claimed that it did, but may have genuinely believed there was a strong connection between them. However, as Robert A. Pape and James K. Feldman demonstrated in their 2010 book Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It, large-scale occupations—such as those undertaken by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan— lead to large-scale suicide terrorist campaigns in response.5 No matter how strongly the interveners believe that these interventions are beneficial to the countries occupied, foreign military occupations are seen as illegitimate and are bitterly resented by many within the occupied countries. The highly public suicide terrorist campaigns that follow are specifically aimed, Pape and Feldman argue, at undermining public support for continuing the occupations in the democratic countries conducting them. Moreover, resistance to foreign occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan was not limited to suicide bombings. Full-scale insurgencies against the occupations and against the governments they put in power raged in large parts of Iraq and Afghanistan, greatly complicating US efforts to pacify and democratize them. The Bush administration’s globalist foreign policy aims in Afghanistan and Iraq, then, were frustrated by Washington’s inability to shape or even understand the local political dynamics in and around these two countries. US armed forces completed their withdrawal from Indochina in January 1973. Just over two years later, the governments that they

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had been defending in South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos all fell. Will the US military withdrawal from Iraq completed in December 2011 and ongoing withdrawal from Afghanistan due to conclude by the end of 2014 lead to similar results? The immediate upsurge in sectarian violence following the end of the US military presence in Iraq does not bode well for the future of that country. And given that the Taliban has grown stronger inside Afghanistan even with US and other foreign forces there fighting against them, it appears highly doubtful that the US-backed government in Kabul will be able to hold out against the Pakistani-backed Taliban once Western forces have departed. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that not all that long after the United States withdrew from Indochina and pro-Soviet Marxist revolutions succeeded in several Third World countries during the 1970s, communism and the Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1989–1991. Just the fact that this occurred raises the possibility that the US withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan will not be followed by the triumph of al-Qaeda, but its eventual downfall. It also raises the possibility that just as the collapse of communism did not occur because of US intervention in Indochina but despite it, the collapse of al-Qaeda and its affiliates may also occur not because the United States intervened in Afghanistan and Iraq, but despite its having done so. An outcome such as this could only occur, of course, if there were factors at work undermining al-Qaeda and its affiliates, just as there were factors undermining the Soviet Union and its allies following US withdrawals after inconclusive or even failed military interventions previously. The Soviet Union and Al-Qaeda: Similar Weaknesses? How might al-Qaeda fall on its own? One way to examine this question is to assess the extent to which the factors that contributed to the weakening of Marxism-Leninism as a transnational revolutionary movement are, or may also become, strong enough to contribute to the weakening of al-Qaeda and its affiliates as well. There were, of course, many factors that led to the collapse of communism and of the Soviet Union. Two factors contributing to the demise of the Soviet-led Marxist-Leninist transnational revolutionary movement also appear to be negatively affecting the al-Qaeda–led transnational revolutionary movement: popular disillusion and ideological competition.

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Popular disillusion. Like Marxism-Leninism, al-Qaeda’s ideology appeals to many as an opposition ideology, which explains their societies’ problems, identifies who is responsible for them, and proposes definitive, violent solutions to overcome them. But also like Marxist-Leninist rule, the rule of al-Qaeda allies that have been in power (such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda in Iraq in part of that country, and Al Shabaab in part of Somalia) has proven to be highly unappealing to those living under their rule. Revolutionary enthusiasm alone cannot solve a country’s ills, though it can certainly compound and increase them.6 Nor are nondemocratic revolutionary regimes inclined to accept responsibility for the failure of their misguided policies. They tend to blame this instead on the machinations of internal and external enemies. Whatever idealistic goals they may have had before coming to power, their primary aim once they have done so is to remain in power—and they often prove far more ruthless and adept at doing so than those whom they ousted. The result is a cynical, disillusioned citizenry that comes to oppose not only the revolutionary regime, but also its hollow ideology. While these disillusioned citizens are generally not strong enough to overthrow the revolutionary ruling class, they can at times be mobilized quickly to support its overthrow if and when it suddenly (and usually unexpectedly) becomes vulnerable—as occurred throughout Eastern Europe in 1989. While al-Qaeda’s ideology did indeed appeal to some in countries with unpopular, authoritarian regimes supported by the West, there have already been strong signs of disillusion in societies where al-Qaeda’s allies have ruled at least part of them. The Taliban became so unpopular during their brief reign from 1996 to 2001 that both Pushtuns and non-Pushtuns alike joined with a relatively small number of US forces to topple them from power.7 While the Sunni Arab tribes of western Iraq were initially so fiercely opposed to the US occupation of their country that they allied with al-Qaeda in Iraq to fight against it, the “emirate” established by this al-Qaeda affiliate proved so onerous and oppressive to these tribes that many of them soon allied with the United States against it.8 Al Shabaab was able to expand its authority to most of southern Somalia in 2009–2010, but its rule was also so onerous that many Somalis (including Al Shabaab defectors) supported the efforts of the previously very weak Westernbacked Somali Transitional Federal Government to drive Al Shabaab out of much of the territory it had previously captured.9

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For any future al-Qaeda–linked regime to avoid the sort of disillusion that was faced by those in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, al-Qaeda in Iraq–ruled regions of western Iraq, and Al Shabaab–ruled portions of Somalia would require them to rule in a very different manner than these three have. But movements such as al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (or anywhere else), or the Taliban itself do not exhibit any signs of having learned how to avoid this problem. Ideological competition. One of the strengths of authoritarian transnational revolutionary movements that succeed in gaining popularity is that they espouse an ideology that many consider to be superior to others for explaining their problems, proposing a solution (revolution), and promising a bright future under the rule of a particular ideology’s proponents. But as noted earlier, disillusion often sets in after the proponents of a particular revolutionary ideology seize power and not only fail to deliver the bright future that they had promised, but only deliver poverty, oppression, and hopelessness instead.10 When this happens, those who become disillusioned with the ruling revolutionary ideology may become attracted to another. Disillusionment with Marxism-Leninism contributed to those living under it becoming attracted to Western-style democracy in much of Eastern Europe and to just plain nationalism in Russia and some other countries. Similarly, disillusionment with the Taliban, alQaeda, and similar movements contributed to the rise of opposition against them. Of course, it is not necessary to live under the rule of a particular ideology to become disillusioned with it and attracted to another. Attacks by radical jihadists on their fellow Muslims in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and many other countries have resulted in people there fearing al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and seeking protection against them from others.11 Disillusion with al-Qaeda and its affiliates, though, need not result in acquiescence to the continued rule of (often pro-Western) authoritarian regimes as the lesser of two evils. While the surprisingly powerful outbursts of public opposition in several Arab countries that erupted in early 2011 were primarily targeted at regimes (more or less) allied to the United States, they also appear to be democratically inclined “color revolution” movements and not ones linked to al-Qaeda or its affiliates. While their ultimate fate is still unclear, these popular movements may not only succeed in ousting pro-Western authoritarian rulers, but also in preventing alQaeda and its affiliates from seizing power. Worst case analysts in

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the West fear that al-Qaeda and its allies will be able to take advantage of democratic openings in the Arab world to seize power, but worst case analysts within the al-Qaeda movement must fear that these popular democratic movements will forestall their hopes for establishing their own brand of authoritarian rule.12 The factors identified here as contributing to ending the previous Marxist-Leninist challenge to America and the West—disillusion and ideological competition—are clearly at work against al-Qaeda and its allies at present. Al-Qaeda and its allies will have to be more patient, resourceful, and foresighted while remaining more faithful to their revolutionary vision than the Marxist-Leninists were if they are to successfully avoid the corrosive impact of these two factors. And this seems highly unlikely—especially now that the Arab Spring has burst forth.

The Arab Spring and the War on Terror How have the extraordinary uprisings in the Arab world that began in early 2011 affected al-Qaeda and its affiliates? Is 2011 similar to 1989—the year that marked the beginning of the collapse of communism in much of the world? It would be wonderful, of course, if the Arab Spring also led to the collapse of al-Qaeda and its affiliates, but 1989 has two legacies: the democratic revolutionary wave that arose in both Eastern Europe and China that year succeeded in the former but failed in the latter. It is not yet clear how successful the current democratic revolutionary wave in the Arab world will be. Whatever the outcome of these uprisings, however, they will certainly impact both al-Qaeda and its affiliates on the one hand and America’s war on terror on the other. Just how they will do so, of course, is difficult to foretell—especially while these uprisings are under way. Hearkening back once more to the events of the Cold War, though, may help shed light on what this impact might be. The Cold War involved a confrontation between Western democracy on the one hand and Marxism-Leninism on the other. In much of the Third World, though, the US supported authoritarian regimes since not only were democratic forces there often weak, but also Washington feared that if it pushed for the democratization of pro-US authoritarian regimes, the Marxist-Leninists might win the first elec-

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tions and then destroy democracy. The result would be that proAmerican dictatorships would be replaced by anti-American ones.13 Concern about this prospect was so great that the US government often doubted the claims of political movements opposed to proAmerican dictatorships that they were democratic. On occasion, Washington even worked for the overthrow of democratically elected leaders or governments that the United States feared were going in “the wrong direction.” Some of the most famous (or infamous) examples of this policy were US support for the ouster of Mohammad Mossadeq as prime minister of Iran in 1953 and the overthrow of both the Jacobo Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954 and the Salvador Allende government in Chile in 1973. The current US approach, and that of its leading Arab ally Saudi Arabia, to the popular movement in Bahrain against the ruling dynasty reminds one of these earlier cases. Bahrain is home to the US Fifth Fleet and across the causeway from Saudi Arabia. It was no wonder that the United States turned a blind eye toward the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council military intervention in Bahrain that emboldened the ruling family to crack down heavily on unarmed protesters.14 Such US policies during the Cold War sometimes succeeded in the short run: more reliably pro-American albeit authoritarian regimes were installed or maintained in power. But there was a longterm cost: resentment against the United States arose not just in the country concerned, but in many others as well. This also resulted in the Marxist or other authoritarian revolutionary opposition to proAmerican authoritarian regimes being able to more credibly argue that the United States opposed democratization if Washington perceived it as anti-American, and that supporting anti-American authoritarian revolutionary opposition movements was the only way to get rid of pro-American authoritarian regimes. In other words, the US policy of supporting pro-American authoritarian regimes because they were seen as more reliable sometimes backfired and resulted in the anti-American authoritarian opposition being better able to seize power than the democratic opposition when the old regime fell. Cuba, Nicaragua, and Iran were all examples of this phenomenon. The United States, though, did not always support pro-American authoritarian regimes that were losing their grip. The Ronald Reagan administration, for example, helped bring about successful transitions from pro-American authoritarian regimes to democratic ones

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in the Philippines in 1986, in South Korea in 1987, and in Chile in 1988–1989.15 Of course, from the Mikhail Gorbachev era onward, it was less risky for the United States to support democratic transitions since the rise of pro-Soviet Marxist-Leninists became first a lesser concern, and then not a concern at all. The Middle East, though, was an exception. Especially since the 1979 Iranian revolution, Washington feared that attempts at democratization in this region would lead to the rise of anti-American Islamic fundamentalist regimes. In this region in particular, then, the older logic still seemed to hold: democratization was something that, however desirable, was just too risky to promote. Furthermore, there didn’t appear to be much of a credible democratic opposition in most of these countries anyway. George W. Bush did attempt to move away from this logic through the promotion of democratization in the “Greater Middle East,” but de-emphasized this approach after it seemed to backfire with the electoral victory of Hamas in 2006, which was not the result that the Bush administration had anticipated when it urged the holding of Palestinian parliamentary elections.16 The Barack Obama administration, if anything, went back more thoroughly to the older logic of supporting stability over democracy in the Middle East when it gave only tepid and belated rhetorical support for the extraordinary Green Movement that arose to protest the widely disbelieved Iranian government announcement that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won reelection as president by a wide margin in 2009.17 The Arab uprisings that began in 2011 have posed a serious dilemma for the United States. These movements are genuinely popular. But are they democratic, or are they radical Islamist? Are they pro-American or anti-American? Should the United States stick to supporting the authoritarian regimes (if not the dictators themselves) in countries such as Egypt long allied to the United States for fear that anti-American forces will come to power otherwise? Or should the United States abandon its longstanding authoritarian allies (who may be beyond saving) and support a democratic transition process, despite the risk that anti-American forces might come to power through this means and then destroy democracy? Whichever course of action the United States chooses, it cannot avoid taking risks. Which risk, then, should it take? For the globalists, supporting existing authoritarian regimes may appear to be the safer option. Of course, if the United States does this

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and one or more of these regimes falls anyway, relations with the new regime are not likely to be good for some time. But even if this policy works—that is, the opposition is crushed and the status quo remains intact—the long-term danger is that the United States will be resented as the enemy of democratic change, and the conviction will arise that support for a revolutionary alternative is the only way to get rid of a hated pro-American regime. Supporting a democratic transition, though, also runs risks. One is that even if the United States ceases its support for an authoritarian regime, that regime survives anyway. This will clearly complicate US relations with it. Another is the globalists’ nightmare: the democratic transition process leads to the rise of an anti-American authoritarian regime. This scenario should not be dismissed; the risk involved of seeing this result when supporting a democratic transition is real. And yet it is very much in US interests to run this risk, and not to adopt the seemingly safer globalist policy of continuing to support a pro-American authoritarian regime that only fosters resentment and a more thoroughgoing anti-American opposition. For just as the United States cannot be certain what the outcome of a democratic transition process in Arab countries will be, neither can hard-line Islamic radicals such as al-Qaeda. Indeed, these widespread protests seem to have caught al-Qaeda and its affiliates off guard. Such elements appear to have played little or no role in Tunisia. Similarly, al-Qaeda appears to have played no role in the demonstrations against Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.18 Further, it was the Muslim Brotherhood that won the initial Egyptian parliamentary and presidential elections. While there are those in the West and Israel who fear that the Muslim Brotherhood is a radical movement, the Brotherhood—which has long been openly critical of al-Qaeda’s violent ways19—has acted moderately and cooperatively vis-à-vis Israel (including the late 2012 conflict between Israel and Hamas). Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula appears to have played little role in the popular opposition against the Ali Abdullah Saleh regime in Yemen.20 In Libya, radical Islamists appeared to have played little or no role in the downfall of Muammar Qaddafi.21 A jihadist group did kill four US diplomats (as well as some other people) at the US consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. Far from being popular in Libya, however, this action was condemned both by the new Libyan government and by the Libyan public.

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In Syria, al-Qaeda is reportedly fighting against the Bashar alAssad regime. It is, however, just one of dozens of groups that are doing so and does not appear to be particularly prominent among them. If the United States and the West are truly worried about alQaeda’s prospects in Syria, they have the option of supporting the more moderate and broader-based rival Syrian opposition movements. Just as the large-scale protests taking place in the Arab world pose a challenge for the United States and US-backed regimes, they also pose a challenge for al-Qaeda and its allies. These popular movements have far greater support in the countries they are occurring in than al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Far from being amenable to control by al-Qaeda and its allies, the strength of these popular movements—and especially the moderate Muslim parties that have benefited from them—has served to marginalize al-Qaeda and its affiliates if not render them totally irrelevant. Instead of leading to alQaeda and its allies taking power, then, the democratization process could well result in their political demise.

Notes 1. Henry S. Bienen, “Global vs. Regional Thinking on Policy,” New York Times, February 2, 1981. 2. For a concise overview of the Cold War, see McMahon, The Cold War. For a discussion of the Cold War in the Third World, see Rodman, More Precious than Peace. 3. For a critical history of the war on terror, see Bergen, The Longest War. 4. Lomperis, From People’s War to People’s Rule. 5. Pape and Feldman, Cutting the Fuse. 6. This point was argued forcefully in Colburn, The Vogue of Revolution in Poor Countries. 7. IISS, Strategic Survey, 2001/2002, pp. 229–253. 8. Bergen, The Longest War, pp. 266–296. 9. Rashid Abdi, “Is Somalia’s al-Shabaab on the Back Foot?” BBC News, January 12, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16510716. 10. Colburn, The Vogue of Revolution in Poor Countries. 11. Bergen, The Longest War, pp. 300–301. 12. For an elaboration of this argument, see Katz, “Externally and Internally Driven Attempts at Democratization.” 13. This reasoning was concisely expressed in Kirkpatrick, “Dictatorships and Double Standards.”

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14. Mohammed Ayoob, “The GCC Shows Its True Colors,” Foreign Policy–Middle East Channel, March 16, 2011, accessed at http://mideast .foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/16/the_gcc_shows_its_true_color. 15. Adesnik and McFaul, “Engaging Autocratic Allies to Promote Democracy.” 16. Dunne, “The Baby, the Bathwater, and the Freedom Agenda in the Middle East.” 17. It did this, though, less out of concern for the rise of Islamic radicalism in Iran than out of its prioritization of the Iranian nuclear issue. Ahmadinejad was going to be president no matter what, the Obama administration reasoned, and therefore there was no point in alienating him if it hoped to make progress with him on the nuclear issue. This reasoning, of course, proved to be deficient. See Katz, “Obama’s Approach to Russia and Iran,” and Shannon, “US Reaction to the 2009 Iranian Election.” 18. Ian Black, “Al-Qaida Already Looked Irrelevant After Arab Spring,” Guardian (London), May 2, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world /2011/may/02/al-qaida-irrelevant-arab-spring. 19. Lynch, “Jihadis and the Ikhwan.” 20. Black, “Al-Qaida Already Looked Irrelevant After Arab Spring.” 21. Pargeter, “Are Islamist Extremists Fighting Among Libya’s Rebels?”

3 Understanding Al-Qaeda: Disentangling Myth from Reality Fawaz A. Gerges

Since September 11, 2001, a terrorism narrative has taken

hold of the American imagination, a narrative based on a misconceived set of hypotheses about al-Qaeda’s historical origins and evolution and its power base. Deeply entrenched and propagated by terrorism “experts,” these hypotheses provided the intellectual and ideological fuel that has powered the US global war on terror. More than a decade after 9/11 and after three costly wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, it is high time to revisit the dominant terrorism narrative and disentangle myth from reality. I will focus on six of the most powerful misconceptions and conclude with some thoughts on the unintended consequences of keeping such fantasies alive.

Misconception 1: Al-Qaeda has been operational for almost three decades. Often portrayed as a pivotal social movement with deep historical roots that has been in operation since the 1980s, al-Qaeda’s evolution has been much more complicated. As an operationally organized, independent, and centralized transnational group, al-Qaeda did not exist until the second half of the 1990s. The later date signifies that al-Qaeda was but five years old when US forces expelled Osama bin

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Laden and his associates from their home base in Afghanistan at the end of 2001. Before the mid-1990s it was Sudan, where bin Laden spent several years in the early and mid-1990s, that was the key way station on his journey to al-Qaeda and transnational jihad. He spent almost four years in this poor African-Arab country and invested tens of millions of dollars in road construction and other projects.1 This led Hassan al-Turabi, the country’s most important Islamic scholar, to welcome him as “the great Islamic investor.” During his four years in Sudan, bin Laden built a complex network, one that combined business practices with ideological indoctrination and recruitment. Management and militancy were intertwined: most of the managers employed by bin Laden were either hardcore Islamist ideologues, associates of the Afghan jihad, or exiled militants who sought refuge in a friendly Sudan. Although at this stage al-Qaeda was not yet an operational organization, the plans to make it into one were put in place. Most terrorism experts refer to Shaikh Abdullah Azzam—a charismatic Jordanian of Palestinian descent who provided ideological and theological guidance and became a driving force behind bin Laden’s entry into the jihad environment—to argue that al-Qaeda was born in the 1980s, not the 1990s. But Azzam did not call for the internationalization of jihad and never envisioned a transnational organization along the ideology, structure, and tactics pursued by alQaeda. He might have conceived of an idea called al-qaeda al-sulba, or “the solid base,” in 1987, but contrary to simplistic and misleading claims by so-called terrorism experts like Rohan Gunaratna, the “solid base” had a dramatically different character than the entity born in the second half of the 1990s.2 Azzam’s al-qaeda al-sulba had nothing in common with bin Laden’s military organization (formally launched as the World Islamic Front in 1998), except in name.3 In fact, according to Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif (also known as “Dr. Fadl”), the emir of Tanzim alJihad and senior associate of Ayman al-Zawahiri as well as the lead man behind the theological wooing of bin Laden away from Azzam in the late 1980s, “people ought to know that the rise of al-Qaeda was a splinter away from Shaikh Abdullah Azzam, a rejection of his ideas.”4 When Azzam used the term al-Qaeda he was referring to a tactic not an organization. To equate Azzam’s theory with bin Laden’s organization is to distort history, and to ignore important dif-

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ferences and disagreements among leaders of the Afghan Arabs. For example, Azzam attempted to restrain those he saw as reckless adventurers, such as Dr. Fadl and Zawahiri and their cohorts, and to prevent them from hijacking the Afghan jihad. Before his assassination in 1989, and to the chagrin of Zawahiri, Azzam also tried to extract bin Laden from the clutches of the Egyptian contingent.

Misconception 2: Al-Qaeda has a large operational constituency that is a serious threat to Western powers and their regional allies. Transnational jihadism of the al-Qaeda variety has never had a large constituency or a solid base. Al-Qaeda has never been a social movement but a fringe organization without mass appeal among the world’s Muslims. The weight of evidence shows that at its height in the 1990s, al-Qaeda had between 1,000 and 3,000 members. It was an ambitious venture founded and led by a small vanguard. The organization has only attracted a limited number of ardent adherents and has never developed a mass following. Any overview of the rise of al-Qaeda must acknowledge these humble and limited social origins, for they reveal the context and conditions that gave rise to the bin Laden generation. From the very beginning, al-Qaeda has been structurally constrained by weak societal ties and links. Nonetheless, the conventional terrorism narrative continues to portray al-Qaeda as a potent global power. Gunaratna, whose book on al-Qaeda was a bestseller in the United States, claims that since September 11 al-Qaeda has become stronger: Despite the losses Al Qaeda has suffered in Afghanistan as a result of the destruction of its operational and training infrastructure, its cells overseas have moved from strength to strength. While Al Qaeda has been hunted down by the US, its allies and its friends, Al Qaeda has been able to replenish its human losses and material wastage.5

Gunaratna and others contend that radical Islam is “slowly growing.”6 In fact, once al-Qaeda’s core elite—the Afghan Arabs— disappears, it will be incapable of replenishing its skilled, depleted

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ranks whose asabiya (tribal loyalty) has powered the transnational organization. Contrary to received wisdom, September 11 did not turn out to be al-Qaeda’s baptism by fire, a force multiplier, or a game changer. There was no mass following, no river of young recruits to rise up against the “impious” pro-Western local rulers, as had happened with the Islamic revolution in Iran in the late 1970s. Bin Laden had neglected several factors that, in the long term, eroded his ability to attract followers. While there had been a relative consensus among Muslims about the legitimacy of the Afghan resistance against Soviet occupation, al-Qaeda killed almost 3,000 noncombatant Americans at home without direct provocation by the United States. Moreover, bin Laden authorized the mission without prior consultation with the Taliban or the umma, the community of believers. In fact, as one of his former top cohorts commented, bin Laden turned a personal vendetta into the umma’s cause.7 Bin Laden declared that if the United States dared to invade Afghanistan, a sea of Muslim recruits would rise up to resist such an invasion. However, on the morning after the attacks, he and his uninformed hosts faced America’s wrath on their own without any support from the umma. Although September 11 was a stunning success operationally, it failed to achieve bin Laden’s grand objective. In one stroke, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was destroyed and the jihadists lost their safe refuge. When Soviet troops invaded Kabul, tens of thousands of Muslim men flooded into Afghanistan to resist the Russian occupation. They came with the blessings of the religious and the ruling establishments in the Muslim world. In contrast, there was a deafening silence when the United States declared war on the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Although Muslims everywhere criticized America’s impulsiveness and reliance on force, they stopped short of calling for jihad against it. No religious authority lent its name and legitimacy to repelling the US troops. Not only did bin Laden fail to attract boots to the ground in Afghanistan after 9/11, but his actions also repulsed a theologically and ideologically diverse group of influential Islamists, including Hassan al-Turabi, formerly head of the Islamic National Front and later of the People’s Congress in Sudan (which hosted bin Laden from 1992 to 1996); Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, the spiritual founding father of Lebanon’s Shiite Hizbullah; Salman al-Awdah

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of Saudi Arabia; Dr. Fadl, the former mufti of al-Qaeda; as well as Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a popular Egyptian-born conservative cleric based in Qatar. Far from embracing al-Qaeda’s “blessed terrorism,” as bin Laden termed it, they condemned it as un-Islamic. But the Western media took little notice of the fierce debate that was unfolding in the Muslim world after September 11. Instead, it focused almost exclusively on reductionist questions such as “Why do they hate us so much?” and “Where are the Muslim moderates?” After the initial shock and a self-imposed period of silence, the chiefs of the main jihadist groups publicly denounced what bin Laden had done. Some of these leaders were legendary figures in mujahidin circles. Abu al-Walid al-Masri, who was close to bin Laden and was the first non-Afghan to swear allegiance to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, saw the attacks as a calamity. He was among the most senior of the Afghan Arabs to break with bin Laden and to make his grievances public, publishing a series of articles in the Cairo-based Arabic newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat in 2004 and 2005 entitled “The Story of the Arab Afghans: From the Entry to Afghanistan to the Final Exodus with Taliban.”8 He lambasted what he saw as bin Laden’s “catastrophic leadership” and his underestimation of US willpower. As Abu al-Walid wrote with characteristic bluntness, matters after September 11 “took an opposite turn compared to what bin Laden had imagined. Instead of buckling under his three painful blows, America retaliated and destroyed both the Taliban and al-Qaeda.”9 In addition to al-Qaeda’s reputational decline among Islamist activists, now the group is operationally a mere shadow of its former self. Today it is composed of roving bands limited to the mountains and valleys of Pakistan’s tribal areas along the Afghan border, remote areas in Yemen along the Saudi border, and the wastelands of the African Sahara and the Maghreb. Its actions show a consistent pattern of ineptitude. Its leadership relies, increasingly, on inexperienced freelancers or unskilled recruits. Its ranks have dwindled to around 200, if not fewer. According to former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director and later defense secretary Leon Panetta, there are probably between 50 and 100 al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan.10 Al-Qaeda has reached a dead end. Lacking the strength to rejuvenate its fading cause, the best it can do is hope that one or a few of the disillusioned and radicalized young Muslims who live in the West, such as the failed Christmas Day bomber or the

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Times Square plotter, get to their bunkers and acquire the explosives training to carry out attacks back home.

Misconception 3: Al-Qaeda has the same philosophy and tactics as other militant Islamist organizations. After September 11, the dominant opinion in Western circles was, and remains, that al-Qaeda reflects the opinion of a significant segment of Muslims and of Islamists of all stripes. No distinction is made between domestic jihadists and transnational al-Qaeda types, or between al-Qaeda and politically based Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Palestinian Hamas, or Hizbullah. This broad-brush conclusion glosses over a history of ideological struggles within militant Islamist groups and even among al-Qaeda’s inner sanctum of leaders over the concept of transnational jihad. As argued previously, far from being a social movement with historical roots in Muslim societies, al-Qaeda, and transnational jihad in general, is an ideological orphan within the militant Islamist family. From its origins in the late 1950s until the mid-1990s, a period of almost forty years, the militant Islamist movement known as “jihadism” was inward-looking, obsessed with replacing “renegade” secular Muslim rulers with quranic-based states or states governed by the sharia (Islamic law). Sayyid Qutb, while in prison from 1954 until 1965, spearheaded a paramilitary group called al-Tanzim alSirri, or “the Secret Apparatus.” Qutb instructed his followers to prioritize the fight against the enemy within and oust Muslim “tyrants” who did not apply the sharia. According to my interviews with several of his contemporary disciples over the years, Qutb cautioned them against any activity or engagement that detracted them from this existential domestic struggle between God’s sovereignty (faith) and apostasy, or between hakimiya and jahiliya. For almost four decades, politically radicalized religious activists, the disciples of Qutb, fought a prolonged war against the near enemy—pro-Western Muslim autocrats. They refrained from attacking the far enemy—Western powers, especially the United States. There existed no constituency within the militant Islamist movement calling for an armed confrontation with the West, nor any manifesto that demanded such a clash. Jihadism was a solely domestic affair.

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After September 11, Western commentators and analysts suddenly discovered Qutb and portrayed him as the “philosopher of terror,” the spiritual and operational godfather to bin Laden and Zawahiri, thus drawing a direct, unbroken line between Qutb and al-Qaeda. This connection fits perfectly with al-Qaeda’s own designs. The organization has engaged in a systematic effort to claim the Qutbian legacy.11 Bin Laden and Zawahiri repeatedly pronounced themselves ardent disciples of Qutb, warriors in his Islamic pioneering vanguard.12 Yet despite their claim of ideological kinship, bin Laden and Zawahiri twisted Qutb’s ideas to suit their purposes. According to Qutb’s contemporaries and the surviving chiefs of the Secret Apparatus, some of whom spent years with him in prison and underground, Qutb never called for a confrontation with the West and instead exhorted them to strike at Arab rulers who conspired with Islam’s external enemies and allowed them to infiltrate Muslim lands.13 Qutb’s followers who were his contemporaries maintain that he showed no interest in either the internationalization of jihad or the targeting of Western powers. Nonetheless, many dismiss such distinctions as hair splitting, insisting that Qutb’s hostility to the United States—where he spent a formative period in the late 1940s—created a fertile environment for extremist transnational organizations like al-Qaeda. By portraying the United States as Islam’s Public Enemy No. 1 and cautioning Muslims that Islam is under threat, Qutb, it is argued, institutionalized anti-US sentiment among Arabs and Muslims and paved the road to September 11. While Qutb’s diatribe against America has widely resonated among Islamists, al-Qaeda’s actions cannot be traced to his rhetoric. Indeed, transnational jihad took Qutb’s strategic priorities and turned them on their head. While Qutb’s Secret Apparatus and al-Qaeda strived to establish a quranic state, they disagreed on how to bring it about. Qutb spent his life in prison and the underground nourishing and training a pioneering vanguard to confront local tyrants and Islamize society from the bottom up. In contrast, al-Qaeda was a topdown, militarized organization designed to wage a transnational war against the West. Thus the transition from Qutb’s Secret Apparatus to bin Laden’s al-Qaeda has been marked by continuities and discontinuities. Bin Laden and Zawahiri adopted some of Qutb’s key concepts and terms, and then adapted them to their transnational jihad cause.

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Al-Qaeda and transnational jihad, in general, are primarily creatures of the Afghan war against the Soviets. The Afghan conflict lasted almost a decade and brought together between 10,000 and 50,000 volunteers from every region of the Muslim world. Afghanistan was the cradle of a new generation of mujahidin, baptized by blood and fire, who tasted the sweetness of victory over one of the most powerful fighting machines the world has known. The Afghan jihad molded the character and worldview of many members of this generation and bred among them a sense of invincibility. This helps explain the resilience and perseverance of this generation whose asabiya has withstood considerable adversity.14 After September 11 most observers (“security-based analysts,” as they are sometimes called) have generally viewed al-Qaeda through a cultural and religious prism and missed the utilitarian and politicalstrategic drivers. They take bin Laden’s rhetoric at face value, while neglecting its historical political context. Seen as the quintessential moment that changed the world, the attacks were invested with exaggerated and unnecessary cultural and religious meanings, conflating terrorism, a universal tactic, with “Islamic terrorism,” an intrinsically cultural or expressive element of the conflict. The tendency to “ideologize” the use of terrorism—that is, to create a link between the raison d’être of radical Islamist groups and the tactics they employ— has led to ignorance of specific contexts and motives, and distortion and misunderstandings as well.15 For example, terrorism pundits do not seem concerned that until 1990 bin Laden was part of the US-led alliance pitted against “godless communism.” They depoliticize violence and focus overwhelmingly on the tactics employed by groups like al-Qaeda—to the detriment of understanding and explaining the motives behind those tactics.16 All casus belli are often overlooked in favor of a reductionist approach that views these organizations simply as “jihadi murderers” or crazy Arabs, or presents Islam itself as “the enemy.”17 In US policy circles, as well as those in Europe (though to a lesser extent), there existed little appreciation of the fact that neither Islam nor its religious texts would be useful in unlocking the “alQaeda riddle.” Bin Laden and Zawahiri thought in strategic and political terms, veiling their real ambitions in cultural and religious jargon. In his two most recent works, Fursan tahta rayat al-nabi [Knights under the prophet’s banner] and “Exoneration: A Treatise Exonerating the Community of the Pen and the Sword from the De-

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bilitating Accusation of Fatigue and Weakness,” written in 2000 and 2008 respectively, Zawahiri acknowledges that al-Qaeda’s strategy is designed to win Muslims’ hearts and minds and become the leader and vanguard of the umma. To do so, he points out that the movement must raise the banner of liberation over the three most important holy sites, all of which are occupied by foreigners—Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia and al-Aqsa in Jerusalem. The Muslim masses would not rise up unless there were leadership that they could trust and a well-defined enemy. In particular, Zawahiri stressed that Palestine is the one issue on which the umma agrees, and the Islamist movement must champion and take ownership of it.18 Bin Laden’s detractors and supporters mistook his rhetoric for strategy and painted his terrorist tactics in terms of expressive cultural acts. But al-Qaeda is a vehicle for his nationalist empowerment inside the Saudi kingdom, along similar lines to Zawahiri’s Tanzim al-Jihad in Egypt. The empowerment of the umma and the restoration of the Islamic caliphate is an ideal, impossible to attain, but a powerful tool for ideological and theological mobilization that resonated with thousands of young Saudis and Yemenis. Despite its local appeal to some segments of society in the Arabian Peninsula, the bin Laden group—as we might term its remnants—has thus lost the worldwide struggle for Muslim hearts and minds. In many countries, information about al-Qaeda suspects now comes from citizens, including family members, friends, and neighbors, not from surveillance and intelligence sources. This shift demonstrates a hardening of Muslim public sentiment against bin Laden’s followers; preaching of a transnational jihad centered on violence no longer resonates with ordinary Muslims, and al-Qaeda suffers from a grave crisis of legitimacy and authority. Nearly ten years later, the broadly based peaceful revolutions of the spring of 2011 in the Arab world have demolished al-Qaeda’s claim that the Islamist vanguard will spearhead revolutionary change in Muslim societies. On the whole, the revolts are peaceful, nonideological, post-Islamist, and led by the embattled middle class, including a coalition of men and women of all ages and political colors: liberal-leaning centrists, democrats, leftists, nationalists, and Islamists. The Arab uprisings have proved bin Laden is wrong. The terrorism narrative has suffered an equally hard blow. The question is not why the Arabs and Muslims hate America so much, as the conventional wisdom would have it after September 11, but why

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Western pundits and policymakers underestimated the millions of Arabs and Muslims yearning for universal values such as human rights, the rule of law, open and pluralist societies, and individual freedom and liberty. Although Middle Easterners are critical of US foreign policy, the Arab revolts show that they admire democratic ideals.

Misconception 4: The 9/11 attacks were linked to Iraq, and the occupation of the country weakened al-Qaeda. Although a false claim, the Iraq–al-Qaeda connection partly allowed the Bush administration and its neoconservative allies to sell the invasion and occupation of Iraq to a gullible US public. Ironically, Bush’s decision to invade and occupy Iraq in 2003 was a godsend to al-Qaeda, allowing it to regroup, reorganize itself militarily, and decentralize its decisionmaking process. The expansion of the war on terror prolonged al-Qaeda’s survival: it was the oxygen that sustained al-Qaeda. Were it not for the war in Iraq, a country with which alQaeda had never had an operational relationship, the fight against bin Laden and his men would have been shorter, less costly, and more conclusive. Certainly, America’s occupation of Iraq, which lies in the heart of Arabian Islam, enraged millions of Arabs and Muslims, whose negative neutrality was transformed into visceral hostility. Iraq became a rallying cry for jihad against the United States, a foreign invader, together with its “coalition of the willing.” Far from welcoming Western and US troops as liberators, Muslim opinion viewed the subjugation of Iraq through the prism of the colonial legacy, which has neither been forgotten nor forgiven. Had it not been for logistical and operational obstacles, thousands of young Muslims would have journeyed to Iraq to fight the foreign occupiers. In my travels between 2003 and 2006, I met hundreds of Arab youth from Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan, and elsewhere, many of whom said they were desperately attempting to go to Iraq and join the jihad there. While most were not members of alQaeda, they seemed well disposed to its message of defending the umma against foreign occupation. Despite the extraordinary pressure the United States exerted on Iraq’s neighbors to seal their borders, thousands managed to get in.

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A limited clash against a struggling and declining al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was thus turned into a larger struggle with the world of Islam, precisely as bin Laden and Zawahiri had hoped for, forging a connection between the organization and Iraq that had never existed before. The war in Iraq provided a recruitment bonanza for al-Qaeda and an opportunity to gain credibility in Muslims’ eyes and to be perceived as an armed vanguard of the umma. Ironically, in his speech to the US Congress given nine days after September 11, President Bush accurately diagnosed al-Qaeda’s isolation and existential predicament: “The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics . . . the terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.”19 Yet the Bush national security team disregarded its own diagnosis of al-Qaeda and treated it more as a potent strategic adversary than a precarious “fringe” group—thus allowing it to become that adversary. After the initial invasion and success, the United States became an occupying force in Iraq, and al-Qaeda used the breathing space this created to smuggle fighters into the country and to recalibrate its message and focus preponderantly on Iraq. Within a few months, a small band of thirty Afghan Arab fighters led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born high school dropout who had previously fallen out with Zawahiri and bin Laden over tactics and strategy, set up a lethal organization called al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad, modeled along the lines of al-Qaeda. At the height of its power from 2004 to 2006, al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad exceeded bin Laden’s organization in numbers and strength, and superseded it in brutality. Zarqawi fielded one of the largest arsenals of suicide bombers in history and used them indiscriminately. His goal was to kill as many Iraqis, particularly Shiites, as possible, triggering an all-out sectarian war between the two leading communities—Sunni Arabs and Shiites. He brought this about almost single-handedly.20 In October 2004, Zarqawi announced that he was formally changing the name of his group to “al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers,” a reference to the Tigris and Euphrates, and declared his allegiance to bin Laden. Two months later, in an audiotape broadcast by Al Jazeera satellite television, bin Laden endorsed Zarqawi as his deputy and anointed him the emir of al-Qaeda in Iraq, praising his “gallant operations” against the Americans.21 But, just as Iraq had become the sustaining oxygen for al-Qaeda, it also turned out to be al-

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Qaeda’s graveyard. Al-Qaeda lost out in Iraq because of Zarqawi’s excesses. Zarqawi terrorized Iraqis and fueled all-out sectarian war. Bin Laden publicly apologized to Muslims for the mistakes and misdeeds perpetrated by Zarqawi’s men in order to distance himself from his reckless lieutenant. But bin Laden’s apology was too little, too late. Sunni Iraqis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq with a vengeance, and the reverberations of that intra-Sunni conflict are still felt in Iraq and beyond. Since September 11, America’s wars have created many more anti-American jihadists than al-Qaeda has ever fielded. For example, the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq militarized Muslim opinion, shaped a new generation of jihadists, and generated hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and tens of thousands of civilian casualties according to the US government’s National Intelligence Estimate on “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States.”22 Numerous independent studies have confirmed this trend. Before the US invasion, Iraq never experienced suicide terrorism, and yet after the occupation, the country produced the largest arsenal of “martyrs” ever seen, demonstrating additional evidence of the possible relationship between foreign occupation and suicide terrorism. Now the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan (and Somalia, to a lesser extent) have replaced the Iraq War as a major source of radicalization, including that of homegrown terrorism. There is also a real danger that the longer the United States wages war on terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the more durable the threat that will come to haunt US and Western interests in the future. Pakistan’s slide into anarchy will be a far greater catastrophe for US interests and regional stability than the current mess in Afghanistan.23

Misconception 5: While al-Qaeda Central has suffered a defeat with the loss of bin Laden, local “branches” of al-Qaeda in Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Indonesia are viable entities and will continue to try to attack the United States and the West. The evidence that strong operational and motivational links exist between al-Qaeda Central and the organization’s “local” branches is not as conclusive as terrorism “experts” would have it. Zarqawi, as we have seen, proved to be al-Qaeda’s worst enemy. He refused to take

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orders from bin Laden or Zawahiri and, in fact, acted against their wishes. Like Zarqawi, local groups or franchises—like al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) or al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)—that the terrorism narrative often paints as being closely aligned and commanded by al-Qaeda in fact have proven repeatedly that they run by their own local and contextualized agendas, not those set among the inner sanctum of al-Qaeda. Contrary to the received wisdom in the West, local branches of terrorist organizations have their own peculiar characters and agendas. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a case in point. Its methods were disastrous for al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and al-Qaeda Central as well. Sunni tribes had become fed up with its sectarian fanaticism and worked with US troops, killing and expelling hundreds of its militants from their areas, particularly from Anbar province. Further, in Iraq, alQaeda lost a historic opportunity to integrate itself with an aggrieved Sunni community that initially had tolerated its presence, and it lost the opportunity to make inroads into neighboring Arab countries. The lost opportunity goes to the very heart of al-Qaeda’s character: far from being an institutionally coherent social movement, al-Qaeda is a loose collection of small groups and factions that tend to be guided by charismatic individuals. Zarqawi was the rule, not the exception. Al-Qaeda’s local branches in Iraq and elsewhere have suffered military setbacks and are rapidly fading. For example, overwhelming public support allowed the Lebanese government to bring down Fatah al-Islam, which subscribes to al-Qaeda’s ideology and was active in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in northern Lebanon, though unfortunately hundreds of people were killed in the process. In Saudi Arabia, according to a recent intelligence report, about 70 percent of information about al-Qaeda suspects now comes from relatives, friends, and neighbors, not from security agencies and surveillance. Bin Laden’s loss of Saudi Arabia must have been particularly painful to him, given that he had promised to make his last stand in his native land and the birthplace of Islam. In Algeria, a bastion of Islamist militancy since the early 1990s, the public has recently been active in opposing extremists who subscribe to al-Qaeda–style ideology and tactics, and who have carried out devastating suicide bombings and assassinations in the Maghreb and the Sahara. In September 2006 Zawahiri formally approved the formation of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb from the breakaway factions of two violent Algerian jihadist organizations—the Salafist

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Group for Preaching and Combat and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). The indiscriminate attacks of AQIM against civilians have alienated Algerians and North Africans in general and caused dissent among some of bin Laden’s lieutenants. In an interview with a Qatari newspaper in February 2008, Abu Turab al-Jazairi, an Algerian and al-Qaeda lieutenant in northern Iraq, expressed his anger at AQIM’s attacks at home. “The attacks in Algeria sparked animated debate here in Iraq,” he said. “By God, had they told me they were planning to harm the Algerian president and his family, I would say, ‘Blessings be upon them!’ But explosions in the street, blood knee-deep, the killing of soldiers whose wages are not even enough for them to eat at third-rate restaurants . . . and calling this jihad? By God, it’s sheer idiocy!”24 Al-Qaeda’s appeal has also faded in Indonesia, with the demise of Jemaah Islamiya, a loose affiliate of al-Qaeda. All this seems to bolster the conclusion of the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate on “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States” that “the Muslim mainstream emerges as the most powerful weapon in the war on terror.”25 Factions that subscribe to al-Qaeda’s ideology and tactics exist in Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, the Maghreb, Somalia, and elsewhere, though these factions are more local than transnational in outlook. Only the Yemeni-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has shown any determination to plot attacks against the US homeland. In addition to the foiled ink bomb plot, AQAP succeeded in co-opting and arming a self-radicalized freelancer—the aforementioned Christmas Day bomber—allowing bin Laden to claim responsibility for the failed bombing. Senior officials of the Obama administration also accused the Pakistani Taliban (known as Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan, or TTP) of joining forces with al-Qaeda—some of whose senior leaders it may be hiding—and of facilitating, directing, and probably financing the failed car bombing in Times Square.26 In Yemen, Somalia, and the Maghreb these local factions seem to have given the organization a new lease on life. Although that lease is extremely tenuous and limited, its very existence reinforces widely held Western perceptions or misperceptions of al-Qaeda’s omnipotence, once again reinforcing the terrorism narrative and creating an overreaction. Moreover, these local factions are not extensions of alQaeda Central. They might share a similar ideological worldview, a similar rhetoric, and sometimes plot attacks against Western targets,

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but they are intensely local and dedicated to the overthrow of “renegade” Arab and Muslim rulers rather than external enemies. They would fight on both fronts if they could, but they cannot; when they do, they face an avalanche of internal and external resistance that puts their very survival at risk. AQAP is something of a shadowy fringe group with no mass following. Nevertheless, led by Nasser al Wahishi, a former private secretary to bin Laden and a disciplined and experienced operative, and by its military commander, Qassim al-Raymi, this Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda has become more organized and coherent. Its recent resurgence—that lease on life I mentioned—is closely linked to deteriorating social, economic, and political conditions in this benighted Arab country, as well as the dismantling of its neighboring Saudi group. Indeed, AQAP was formed by a 2009 merger between the Saudi and Yemeni branches. AQAP has also gained notoriety because of Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American cleric who received a great deal of media coverage for his purported ability to influence young Muslims living in Western societies, such as the Christmas Day bomber and the US army major who shot thirteen of his comrades in Fort Hood, Texas. Despite that coverage, Awlaki was unknown in Yemen and in neighboring countries, and Washington overestimated his importance. The Obama administration designated him as a legitimate target for assassination in April 2010 and executed him by a drone strike in 2011. Awlaki did not possess any social constituency either inside or outside Yemen. US counterterrorism analysts assert that AQAP is now collaborating more closely than ever with allies in Pakistan and Somalia to plot attacks against the West, but their evidence is sketchy and is based more on risk assessment and inference than it is on hard facts. The few plots instigated by AQAP, such as the attack on the Saudi counterterrorism chief, the underwear bomber, and the air cargo bomb plot, seem to be the handiwork of the main bomb-maker in the group: Ibrahim al-Asiri. Indeed, some of the same officials who claim that there are links and connections between AQAP and Somalia’s Al Shabaab qualify this by adding that the “trajectory” points in “that direction,” and that this is “hard to measure in an absolute way.” 27 Somalia has not had a functioning government or economy for two decades, and rival warlords continue to battle for supremacy. There is a real danger that Al Shabaab may overrun Somalia and es-

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tablish Taliban-like governance. But this is a different challenge altogether from the one posed by al-Qaeda.

Misconception 6: The war on terror has made Americans safer and has decreased the likelihood of attacks on the country. Terrorism pundits assert that the war on terror has made Americans safer and has decreased the likelihood of attacks on the country. Yes and no. Despite the discursive intentions of the war on terror, there is a clear causal link between incidences of homegrown radicalism in the West and the post-9/11 wars fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, and more recently in Pakistan and Yemen. Far from weeding out individual terrorists drone by drone to put an end to al-Qaeda and its violence, the US offensive since 9/11 has fed into the al-Qaeda narrative that paints the West as a Judeo-Christian crusader and, ironically, has inspired a new generation of homegrown radicals. Equally, the phenomenon of bottom-up radicalization raises serious questions about whether al-Qaeda has “reconstituted” itself and has “a new cadre of people,” as the dominant terrorism narrative claims, or become dependent on a few deluded, angry Muslim men and women. If anything, bottom-up, homegrown recruitment shows the gravity of al-Qaeda’s structural crisis. Al-Qaeda’s leadership exercises little operational control over the new phenomenon of bottom-up radicalization, at least beyond ideological incitement. Rather, the US war on terror, first in Iraq and now in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has triggered a backlash among scores of disillusioned and frustrated young Muslims who live in Western societies, including the United States. A headline in the New York Times aptly noted after the failed Times Square bombing, “Fighting Terrorism, Creating Terrorists.”28 The presence of Western troops in Muslim lands and the costly wars radicalize important segments of Muslim opinion, particularly the middle class in urban cities, and also militarize a few young men who are ideologically and emotionally susceptible and vulnerable. Despite their apparent tactical success, US counterterrorism measures like the CIA drone attacks further fuel anti-American sentiments and calls for vengeance. Yet neither the US national security apparatus nor terrorism experts are willing to create a link between

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the new phenomenon of bottom-up extremism and the US war on terror, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan. While the question of cause and effect is bread and butter for social scientists and historians, it is lost in translation for the terrorism narrative. The latter offers a simpler formula: al-Qaeda’s tentacles are spreading poison worldwide, and energized rather than dispirited by the loss of their founding father, its leadership is directing the new terrorist wave. The US war on terror inflames anti-American sentiment in Muslim countries and creates more terrorists; it has allowed a ragtag guerrilla force to portray itself as legitimate Muslim warriors and defenders of the umma. In this sense, America’s overreaction provides the oxygen that sustains al-Qaeda. The cultural reverberations of the terrorism narrative, such as the spreading of Islamophobia and intolerance and the undermining of liberal values and constitutional rights, are widely felt in the United States and Western societies. By overstating the al-Qaeda threat and overlooking distinctions and differences among various religious groups, the terrorism narrative sows the seeds of cultural mistrust and suspicion and has supplied bin Laden’s successors with powerful ammunition to deploy in their ideological battle against Western societies. Time and again, they have used examples of Islamophobia to incite Muslims to carry out attacks against the West. However, bottom-up recruitment is a marginal phenomenon and has not helped al-Qaeda’s strategic operational predicament, or helped it to emerge from its crisis of legitimacy.29 The terrorism narrative, of course, recognizes no such distinctions. For example, the most recent US National Security Strategy, together with the State Department’s annual report on terrorism, explicitly recognizes homegrown terrorism as a threat. Commenting on the new strategy, Obama’s chief national security adviser, John Brennan, said that al-Qaeda is recruiting individuals with little training, attempting relatively unsophisticated attacks, and seeking people already living in the United States to launch such attacks. “They are seeking foot soldiers who might slip through our defense,” Brennan adds. “As our enemy adapts and evolves their tactics, so must we constantly adapt and evolve ours.” 30 Like the National Security Strategy, the State Department report on terrorism paints a bleak picture of homegrown radicalization, noting an increase in the number of cases of Americans becoming operatives for foreign terrorist organizations.31

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Bottom-up radicalization has less to do with al-Qaeda Central and more with the side effects of the raging war on terror in the greater Middle East. I interviewed several homegrown suspects who were found guilty in US courts and almost all of them specifically mentioned the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan as the main cause for their radicalization; of course they railed against the US war on terror, which they viewed as a crusade against Islam and Muslims, but identity politics was the real driver behind their migration to militancy. Many said that they had become caught up in the heat of the moment and took up the fight, mostly online, against the United States. Most sounded like radical graduate students, adept at theory but ignorant of the real consequences—long prison sentences in very tightly controlled supermax-like jails. In many cases, they made foolish statements and implicated themselves in far-fetched conspiracies. If al-Qaeda splinter groups have survived, it is because of US activities in the region. Although drone attacks have killed militants, they have also killed hundreds of civilians, including children. Predator strikes in the tribal areas have inflamed Pakistani and Afghani nationalism and anti-American sentiments. In particular, the drone attacks have radicalized a critical segment of the Pakistani middle class, from whose ranks emerge new recruits. A panel of five leading journalists of varying political orientations agreed that deepening US military involvement in Pakistan has radicalized the middle class in urban cities, an alarming development.32 The recent violation of Pakistani territory by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) helicopters, culminating in the killing of three paramilitary border guards, is a symptom of military escalation and has intensified antiAmerican sentiments in the country. Even the pro-US government in Islamabad retaliated by closing a vital link for NATO supplies to the war in Afghanistan, in order to show its displeasure and respond to public anger. Pakistani leaders threatened to stop providing protection for NATO convoys if the military alliance’s helicopters attacked targets inside the country again.33 Pakistan has stopped all supplies to Afghanistan after a US attack that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers, and the US-Pakistani relationship has reached a crisis point. In fact, a series of deadly incidents in Afghanistan and Pakistan have exposed in stark terms the excessive costs of the war on terror and US military presence in Muslim lands.

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Conclusion The war with al-Qaeda is over. It is time to revisit key misconceptions that constituted the dominant terrorism narrative and provided legitimation to the war on terror. Western leaders must level with their citizens: al-Qaeda poses only a security irritant, not a serious threat. There is no such thing as absolute security and, further, the security of the West is organically linked to that of the rest of humanity. People must know that there are limits to the effectiveness of force in international affairs. Terrorism cannot be eradicated with drone attacks or even massive military interventions, all of which are, in any case, costly. As for how to deal with recent terrorist plots and homegrown radicalization, there is an urgent need to expedite the withdrawal of Western, particularly US, troops from Muslim territories. For Muslims, the presence of tens of thousands of US and NATO troops in their homelands remains a constant and painful reminder of the European colonial legacy of domination and subjugation. Neither Iraqis nor Afghans view the US military presence as benign and disinterested, or designed to bring them security, peace, and democracy. Rather, they see a foreign occupation, an intrusive, humiliating violation. Most of the recent bombing plots were blowback from US military tactics in Muslim countries. Even if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan, as it has from Iraq, by the end of 2014, as President Obama has pledged, the US military footprint in the greater Middle East would still be substantial. At the very moment Obama announced “the end of our combat mission in Iraq,” the Pentagon dug deeper in the Middle East, expanding and upgrading military bases and other facilities in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. This formidable, long-term military presence in the countries surrounding Iraq and encircling Iran is likely to inflame anti-American sentiment further. Ultimately, the critical factor in determining the outcome of the contest between al-Qaeda operators and local governments is the degree of legitimacy the latter possess in the eyes of their Muslim populations. Legitimacy requires the establishment of representative and responsive governments and open political systems where grievances can be publicly aired. Without this factor, pro-Western Muslim

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regimes are likely to win most battles against terrorists simply by force, but there will always be a small, disgruntled constituency that will provide a source of support for terrorists and extremists. Tyranny, dismal social conditions, authoritarian political systems, and the absence of hope provide the fuel that powers radical, absolutist ideologies in the Muslim world. It is not enough to focus on the violent ideology of al-Qaeda without devoting sufficient attention to the social conditions that gave rise to it. If the Arab revolutions manage to fill the gap of legitimate political authority, they will annihilate the last dregs of al-Qaeda and like-minded local branches.

Notes This chapter draws substantially on the author’s most recent book, The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda (2011). He would like to thank his research assistant Dania Akkad for editing and synthesizing the article. 1. Al-Quds al-Arabi, November 24, 2001. For an English translation, see “Part One of a Series of Reports on bin Laden’s Life in Sudan: Islamists Celebrated Arrival of ‘Great Islamic Investor,’” Al-Quds al-Arabi, November 24, 2001, translated by PBS. 2. Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda, p. 3. 3. Azzam’s definition of al-qaeda al-sulba is similar to Qutb’s vanguard and refers to a tactic: “Every principle needs a vanguard to carry it forward, and while focusing its way into society, [it] puts up with heavy tasks and enormous sacrifices. There is no ideology, neither earthly nor heavenly, that does not require such a vanguard that gives everything it possesses in order to achieve victory for this ideology. It carries the flag along the sheer, endless and difficult path until it reaches its destination in the reality of life, since Allah has destined it should make it and manifest itself. This vanguard constitutes al-Qaeda al-sulba for the expected society.” See Abdullah Azzam, “al-Qaeda al-sulba,” al-Jihad, no. 41 (April 1998), p. 46. 4. Ahmed al-Khatib, “Second Revisions of Tanzim al-Jihad: Sayyid Fadl, Mufti al-Jihad, Responds to Zawahiri’s ‘Exoneration’: Al-Qa’ida’s Second-in-Command Is a ‘Hypocrite,’” al-Misri al-Yawm, no. 10, November 29, 2008. 5. Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda, p. xxxiii. 6. Ibid., p. xxxv. 7. Khatib, “Second Revisions.” 8. See http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=3&id=627. For the entire Arabic text, see al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 2004.

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9. Ibid., December 9, 2004, and July 1, 2005. 10. Howard LaFranchi, “Al Qaeda? North Korea? Who Americans See as Greatest Security Threat,” Christian Science Monitor, December 8, 2010. 11. For example, see Berman, Terror and Liberalism. 12. Khatib, “Second Revisions”; Muntasir al-Zayyat, Ayman alZawahiri Kama Araftuhu [Ayman al-Zawahiri as I knew him] (Cairo, 2002). See Zawahiri’s memoirs in which he acknowledges Qutb’s influence, Fursan tahta rayat al-nabi [Knights under the prophet’s banner] (serialized in alSharq al-Awsat, December 2001). 13. Qutb, Ma’alam fi al-tariq [Milestones]. Qutb, Limazaa’damunani [Why they executed me] (n.p and n.d), http://www.tawhed.ws; Abu-Rabi, Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World. 14. Muntasir al-Zayyat, “al-Gamaa al-Islamiya: ruiya min al-dahil” [Islamic groups: An inside-out view] (the book was serialized in al-Hayat, January 10–14, 2005); Zayyat, Ayman al-Zawahiri. 15. Ganor, Defining Terrorism, p. 6. 16. Mamdani, “The Politics of Naming,” pp. 5–8. 17. G. M. Steinberg, “Israel’s Right to Self-Defense,” Wall Street Journal, February 23, 2010; Daniel Pipes, “Faisal Shahzad, Jihadi, Explains Terrorism,” National Review Online, June 25, 2010. 18. Bin Laden, Messages to the World, pp. 33, 61. 19. See “Transcript of President Bush’s Address,” September 20, 2001, CNN, http://articles.cnn.com/2001-09-20/us/gen.bush.transcript_1_jointsession -national-anthem-citizens?_s=PM:US. 20. Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq; Brisard, Zarqawi. 21. Associated Press, “Al Zarqawi Group Vows Allegiance to Bin Laden,” October 17, 2004; Dan Murphy, “In Iraq, a Clear-Cut Bin Laden–Zarqawi Alliance,” Christian Science Monitor, December 31, 2004. 22. “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,” April 2006, as cited in Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, “Iraq 101: The Iraq Effect—War Has Increased Terrorism Sevenfold Worldwide,” Mother Jones, March 1, 2007, http://motherjones.com/politics/2007/03/iraq-101 -iraq-effect-war-iraq-and-its-impact-war-terrorism-pg-1. 23. Rashid, Descent into Chaos. 24. On February 12, 2008, the Qatari daily al-Arab published an interview with an al-Qaeda commander in northern Iraq, Abu Turab al-Jazairi. The interview, at an al-Qaeda hideout in northern Iraq, was conducted according to al-Qaeda’s stipulations—including no disclosure of the region where it took place and no communications or recording equipment of any kind brought to the site. See “Al-Qaeda Commander in Northern Iraq: We Are in Dire Straits,” http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/2593.htm and http://www.aliraqi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=84183.

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25. “Declassified Key Judgments from ‘Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’” ODNI, April 2006, http://www.dni .gov/press_releases/Declassified_NIE_Key_Judgments.pdf. 26. Joseph Berger, “Pakistani Taliban Behind Times Sq. Plot, Holder Says,” New York Times, May 10, 2010. 27. Adam Entous and Siobhan Gorman, “U.S. Weighs Expanded Strikes in Yemen,” Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2010. 28. Scott Shane, “Fighting Terrorism, Creating Terrorists,” New York Times, July 4, 2010. 29. Eric Schmitt and Scott Shane, “Christmas Bombing Try Is Hailed by Bin Laden,” New York Times, January 24, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com /2010/01/25/world/25binladen.html. 30. Pam Benson, “Homegrown Terrorist Threat to Be Part of National Security Strategy,” CNN, May 26, 2010. 31. US Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, “Chapter 1: Strategic Assessments,” Country Reports on Terrorism 2009. 32. Panel Discussion at Brunei Gallery, SOAS, London, “Pakistan, Its Journalists, and the Stories the West Forgets,” SOAS (The School of Oriental and African Studies), October 13, 2010. 33. Ismail Khan and Jane Perlez, “Pakistan Halts NATO Supplies to Afghanistan After Attack,” New York Times, September 30, 2010.

4 Afghanistan: The First Theater of the War Michael Semple

The US decisions to launch a war on terror and to direct its

first campaign at the Taliban and al-Qaeda opened the way for fundamental change in Afghanistan. Thereafter events in Afghanistan would be remembered as to whether they came before or after the collapse of the Taliban, the first concrete outcome of the war on terror. A decade of US intervention in the country, all of it rationalized by the war on terror, left an impact on every aspect of public affairs, but never achieved the kind of political, economic, and social transformation that some dreamed of when the United States decided to change the regime. In this chapter I chronicle how what was billed as a counterterrorism initiative came to have such a full-spectrum impact on Afghanistan and suggest why ultimately that impact fell so short of expectations. The war on terror was so loosely defined at the outset that the actions of all arms of the US government in Afghanistan after 2001 can be considered as coming within its rubric. There were four main elements to the architecture of the war on terror in Afghanistan. First, it was led by the military. Second, it included political and assistance actions, alongside the military operations. Third, it included a mix of direct actions by the United States and indirect actions by the USsupported allies, most notably the government of Afghanistan and multilateral action by the United Nations. Finally, it was protracted,

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lasting a decade from the initial intervention to the time of peak US troop deployment. The military action started with the forced removal of the Taliban, followed by mopping up operations against surviving elements of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Over time the military operations transformed into a complex mix of stabilization, counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism. The reason that the war on terror appeared to be such a gamechanger related as much to the state of affairs in Afghanistan in September 2001 as to the fact that the United States applied massive force and all arms of government in its effort. Under the Taliban regime Afghanistan was in a stalemate, with all plausible avenues for political, social, and economic progress blocked. For Afghanistan, the war on terror came like a deus ex machina. Regime change, accompanied by an end to Afghanistan’s international isolation and the launch of civilian assistance, opened up trajectories of progress that had simply been inconceivable prior to September 2001. In documenting the impact of the war on terror in this chapter, I trace this deus ex machina effect across the different sectors of public affairs— the avenues through which the full-spectrum US intervention opened the way for change in security, politics, economy, society, and human rights. I also identify “counterterror” effects—impacts on Afghanistan attributable to specific counterterrorism measures and the fact that the US intent throughout was primarily focused on eliminating al-Qaeda rather than transforming Afghanistan.

Afghanistan in 2001 Afghanistan in 2001, in the months before 9/11, was a grim place. After five years of Taliban rule, the country faced economic stagnation, social repression, humanitarian crisis, diplomatic isolation, political paralysis, and military stalemate. The Afghan Taliban movement began as a local response to the chronic insecurity in Kandahar in the wake of the mujahidin’s 1992 overthrow of the country’s protocommunist government. From the outset the movement had a distinct character, as the founding members were all young clerics who had recent experience in the jihad against the Soviets and their client government. Between 1994 and 1996 the Taliban mobilized supporters from madrassahs and refugee camps in Pakistan, swept across the Pashtun areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan, over-

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whelmed the mujahidin commanders who had held power in those areas, and captured the capital in September 1996.1 In the process, the Taliban movement developed as a highly effective politicalmilitary organization, characterized by the inculcation of obedience to the emir, Mullah Omar. Two developments in 1996 set the Taliban on course to provoke the war on terror. When they captured the eastern city of Jalalabad, they “inherited” Osama bin Laden, who had recently shifted there from Khartoum and received sanctuary from the local mujahidin leadership. After capturing Kabul, the Taliban commenced their campaign to conquer the predominantly non-Pashtun parts of the country. In this stage of their campaign they faced significantly more resistance than they had in Pashtun parts of the country. The men who had recently formed the Taliban movement had relatively little history of association with Osama bin Laden and the Arab volunteers who had gathered in Afghanistan in the latter stages of the anti-Soviet jihad.2 However, the campaign in northern Afghanistan stretched the Taliban military capabilities to the limit, and they resorted to hosting a “foreign legion” of international Islamist militants. This force principally included fighters from Pakistani jihadist groups, those from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and from the northern Caucasus, and those directly loyal to bin Laden. Bin Laden developed his concept for al-Qaeda and a jihad against US interests with no reference to the Taliban leadership and separately from their project to establish a state in Afghanistan based on their interpretation of Islamic ideals. After the al-Qaeda attacks on US embassies in East Africa, the Taliban faced mounting international pressure to end their protection of bin Laden. This pressure was ratcheted up from US cruise missile strikes on terrorist training camps in August 1998 to US economic sanctions to a UN sanctions regime through Security Council Resolutions 1267 and 1333.3 Perversely, in the face of growing international isolation, the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar became increasingly subject to influence by bin Laden, the original cause of that isolation. When Saudi Arabia broke relations with the Taliban movement over its refusal to give up bin Laden, the Islamic Emirate was left with a sole regional backer in the form of Pakistan. After frustration over the failure of attempts to assemble a cooperative and effective mujahidin administration in Kabul after 1992, the Pakistan establishment supported the Taliban movement as an alternative.4 However, the rela-

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tionship between Pakistan and the Taliban was always an uneasy one, and on numerous occasions, such as in the face of Pakistan’s requests to cease harboring Punjabi militants, the Taliban resisted Pakistani influence. Taliban rule in Afghanistan has often been characterized as fanatic and commentators have implied that they dismantled state structures. On the contrary, the Taliban placed their own supporters, mainly clerics, as political appointees in all civilian institutions. They then tried to use the existing institutions of the Afghan state to realize a vision of sharia enforcement but also pursued a rather traditional version of economic development, with a role for private and public sectors.5 Five major factors ensured that Taliban rule kept Afghanistan in a state of misery. The movement’s diplomatic isolation ensured that there would be no major external investment and ensured that international assistance remained confined to a poorly funded humanitarian operation, inadequate to cope with the cumulative effects of conflict and drought. Despite the security that the Taliban enforced, the economy stagnated. The revenue available to the Taliban administration was inadequate to fund the kind of public infrastructure reconstruction that they contemplated, and they were unable to tap external funds to supplement tax revenue. Meanwhile, the movement pursued restrictive social policies, effectively blocking female access to education (with a few notable exceptions) and making female employment and mobility so difficult that health sector access was impacted. In any case, the culture clash between the Taliban appointees and the incumbent personnel meant there was little prospect of public sector bodies working effectively. But the real reasons for the stalemate lay in the military and political situation. The Taliban had a limited social base, with a tightly knit top leadership group and a leader who claimed supreme authority. They adopted authoritarian methods, tolerated no independent political activity, and were dedicated to eradicating rival factions. Although their organizational model proved highly effective for waging an armed campaign, it was too restrictive for exercising state power in a country as diverse as Afghanistan. Meanwhile, even their efforts to complete their conquest of the national territory stalled, as they struggled to overcome resistance in the north. All this explains why, in the absence of a deus ex machina, there was no plausible way forward for Afghanistan in September 2001.

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The Military Campaign and Security The war on terror precipitated US military operations in Afghanistan lasting over a decade. However, these operations evolved over time in their scope and scale. The first phase lasted five months from October 2001 to February 2002. In this phase, the United States launched an aerial bombardment of Taliban positions, combined with special operators supporting the United Front armed resistance to the Taliban (“Northern Alliance”). This combination achieved a rapid Taliban collapse. The United Front took the northern administrative center Mazar e Sherif, after which the main Taliban army surrendered in Kunduz and the movement evacuated Kabul. Small numbers of airborne troops skirmished in the south, and by the first week of December the Taliban leadership handed over their spiritual capital, Kandahar. To complete the first phase of the intervention, US forces and their former mujahidin allies conducted mopping up operations in Tora Bora of Nangarhar province and Shahikot of Paktia province, which led to the remaining al-Qaeda fighters fleeing to Pakistan.6 The December 2001 Bonn Accords provided for the establishment of a peacekeeping force, separate from the counterterrorism operations. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was mandated by UN Security Council Resolution 1386.7 Initially the ISAF mandate was confined to Kabul; outside the capital, international forces came under the counterterrorism mandate of Operation Enduring Freedom. Over time ISAF developed as the centerpiece of the international security effort. In August 2003 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) took responsibility for the ISAF command. The UN Security Council then extended ISAF’s mandate to cover operations throughout Afghanistan through Resolution 1510 in October 2003. In a phased expansion process, ISAF took over security responsibility for the different regions of the country. In 2007, in recognition of the reality that ISAF was involved in war-fighting and its forces would of necessity be overwhelmingly American, the command of ISAF passed to the United States. Along with the expansion of ISAF’s territorial responsibilities, ISAF took over forces that had previously operated under the Enduring Freedom mandate. Thus eventually all international forces, other than a few Special Forces elements, came under the ISAF command.

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The second phase of military operations ran from March 2002 to the end of 2005. ISAF concentrated on the stabilization challenge, which initially mainly involved helping keep order among the different unruly parts of the government security forces. Separately, US or coalition forces conducted counterterror operations. Initially, there was no active insurgency, but the US forces found plenty of alleged terrorist targets, some of them set up maliciously by Afghan counterparts. In this period, also, work began on raising the Afghan National Army (ANA), with the first battalion passing out in June 2002. By the second half of the period, small groups of Taliban were operating in the southern provinces in what amounted to a low-grade insurgency. In the third phase of the military operations, from 2006 to mid2009, international forces were consolidated under ISAF and took responsibility for security nationwide. But the Taliban successfully intensified their insurgency and expanded out of the southwestern provinces, by activating groups in the north and around Kabul. NATO found itself involved in fighting more intense (such as the initial British deployment in Helmand) and more extensive (such as Operation Medusa in Kandahar) than anticipated. The end result was the situation as described by General Stanley McCrystal upon taking over as ISAF commander—security was precarious and the Taliban were expanding their influence in rural areas.8 In the fourth phase of military operations, from mid-2009, President Barack Obama responded to requests by General David McKiernan and then by General McCrystal, and the United States mounted a troop surge. It massively scaled up Special Forces operations against Taliban mid-level commanders. Afghan security forces became more effective in the north and helped limit Taliban operations there. But overall levels of violence rose during the troop surge, to peak in 2011.9 The Taliban compensated for reverses in the southwest by escalating violence in the east and southeast. The combined efforts of NATO and Afghan forces did ensure that the insurgency never posed a real threat to the capital. However, insurgents demonstrated their ability to survive and adapt. In the latter stages of the military campaign, as well as matching NATO-ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) levels of violence, insurgents succeeded in disrupting cooperation between international and Afghan forces through a campaign of “insider attacks.” But this stalemate after ten years of war raised serious questions about the ability and willingness of ANSF to hold

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territory against the Taliban in the event of a violent power struggle after NATO withdrawal. The military campaign was the aspect of the war on terror that had both immediate and long-term impacts on the situation in Afghanistan. It was the initial military campaign, from October 2001 to February 2002, that delivered the main deus ex machina effect by toppling the Taliban regime and driving the last organized elements of the Taliban and al-Qaeda armed forces out of the country. This achievement of the first five months of Operation Enduring Freedom did indeed open up the possibility of change in all aspects of Afghan public life. The military campaign over the subsequent decade also delivered a sort of sustained deus ex machina effect in that it provided the security umbrella that ensured there could be no credible threat of violent overthrow of the new Kabul regime. In the second half of the decade, once a serious insurgency was under way, many elements of the US intervention, including the ISAF force, Special Forces, and the mission to train and equip ANSF, were involved in providing this umbrella. However, the US-led military campaign came at a cost. Far from simply clearing out the Taliban so that diplomats and aid officials could go to work with the new authorities, the military campaign and security situation contributed to many of the challenges that Afghans grappled with after 2001. First, actions in the initial year of the campaign by the US military, government agencies, and their Afghan allies against the defeated Taliban, including those among the Taliban who hoped to make their peace with the new dispensation, conveyed the impression that there was no space for the Taliban in the new order. This impression generated the grievances on which the Taliban subsequently mobilized the insurgency.10 Second, despite the success of the military in securing the regime in Kabul, security around the country deteriorated as the insurgency escalated. In broadest terms, the insurgency succeeded in rendering Pashtun-inhabited rural areas inaccessible for government officials and aid workers, and it imposed a high degree of insecurity on key transport routes. This chronic insecurity detracted from the initial deus ex machina effect as there was a continuing toll of casualties, and numerous development and commercial activities had to be put on hold.

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Third, the dependence on a large ANSF for post-NATO security became one of the main threats to the sustainability of the new order in Afghanistan. The build-up of these forces became an integral part of the US military strategy in Afghanistan and yet fiscal sustainability was never seriously addressed. At the very least this left Afghanistan in a classic guns versus butter situation—with the Afghan military likely to claim the lion’s share of future aid. Fourth, along with the build-up of regular forces, the United States supported the raising of Afghan auxiliary forces, for local area security. This meant that, despite the earlier international community support for disarmament, the United States, just like the Soviets before them, eventually came round to proliferating light arms in rural communities. This constituted an obvious potential future source of insecurity.11 Fifth, the sustained military campaign contributed to a new polarization in Afghan politics between those who rejected and those who accepted the US military role. In the hands of both insurgent propagandists and even some pro-regime Islamists and nationalists, collaboration with the Americans was tantamount to becoming an infidel. This polarization distorted political discourse. Finally, the imperatives of the war on terror and the US continued commitment to counterterror operations induced the United States to patronize figures inside the Afghan administration and in nonofficial positions who routinely subverted the rule of law and had reputations for corruption and violence. In some cases, such as Ahmad Wali Khan, the relationship was widely suspected but not formally acknowledged.12 Perhaps the most glaring example came in 2012 when President Hamid Karzai appointed a highly controversial intelligence chief. Asadullah Khalid had carefully cultivated relations with international actors over the years, but human rights activists accused him of links to torture.13 In other cases of local “strongmen,” ISAF figures openly defended their work with them as important for security.14 However, these cases of US association with malign actors in the Afghan government undermined the US claim to be supporting the rule of law.

National Politics The military intervention to overthrow the Taliban rapidly opened the way for a radical reconfiguring of the Afghan government and polit-

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ical system. This political overhaul commenced with the Bonn Conference in December 2001. The agreement adopted in Bonn laid out a roadmap for political development, to the end of 2005. The roadmap for this process included a sequence of five main steps. Initially an interim administration, largely drawn from those who had attended the Bonn Conference, ran the country for six months. Then a tribal assembly, or Loya Jirga, consisting of local representatives from across the country and “warlords” nominated by the interim leader, endorsed Karzai to continue in his position running a transitional administration until elections. Third, a follow-up jirga adopted a constitution that included a formula to balance a centralized administration around the person of the president with an elected national parliament. In 2004 national presidential elections gave Karzai a five-year term. Finally in 2005 another round of elections elected members to thirty-four provincial councils and a national parliament. The Bonn Accords also provided for a broader process of institution building, with a Civil Service Commission to supervise the reconstitution of the ministries and subnational administration, a Judicial Commission to help reconstitute the judiciary, and an independent Human Rights Commission. Implementation of the Bonn process amounted to establishing a new political order. Aside from the establishment of the new structures, there were several significant realignments and changes of political discourse during the decade after Bonn. In the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Taliban there was a remarkable reset to the political status quo of the mid-1990s (i.e., before the Taliban took over). Minor commanders and local power brokers who had played a military or political role after the 1992 mujahidin takeover reappeared and demanded to be inserted into the new administration. These hundreds of petty commanders formed the first post-Taliban political class. Also, several regional leaders briefly managed to set themselves up leading large provinces in an obvious attempt to reconstitute the pre-Taliban warlord system. In 2002 it seemed that Ismail Khan in the west, Gul Agha Sherzai in the southeast, Abdul Rashid Dostum and Ustad Atta in the northwest, Karim Khalili in Bamyan, and Din Mohammad and Hazrat Ali in the east had established control of tolls and customs revenues, reconstituted their military, and set themselves up again as regional strongmen. In reality, with the exception of Ustad Atta, their tenure was brief and the new government and ISAF succeeded in subordinating them to the new centralized system.

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From the outset, leading Afghans and internationals showed concern for maintaining some form of ethnic balance in representation. The clearest example of the potency of ethnic political mobilization came in the 2004 presidential election. In an ethnic show of strength, a strong candidate from each of the three main non-Pashtun ethnic groups, Tajik, Hazara, and Uzbek, captured a large majority of the ethnic group’s votes. Karzai was elected because he won a majority of Pashtun votes and some cross-ethnic votes. After 2005, with the problem of “warlordism” effectively solved, concern turned to excess centralization of power in the presidency, marginalization of parliament, and lack of independence of the judiciary. Parliament never really emerged as the focus of national politics, because there were no strong political groups and the president deftly marginalized it and ignored its constitutional powers. After the formation of the parliament it became clear that the old parties, which had dominated politics in the name of jihad for a generation, were struggling to retain their relevance and cohesiveness. Key individuals remained important, but petty factions grouped round these key individuals, and shifting, temporary alliances, took the place of parties. Politics became highly amorphous, a trend encouraged by the president and his political fixers. The 2009 presidential election is mainly remembered for the rampant rigging.15 However two other important developments occurred. First, there was a mass abstention in the Pashtun-inhabited areas. Whether by intimidation or choice, they followed the Taliban line of opting out of a Kabul-ordained political process. Meanwhile, having lost so many of his Pashtun votes, the incumbent renewed his alliance with the Hazara leader Ustad Mohaqiq and the Uzbek leader General Dostam, to deliver their ethnic groups’ votes. The 2010 parliamentary elections highlighted the depth of the crisis in electoral institutions. The decision to go ahead with elections in such a difficult security situation was questionable. Ultimately the elections were chaotic and numerous results disputed.16 Finally in 2011 and 2012 opposition political fronts started to reemerge in Kabul as political figures realized that some form of political change over the next two years was possible. The ethnic power brokers who had helped re-elect Karzai withdrew their support so as to work with the opposition fronts. Simultaneously, insiders in the presidential palace weighed their options between working with the

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president to install an anointed successor or working with the opposition for a more transparent political transition. Assessing the overall impact of the war on terror on Afghan national politics, it is clear that there was a massive deus ex machina effect. The Bonn process and the democratic system of government that it established offered the Afghan people a far better hope for the future than any scenario that seemed possible before 9/11. This political process launched in 2001 included numerous positive and transformative aspects. The electoral democracy offered a route to pluralism, so that all ethnicities could be represented at the national level. The process restored constitutional rule. It also provided a basis for restoring national authority, with all of the country’s provinces and districts included in a functional administration for the first time in a generation. Finally, the political process offered top-level political stability and legitimacy, minus the periodic power struggles that had been Afghanistan’s fate for the previous thirty years. This restoration of lawful government should have provided a sort of political umbrella, analogous to the security umbrella, to provide scope for Afghans to get on with reconstructing and developing their country. But the political order established in the Bonn process proved seriously flawed, and several of these flaws can be linked to the negative impacts of the war on terror. The earliest critiques of the post-Taliban order focused on the way in which both the interim and transitional administrations were dominated by figures from the old civil war factions, with disproportionate representation going to the mainly non-Pashtun Northern Alliance.17 This initial factional and ethnic imbalance represented “facts on the ground” created by the war on terror in the sense that it was US support that had propelled the Northern Alliance to retake Kabul. Many of the complaints about the way the political order turned out focus on the problem of patrimonialism.18 This was the president’s preferred mode of conducting governance. However, it encouraged corruption and law breaking and a sense of grievance among those who were not patronized. Corruption itself became a major issue. Transparency International confirmed Afghanistan’s abysmal ranking at 176th out of 178 countries.19 Afghans rated levels of corruption in the new political order as being far beyond contemporary experience. The situation became so acute that corruption clearly detracted from the government’s legitimacy.

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After four rounds of general elections, it became evident that the electoral mechanism was dangerously open to dispute and there were no effective safeguards for its independence. The failure to develop a reliable system of elections meant that it was questionable whether it would be possible to sustain the legitimacy of the national leadership beyond 2014 and the expiry of Hamid Karzai’s term. During 2012 the president moved to weaken electoral oversight and alter eligibility rules for candidates, fueling doubts in the Afghan political class over whether the clique that had enjoyed US protection for a decade really would be prepared to adhere to constitutional requirements for a free election.20 Many factors contributed to the development of patrimonialism and corruption and the practice of election rigging. However, it was the war on terror that created the imperative for the United States to continue to prop up the government, militarily and financially. In the absence of the vital national security interest assumed in the war on terror, it is likely that the United States would have deemed the Afghan government unworthy of support several years earlier. By extending its support to the Afghan government, the United States unintentionally reduced pressure for reform and allowed a questionable administration to continue without the operation of any real check and balance.

The Postintervention Economy The war on terror removed several of the constraints that had ensured economic stagnation under the Taliban and therefore delivered a deus ex machina effect in the Afghan economy. As Afghanistan’s diplomatic isolation ended abruptly, it regained access to official development assistance, private investors were more ready to do business with the country, confidence in the country’s economic future and the prospects for tapping its considerable mineral wealth increased, and the intervention itself boosted effective demand. The war on terror triggered a period of rapid economic growth (9 percent annually, over a decade) and put Afghanistan onto a trajectory that was completely unattainable before 2001.21 The population of the capital more than doubled in the first three years of the intervention, up from 1.7 million in 2001 to 3.6 million in 2005.22 By 2011 the city had been transformed, with new commer-

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cial developments, new public buildings, and whole new residential suburbs developed through private investment. In terms of public infrastructure, telecommunications spread throughout the country, transforming it from one of the most unconnected countries in the world to one with high mobile phone ownership and phone coverage in all provinces. In the second half of the decade, there was progress on energy availability as transmission lines delivered cheap power from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, while diesel generators provided a somewhat controversial and expensive backup. A sustained program of construction contracts achieved a national ring-road, which transformed the physical conditions for travel between the major cities, making journeys possible that had been impossible since the 1970s. Civil aviation started essentially from zero, as no commercial services to and from the country had been available immediately before 9/11. Over the following decade, the national carrier got back into the air, along with new private Afghan carriers and international carriers. In the decade after 9/11, an Afghan private banking sector started to operate, international banks moved in, and the population was for the first time introduced to the savings, credit, and transactions services essential to a modern economy. Along with the overall expansion of the economy, the public finances were reorganized, and by the end of the decade Afghanistan had achieved levels of tax take as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) rivaling those of the country’s neighbors.23 A degree of progress notwithstanding, several factors ensured that the economic growth fell short of a transformation and its sustainability was very much in question after a decade of intervention. Insurgent violence meant that Afghanistan never really attained a postconflict situation. Impacts of the renewed conflict were geographically specific. Areas of good security and well-behaved local government, like Herat in the west, enjoyed steady growth and increasingly seemed like a “normal” economy, with standards of living not unlike those in neighboring countries. Elsewhere, the escalating conflict raised the costs of doing business in the country and reduced confidence. Ultimately, as NATO withdrawal loomed, concerns over future security further deterred investment and induced even Afghan businesspeople to shift their investments overseas. The system of patrimonialism that characterized the national leadership’s approach to politics generated a pattern of “crony capitalism.” Regime insiders and their relatives formed commercial en-

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terprises that enjoyed privileged access to government as well as NATO contracts. Multiple organs of government, both the civil administration and the security forces, shifted into predatory mode, determined to extricate an economic rent from all private sector activity that was not conducted by people protected by political alliances. The key concern regarding economic growth was its sustainability, because of the prospect of rapid decline in international transfers associated with the military presence and civilian aid program. In addition to the risk of declining effective demand, the prospect of NATO withdrawal in 2014 threatened to precipitate a fiscal crisis through collapse of revenue generation.

Society After the Intervention Social development seemed in the initial stages of the war on terror to be one of the areas of Afghan public life where the country would experience a profound deus ex machina effect. There were high expectations that the removal of Taliban-era barriers to female mobility and participation would be the start of a social development transformation. These hopes were reinforced by rapid progress in bringing girls back into education in the first couple of academic years after the fall of the Taliban. For social development generally, the base was very low. Deprivation was widespread and the legacy of underdevelopment, conflict, and misrule had left the country with some of the world’s worst social indicators. As it turned out, a decade of intervention associated with the war on terror was accompanied by modest social progress that in no way amounted to a transformation. Indeed, the failure of the combined international and Afghan effort to register rapid change in the most widely used social indicators constitutes one of the most troubling aspects of the decade of intervention. Social indicators showed a pattern of slow progress over time, rather than rapid transformation. In 2002, Afghanistan ranked 173rd among the countries in the world, according to the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) Human Development Index. Only five countries ranked as less developed than Afghanistan.24 Despite the return to conflict, during the decade of intervention there was an expansion of public investment in health and education, along with some im-

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provement in incomes, increases in private investment, and expansion of the labor market. Evidence of some results from this investment included primary school enrollment increasing by 103.9 percent. In terms of the most notorious indicators of Afghanistan’s underdevelopment, life expectancy rose from 44.5 years in 2002 to 48.7 in 2011. Maternal mortality fell to 1,400 per 100,000 births, from 1,600 in 2003. The proportion of births attended by trained health workers crept up to 14 percent from 11.5 percent in 2003. Under age five mortality was recorded at 199 per 1,000 in 2009, actually higher than the estimate for 2003, which was 172. A decade after the changes unleashed by the war on terror, Afghanistan was still one of the most underdeveloped countries in the world, and in terms of some aspects of life, it registered as the worst in the world. For example, even by the end of the decade someone born in Afghanistan could look forward to only 36 years of healthy life (the health-adjusted life expectancy), the second lowest in the world. Despite the gradual progress, conditions in Afghanistan remained far worse than what people expected in the neighboring countries of South Asia. One revealing indicator of just how far Afghanistan lagged behind the very real social change in South Asia is the average number of live births per woman—the total fertility rate. In South Asia as a whole this fell to 2.6 by 2011, evidence of a real demographic transition, which had taken a generation in coming. But the rate in Afghanistan only fell from 6.3 in 2002 to 6.0 at the end of the decade—still one of the highest in the world. Overall by 2011 Afghanistan had crawled to 172nd in the Human Development Index ranking—up one place in the decade. Its social development indicators were still closer to those of sub-Saharan Africa than South Asia.25 Three broad factors combined to ensure that social development fell far short of what could reasonably be considered a deus ex machina effect. In the first place, the expectations that drove early hopes and rhetoric were unrealistic and were not underpinned by an understanding of how societies change or of the real nature of barriers to social development in Afghanistan up to 2001. This was particularly the case with regard to the hopes for rapid progress in the transformation of women’s roles and gender equality. Previous demonization of the Taliban had exaggerated the extent to which formal Taliban restrictions were responsible for the state of gender relations in the country. In reality, those restrictions had mainly been relevant

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for urban women, especially in Kabul. Outside the capital, the role of women more reflected social values and power relations than Taliban edicts. These were far less amenable to transformation through regime change. Secondly, the resumption of conflict constituted, in the second half of the decade of the war on terror, a significant obstacle to effective social investment, as large tracts of the country became inaccessible to government and aid workers. After 2005 many of the statements pointing to evidence of expansion of access to health and education simply failed to reflect the way in which escalating conflict had, in the worst affected areas, reversed gains. Thirdly, the public investment program that was meant to deliver social development depended in turn upon effective public institutions. The subnational administration and the ministries responsible for delivering education, health, and other social services were part of the same patrimonial-based government structures and were as prone to rent-seeking behavior and misallocation of resources as more notorious parts of the new state structures.

Rights and Freedom President George W. Bush introduced the idea of defending rights and freedoms in his opening speech of the war on terror when he denounced the Taliban for their oppressive treatment of the Afghan people, alongside his main cause de guerre, the sheltering of alQaeda. Afghans, reacting to the experience of authoritarian rule by the Taliban, also expected that enhanced respect for human rights would be a key feature of the new order. The Bonn Accords provided for the creation of an Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. The 2004 constitution set out a list of fundamental rights and represented the pinnacle of concern for human rights in the Bonn process.26 Beyond the institutions and legal guarantees, the main way in which the rights situation improved after 2001 was the general shift from an authoritarian system to a laissez faire system. In contrast to the Taliban’s vigorous enforcement of multiple bans on trivial items and activities, after 2001 there were few restrictions on personal behavior or consumer items and in any case enforcement was lax. Initially the return of girls to school symbolized the newly won freedoms. Over the decade, Afghanistan also acquired a relatively in-

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dependent and vigorous media sector. This constituted a remarkable process of glasnost. The new media gave Afghans access to the first home-produced independent political comment and a whole new cultural scene. Together these positive developments constituted a transformation in the freedom of expression and information, a deus ex machina factor. As the decade progressed, it became clear that the commitment of both the new Afghan authorities and their international allies to human rights was far weaker in practice than in rhetoric. One of the earliest examples of the new authorities’ collective willingness to sacrifice human rights came in the Sherpur incident. Then minister of defense Qassim Faheem provided a scheme where he privatized prime urban land belonging to the Ministry of Defense, bulldozed residences built on it by civilians with contested land claims, and then allocated plots to members of the cabinet and other key regime figures. The incident was significant because it was one of the first cases of the willingness of the newly elevated political class to use their political power to enrich themselves at the expense of ordinary citizens. The UN Rapporteur highlighted the case as an example of violation of right to shelter. However, the land grab went ahead and the incident set the tone for the predatory behavior of regime insiders.27 The Afghan authorities also turned out to be highly reluctant to proceed with “transitional justice,” or the accounting for the massive legacy of gross human rights violations during the previous phases of the conflict. The president adopted as policy a rather pragmatic action plan for acknowledgment of victims, “truth-telling,” vetting, and building the capacity to prosecute the worst offenders. However, in reality the government ensured that there was minimal progress on even this modest program. This was another area in which patrimonial politics triumphed, as regime insiders received impunity in response for loyalty.28 Women’s progress was also highly circumscribed by the persistent conservatism and archaic practices of society at large and the unwillingness of the new Afghan authorities to enforce women’s civil and political rights. Although there was no clear basis for the category of “moral crimes,” these were the main basis for detention of women. The legal and judicial systems helped enforce the most conservative available interpretation of the obligation of women to observe modesty and protect family honor.29

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Despite the initial rhetoric about the new order being founded on ideas of human rights, Afghan security agencies over time adopted many of the abusive practices of their predecessors in the Taliban and Communist periods. Detainees held by the government under accusations of involvement in terrorism or other aspects of the conflict are subject to multiple forms of abuse. They routinely face violations of due process, in that they are held without charge or scrutiny for protracted periods and when they do go to trial they can be convicted with no evidence other than a forced confession and with no access to a defense lawyer. Under interrogation and while being pressured to confess, detainees are subject to beatings, hanging from the wall, electric shocks, hooding, and mutilation of the genitals. The counterterror effort rests upon a detention system in which torture is systemic. This situation prevails in both of the main Afghan agencies with responsibility for counterterrorism, the national police and the National Department of Security (NDS).30 The prevalence of torture has constrained NATO forces from cooperating with the Afghan authorities.31 International military forces conducting the counterterrorism and counterinsurgency campaigns continued throughout the decade to be implicated in human rights abuses. In the earliest stages of the campaign, in 2001 and 2002, there were a series of incidents of failure of targeting, probably caused by use of manipulated intelligence, which led to the killing of civilians. In the final stage of the military campaign, as the United States increased the tempo of Special Forces raids, there was another increase in the number of reported incidents of commandos killing civilians who could not have been considered legitimate targets.32 As US forces were subject to US rather than Afghan law, most of these incidents passed without any adequate formal investigation and a degree of impunity prevailed. Even where victims were not actually killed, the dependence of the military campaign on house searches became increasingly controversial, not least because the sanctity of the home had been one of the earliest rights guaranteed by Afghan constitutions. Finally, the protracted involvement of US forces in holding militant suspects and directly administering a detention system meant that they had to struggle with the challenges of protection of detainees from abuse and ensuring some degree of due process. These issues became major irritants between the US and Afghan teams trying to finalize the conditions of post2014 security cooperation.33

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Regional Relations The war on terror created the conditions for the transformation of Afghanistan’s regional relations. Only three countries, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, had recognized the Taliban administration, and of these, only Pakistan still had a functional diplomatic relationship with Afghanistan by the end of the Taliban’s rule. Afghanistan’s diplomatic isolation was further complicated by the fact that the opposition to the Taliban, the rump of the “Islamic State” headed by Burhanuddin Rabbani, continued to occupy the country’s UN mission and other embassies. The 2001 intervention broke this isolation and allowed Afghanistan to revive normal relations with all regional countries. Under the Taliban, Pakistan had briefly enjoyed a monopoly of dealings with Afghanistan. However, this was decisively broken with the establishment of the post-Taliban government. Afghanistan moved quickly to engage with all countries in the neighborhood, including Iran, India, China, the Central Asian republics, and Pakistan itself. Indeed, at the international level from late 2001, countries seemed to vie with each other to associate with the post-Taliban government. Counterterrorism was at the heart of the initial transformation in Afghanistan’s regional relations. Militant groups involved in armed struggle against a range of regional powers had found sanctuary in Taliban Afghanistan. The post-2001 Afghan government’s determination to exclude those groups meant that the regional powers had a real stake in its success. Thus, in its regional relations Afghanistan enjoyed a deus ex machina effect in the form of release from international isolation. Going beyond the restoration of bilateral relations, the Kabul government sought agreement at the regional level on cooperation and noninterference. The first formal version of this came in the “Kabul Declaration on Good Neighborly Relations,” December 2002. The Kabul government and its international allies tried to develop an economic basis for regional cooperation, by exploiting Afghanistan’s potential as a land bridge between Central, Western, and South Asia. There was a long list of issues with a significant regional dimension—narcotics, migration, trade, pipelines, investment, and communications. Afghanistan also associated with the main regional groupings to its south and north, by joining the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and attending meetings of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. UN and

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government of Afghanistan aid coordination also provided opportunities for regional cooperation on Afghan reconstruction as all neighboring countries became donors. The sustained regional diplomatic initiative was an attempt to break the pattern of the pre-2001 conflict. This had involved intense regional competition, with neighboring countries supporting rival parties and warlords and seeking zones of influence within Afghanistan. Most recently, in the conflict running up to 2001, India, Iran, Russia, and Tajikistan had backed the Northern Alliance, while Pakistan had backed the Taliban. The new Afghan leadership was convinced that the shift to a pattern of regional cooperation was the key to a lasting solution to the country’s internal conflict. In reality, diplomatic and economic initiatives proved inadequate tools for halting the regional competition on and in Afghanistan. Although the war on terror had helped place a government in Kabul that all powers wanted to be friends with, it also generated new tensions. These spurred the regional actors to complex, multilayered strategies, combining cultivation of Afghan proxies and covert action with their official, overt stance of cooperation. Afghanistan’s own strategy was also multilayered and involved an element of leveraging relations with the competing neighbors. The war on terror marked an unprecedented US military presence on the boundary of South and Central Asia. The security establishments of regional powers that had previously vied for influence in Afghanistan were not persuaded that a Pax Americana would secure their interests. Iran openly condemned the NATO troop presence as a source of instability and set about cultivating influence in the presidential office, the political class more generally, and even within the Taliban. Pakistan’s own relationship with the United States obliged it to be more circumspect in official statements. However, its security establishment clearly considered the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan a potential threat. Perhaps even more sensitive than the US military presence was the greatly expanded Indian role in post-2001 Afghanistan. India became a major donor, assumed a minor role in training of ANSF, and cultivated links with Afghan political figures, especially former mujahidin and faction leaders who had been estranged from Pakistan. Many in the Pakistani security establishment interpreted this as an Indian strategy of encirclement. The most controversial aspect of regional relations under the war on terror was the issue of regional sup-

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port to the Afghan insurgency. Periodically, Afghan officials accused Pakistan of pursuing an undeclared strategy of support to the Taliban’s armed campaign. Insurgent attacks on Indian diplomatic and aid personnel were widely interpreted as Pakistani covert attempts to check the expansion of Indian influence. In the face of these mutual suspicions, the Afghan strategy for leveraging its regional relations has been to insist on its right to build relations with all parties. It has tried to strengthen its hand in dealing with Pakistan by signing a strategic partnership with India. It has even tried to strengthen its hand in dealing with its main security provider, the United States, by signing a cooperation agreement with Iran and even by accepting small amounts of military assistance from Russia. The game-play element of Afghan regional political practice has been highly reminiscent of historical experience and the two and a half centuries of Afghan elite attempts to leverage the interest of French, Persians, Russians, British, and Germans in their country.

Conclusion The US military spent $217 billion on Operation Enduring Freedom, its operations for Afghanistan, between 2001 and mid-2010. In return, al-Qaeda lost the state-sponsored haven that it had exploited in Taliban-run Afghanistan and found itself under pressure in its fallback location of Pakistan. But security for the Afghan population remained elusive as Taliban fighters sustained a significant level of violence despite the counterinsurgency campaign. Furthermore, the broader effects of the military intervention and accompanying political reconstruction and civilian assistance fell far short of the hoped for deus ex machina–style transformation. In place of the Taliban’s authoritarian style of government, the United States and its allies supported an experiment in Afghan democracy. But after a decade it was clear that the system was highly flawed, plagued by disputed elections, endemic corruption, and dysfunctional institutions. In the domain of social development, the decade of investment still left Afghanistan as one of the poorest countries in the world. Afghan social indicators remained closer to those of countries in sub-Saharan Africa than to South Asia. There was a significant increase in economic activity, although many doubts remained as to whether this would prove sustainable beyond

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the planned US troop withdrawal. In the area of rights, Afghans after the Taliban enjoyed a sort of chaotic freedom with some of the hallmarks of a plural society, such as vibrant mass media. However, the government’s inability to assure protection from grievous abuses such as torture meant that in this domain too Afghanistan under the war on terror did not make a decisive break from its past. In its regional relations, Afghanistan officially restored cordial relations with all neighbors but found itself again locked in intense regional competition and a new round of proxy warfare. The way in which the deus ex machina fell most short of a true transformation was in sustainability. After a decade in which the war on terror had been the central fact in public life, Afghans were aware that their gains were reversible as the US intervention was wound down. There were concerns over the willingness of the national leadership to take responsibility for security, over the sustainability of public finance and overall levels of economic activity, and even over the future of legitimacy and stability of the political order. The failure to achieve social, economic, and political transformation was first and foremost a failure of Afghan political leadership to seize a historic opportunity. However, this failure of Afghan politics was rooted in the context of the international intervention and the way in which the war on terror played out in the country. Much has been written about the inherent limitation of external intervention as a route for achieving societal transformation.34 In Afghanistan the challenge was complicated by the fact that the international intervention was a counterterror operation writ large and only secondarily concerned with the welfare of the Afghan population. These “counterterror effects” on the way that intervention worked were responsible for some of the critical compromises that neutralized the deus ex machina effects. The early tension between pursuit of terrorists and pursuing an inclusive political strategy generated grievances that were subsequently exploited by insurgents and led to the empowerment of malign actors within the new Afghan government and security sector. On multiple levels, Afghan officials and associates of the new regime exploited the notion that they were critical to this struggle against terrorism. This sense that the counterterror imperative constituted a vital national security interest induced the United States to subsidize and prop up a flawed Afghan administration far longer than could have been imagined in almost any other circumstances. This prop effectively protected Afghanistan’s new

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rulers from any real accountability to their population. The security umbrella for Afghanistan’s new democracy helped distort its checks and balances. The counterterror intervention held up a promise of societal transformation but then empowered those who lacked any such vision. Afghans were condemned to relive the old lesson that a combination of forces that can achieve regime change may prove wholly inadequate for establishing a just new order.

Notes 1. For an insider account of the rise of the movement, see Zaeef, My Life with the Taliban. 2. Linschoten, An Enemy We Created. 3. The UN sanctions regime was established in 1999 through Resolution 1267 and expanded by UN Security Council Resolution 1333 in 2000. 4. Khan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. 5. Zaeef, My Life with the Taliban. 6. Rashid, Descent into Chaos. 7. Masadykov, Negotiating with the Taliban. 8. McCrystal, COMISAF’s Initial Assessment. 9. The ANSO Quarterly Data Report Q3 2012 shows a 28 percent reduction in violence by all actors in the third quarter 2012. This continued a trend established early in the year for violence to fall to levels that had prevailed at the start of the surge. As international military operations eased off, insurgents reduced their own activity levels. The nature of the resulting stalemate is much debated. See Farrell, “A Good War Gone Wrong”; Cordesman, Afghanistan and the Uncertain Metrics of Progress; and Dorronsoro, The Taliban’s Winning Strategy. 10. Gopal, Militancy and Conflict in Kandahar. 11. Lefevre, Local Defence in Afghanistan. 12. Gopal, Militancy and Conflict in Kandahar. 13. Human Rights Watch, “Afghanistan: Appoint Rights-Respecting Intelligence Chief,” August 31, 2012, http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/08/31 /afghanistan-appoint-rights-respecting-intelligence-chief. 14. Aikins, “Our Man in Kandahar.” 15. Aikins, “Disappearing Ink: Afghanistan’s Sham Democracy.” 16. Coburn, Undermining Representative Government. 17. For example, Rashid, Descent into Chaos. 18. Giustozzi, “Dilemmas of Governance in Afghanistan.” 19. Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2010. 20. Jeffrey E. Stern, “Karzai’s Stealth Bid to Fix the Elections,” Foreign Policy, December 18, 2012.

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21. World Bank, Afghanistan: State-Building, Sustaining Growth and Reducing Poverty. 22. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 191. 23. World Bank, Transition in Afghanistan. 24. Figures are taken from United Nations Development Programme, Afghanistan National Human Development Report 2004, Human Development Report 2002, and Human Development Report 2011. 25. Figures quoted for postintervention levels are from the 2011 UNDP Human Development Report. However demographic indicators have become part of the controversy over the extent of progress in Afghanistan. The USAID-supported 2010 Mortality Survey, published in late 2011, produced the most optimistic set of indicators yet. These included 38 percent of births attended, under age five mortality at 97 per 1,000, pregnancy-related mortality at 372 per 100,000, and total fertility rate at 5.0, all significantly better than estimates previously used. There is a continuing debate on whether the 2010 survey reflects real improvements, lack of baselines, or persistent difficulty of obtaining accurate indicators. 26. “The Afghan constitution is the most modern and democratic in the Muslim world” (Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 217). 27. United Nations, Press Release. 28. Clark, No Shortcut to Stability. 29. United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Still a Long Way to Go: Implementation of the Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women in Afghanistan, Kabul, December 2012. 30. The October 2011 report on conflict-related detainee conditions is based on the most extensive survey yet conducted of Afghans who have been held by the NDS and national police in terrorism-related cases. Over an eleven-month period, UNAMA/OHCHR interviewed 273 NDS detainees and found that 46 percent had been tortured (UNAMA, Treatment of Conflict-Related Detainees in Afghan Custody). 31. Sari Kouvo, Transfers and Torture: The British Army Halts Transfers of Detainees to the NDS, December 11, 2012, http://aan-afghanistan .com/index.asp?id=3150. 32. Clark, The Takhar Attack. 33. Open Society Foundations, Confinement Conditions at a US Screening Facility at Bagram Airbase. 34. Stewart, Can Intervention Work?

5 Pakistan: Perfidious Ally in the War on Terror C. Christine Fair

By any metric, after more than a decade of the war on terror,

Pakistan is less safe than it was on September 10, 2001. Despite Pakistan’s historic contributions to the US-led war effort in Afghanistan and its assistance in apprehending al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, its continued reliance upon the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, among others, has placed Pakistan at increasing odds with the international community, which has come to see Pakistan as both the firefighter and the arsonist.1 Similarly, notwithstanding the US-Pakistan alliance and the large investments made by the United States in Pakistan, Pakistanis are more anti-American than ever before.2 Even though the United States has provided crucial weapon systems to Pakistan (thus improving Pakistan’s chances in a war against India), even the Pakistani military is deeply anti-American. The military and intelligence cooperation that has undergirded this relationship—howsoever fraught from the outset—is now in tatters. The future of the US-Pakistan relationship is uncertain, with observers in both countries wondering whether their counterpart is a treacherous friend or an outright foe. Neither US nor Pakistani officials and elites would have predicted that twelve years after 9/11, Pakistan would be worse off, or that the bilateral relationship between the two countries would be just as challenging as it was before ties were restored in September 2001. In this chapter I seek to trace the arc of Pakistan’s dangerous descent

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over the last decade and the implications of that descent for US interests, regional security, and, equally important, prospects for security and peace within Pakistan. The chapter is organized as follows. First, I recap the important policy decisions regarding India and Pakistan prior to 9/11, as well as critical US decisions in the early years of the war on terror. Second, I discuss several missteps in the wake of 9/11 that shaped the future possibilities for stability in the region. I argue that early decisions by the United States changed the Pakistani calculus in ways that Washington either never considered or did not take seriously. Third, I discuss the historical antecedents of Pakistan’s current crisis in terms of Pakistan’s long-standing reliance upon Islamist militancy in Afghanistan and India. As Pakistan moved from being a covert nuclear power (1979–1998) to an overt one (1998), it became more emboldened in its use of such proxies. Fourth and finally, I discuss Pakistan’s regional calculus as the United States considers its endgame in Afghanistan.

The Antecedents of the US “War on Terror”: US Policies Toward South Asia The events of September 11, 2001, occurred amid an historic realignment of US interests in South Asia. President Bill Clinton concluded that India was an important rising power and put considerable effort into trying to forge a US-India rapprochement. In 1997, his administration launched a strategic dialogue that was meant to culminate in a presidential visit to India in the spring of 1998. However, due to India’s nuclear test, this planned presidential visit did not take place until March 2000. The March 1998 electoral victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which, under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had run on a national security platform, promising to make India a nuclear power, added another layer of complexity to IndoAmerican relations. Reflecting Clinton’s personal belief in the importance of USIndia relations, Clinton telephoned Vajpayee on March 20, 1998 (the second day of the BJP administration), and proposed “a relationship for the twenty-first century.” Aware of the BJP’s electoral pledges, Clinton reportedly asked for restraint with respect to nuclear testing and explained that “my man, Bill Richardson” (the US ambassador to

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the UN) would come to Delhi to discuss the matter. Richardson asked Vajpayee for a “strategic pause” in testing. Vajpayee reassured Richardson that New Delhi planned to conduct a “strategic review” and set up a national security council before a decision on nuclear testing was made. According to US officials, Vajpayee told Richardson that there was no need to worry.3 The Indian home minister L. K. Advani similarly soothed Richardson by explaining that the BJP knew the difference between “campaign rhetoric and the pragmatic demands of governing.”4 Richardson stressed Indian restraint in the face of Pakistan’s provocative test of the medium-range Ghauri missile. In private, Richardson reportedly urged Jaswant Singh, India’s foreign minister, as follows: “For God’s sake, let’s not do anything to screw up the president’s visit [planned later that spring].” Singh reassured him that there was no cause for concern.5 Officials from the Department of State, Department of Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that I interviewed in the spring of 1999 held the view that the BJP government had deliberately misled the United States.6 On April 10, 1998, Vajpayee formed a three-person task force to begin a comprehensive strategic review—one of his campaign pledges. They were tasked with determining how to establish a National Security Council and with conducting a strategic defense review, another electoral promise of the BJP. Observers fretting about a new round of tests reassured themselves that Vajpayee would not act without a strategic defense review. They were further comforted by the fact that in India such a review could take years. Thus, many believed the official Indian statements and concluded that Vajpayee was trying to create an exit strategy that would allow him to move away from the nuclear position of the hard-line members of the BJP toward a more moderate wing focused on strengthening the Indian economy and engaging the international community. As is well known, this was subterfuge. India indeed tested in May 1998, motivating Pakistan to do the same a few weeks later. Despite the confusion, disbelief, and embarrassment that permeated the Clinton administration after the tests, Clinton launched a sustained strategic dialogue with India, led by Strobe Talbott, US deputy secretary of state, and Foreign Minister Singh. The two met nearly one dozen times in the year and a half following the 1998 blasts. As time has shown, these numerous rounds of bilateral meetings enabled the

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BJP to fashion a new foreign policy for India that jettisoned its nonaligned status and embraced the notion of a strategic relationship with the United States. Such a relationship began to take shape under the Clinton administration, beginning with the president’s visit to India in March 2000. The contours of this détente, which arose in great measure from the Talbott-Singh talks, were laid out in the Joint India-US Statement co-signed by Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Clinton, titled “India-US Relations: A Vision for the 21st Century.”7 In this document, both leaders proclaimed that in the new century, India and the United States would be partners in peace, with a common interest in and complementary responsibility for ensuring regional and international security. They promised to engage in regular consultations on, and work together for, strategic stability in Asia and beyond; bolster joint efforts to counter terrorism and meet other challenges to regional peace; strengthen the international security system, including in the United Nations; and support the United Nations in its peacekeeping efforts.8 But given President Clinton’s continuing commitment to nonproliferation, there were real limits as to how far the United States could pursue strengthened ties with India. The advent of the George W. Bush administration, with its initial enthusiasm for reconsidering well-worn US positions on international commitments (e.g., the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty), presented greater opportunities for robust relations between the two states. President Bush, recognizing India’s strategic value, was quick to woo India early in his presidency. The Bush administration was eager to gain India’s support for a US plan to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and seek a space-based defense system. India, in muted but clear words, expressed support for this position and its tremendous satisfaction that President Bush viewed India as a “to-call” state. India’s support was a notable departure from its historical stance on this and related issues and, in my opinion, signaled a willingness to explore new nuclear regimes of which India could be a founding member. In short, the Indo-US strategic relationship, particularly after the events of 9/11, has grown in depth and breadth at a pace that few India watchers would have imagined possible before 9/11. Ashley J. Tellis was one of the intellectual architects of this new relationship. While at the RAND Corporation, Tellis contributed to a

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2000 document offering policy guidance for the incoming Bush administration.9 Tellis argued for a South Asia policy that delinked America’s relations with India from its relations with Pakistan. Such a policy would have three distinct features. First, US calculations would systemically decouple India and Pakistan—that is, US policies as regards each state would be governed by an objective assessment of the intrinsic value of each country to US interests, rather than by fears about how US relations with one would affect relations with the other. Second, the United States would recognize that India is on its way to becoming a major Asian power of some consequence and, therefore, that it warrants a level of engagement far greater than was the norm earlier, as well as an appreciation of its potential for both collaboration and resistance across a much larger canvas than simply South Asia. Third, the United States would recognize that Pakistan is a country in serious crisis and that it must, among other things, reach out to Pakistani society in addition to the Pakistani state to achieve a “soft landing” that dampens the currently disturbing social and economic trends. The new administration embraced this concept: when Ambassador Robert Blackwell was appointed as the US envoy to New Delhi, he selected Tellis as his adviser. Throughout the summer of 2001, the United States vigorously pursued the policy of “dehyphenation”—an end to the US pursuit of a policy toward India that linked such a policy to US policy toward Pakistan thus treating both states as equals. To promote better US-Indian military ties, the United States decided to formally remove the Glenn-Symington Amendment Sanctions imposed upon India to punish it for its nuclear tests of 1998. The same interagency process also reviewed the status of similar sanctions on Pakistan. By 2001 Pakistan was burdened by multiple layers of sanctions: the Pressler Amendment Sanctions, the GlennSymington Sanctions, and those imposed following violations of the Missile Technology Control Regime and General Pervez Musharraf’s coup in 1999. The interagency review concluded that it would be appropriate to lift Glenn-Symington Sanctions from Pakistan as well, in recognition that it was India that commenced the reciprocal nuclear tests of 1998 and that Pakistan would not have tested had India not done so. Moreover, removing Glenn-Symington would only be of symbolic impact due to the layers of redundant sanctions on Pakistan. These policy shifts were going to be announced at the UN Gen-

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eral Assembly meeting on September 13, 2001. That meeting was postponed due to the terror attacks on New York and Washington, DC, on September 11, 2001.10

Early Missteps in the Wake of 9/11 After the events of 9/11, the United States presented Pakistan with a clear ultimatum. As the United States unfolded its war plans for Afghanistan, Pakistan could either be with America or against it.11 That military operation, Operation Enduring Freedom, commenced on October 7, 2001. Many US officials signaled at least implied support for three assurances demanded by Pakistan in return for its support for Operation Enduring Freedom. But within a few years of Pakistan’s decision—however forced—to provide its support, the United States had reneged on all three promises.12 First, Pakistan wanted assurances that the Northern Alliance, the only militia that had successfully countered the Taliban, would not take Kabul. But the United States, which had only a few hundred Special Operations personnel in the country at the time, could not prevent the Northern Alliance from seizing Kabul. This was extremely disconcerting for Pakistan; the dominance of the Northern Alliance triggered fears that the Taliban’s overthrow would not be to Pakistan’s advantage. After all, the Taliban was Pakistan’s erstwhile ally and, with Pakistan’s support, had been able to seize nearly all of Afghan territory (with the exception of the Panjshir Valley, which was held by the Northern Alliance). Critically, India—along with Iran, Russia, and Uzbekistan—provided overt support to the Northern Alliance. This assistance included a military adviser, with the rank of a brigadier of the Indian Army, posted in Uzbekistan. The aviation unit of India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), helped the Northern Alliance maintain its helicopter fleet. And when Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Masood was attacked by an al-Qaeda suicide bomber on September 9, 2001, he was taken to an Indian field hospital across the border in Uzbekistan. Unfortunately, the United States did not fully understand that Pakistan viewed the Northern Alliance as India’s proxy. With the Northern Alliance’s seizure of Kabul in December of 2001, Islamabad saw the keys of the city being placed in the hands of India. To

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make matters worse, under the US–North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) security umbrella, India was able to expand its presence throughout Afghanistan’s Pashtun belt in the south and east of Afghanistan—territories of great strategic importance to Pakistan.13 Second, Pakistan expected the United States to take a more proactive stance in resolving the ongoing dispute between India and Pakistan over the disposition of Kashmir. For Pakistan, partition of British India is inherently incomplete as long as the bulk of the Muslim-majority state of Kashmir remains in Indian hands, leaving Pakistan’s foundational—though long battered—Two Nations theory unrealized. (For India, partition is now complete, and thus India seeks to ratify the status quo.) Secretary of State Colin Powell in particular took a keen interest in the Kashmir dispute and made several trips to the region. In hindsight, his optimism was unfounded, as these efforts were never likely to bear fruit.14 Despite Secretary Powell’s personal interest in the issue, the United States had virtually abandoned the pledge by mid-2002. Since then, the United States has shown remarkable quiescence in the face of India’s mounting disregard for the disaffection of its citizens in Kashmir15 and the significant discrimination faced by Indian Muslims outside of Kashmir.16 Third, Pakistan expected and the United States agreed that its “strategic assets” (nuclear weapons and delivery systems) would remain intact. While this assurance was technically honored, it was greatly eroded by the 2005 Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. This deal was bomb-friendly and was a part of the ongoing US efforts to help India become a global power, including military assistance, missile cooperation, and other forms of military and civilian technical cooperation. This support was a part of the Bush administration’s strategy of managing China’s uncertain rise by encouraging India to do what it could do in pursuit of its own strategic interests.17 It would be impossible for any decisionmaker in Islamabad not to realize that although Islamabad was rewarded handsomely for supporting US activities, Pakistan’s strategic interests were greatly degraded by the global war on terror. By 2004, Pakistan had already concluded that the emergent leadership in Afghanistan would welcome India’s expanding presence and was likely to be hostile to Pakistan. Indeed, Afghans are deeply suspicious of Pakistan because of its largely negative influence on stability and on quality of life for average Afghans. Pakistan for its part tends to be ignorant of this feeling, noting the “hospitality” extended to Afghans when they

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sought refuge in Pakistan during the anti-Soviet jihad. While Afghans acknowledge this, they also note that they were looked down on and subjected to abuse by Pakistanis who saw these refugees as coming to Pakistan “to clean Pakistanis’ shoes” (referencing the large numbers of Afghan males who could be found in Pakistan’s cities eking out a meager living polishing shoes). In short, a dehyphenated policy, under which Washington managed relations with India and Pakistan without regard to their bilateral issues, had an obvious logical appeal that has been consistently undermined by the fact of Indo-Pakistan security competition. Simply put, dehyphenation in practice is and will remain nearly impossible because both India and Pakistan continue to see relations with the United States as a zero-sum game vis-à-vis each other. Furthermore, this perspective obviously affects how India views its interests in Afghanistan. The limitations of a policy of dehyphenating US relations with India and Pakistan are most starkly clear when one considers US military endeavors to stabilize Afghanistan. US efforts, centered on the war in Afghanistan, to forge and sustain a tactical relationship with Pakistan at whatever price have irked India. Calls made by prominent US commentators and analysts to encourage India to expand its role in stabilizing and rehabilitating Afghanistan have similarly vexed Islamabad, which demands the opposite.18 Both states are verging on a proxy war at Afghanistan’s expense, as both seek to deny the other access to the country. Perhaps among the most visible signs of this proxy war are the two attacks on India’s embassy in Kabul by militants tied to Pakistan in 2009 and 2010.19

Pakistan’s Slow but Certain Descent into Violence Pakistan has used Islamism and Islamist militants to shape events in Afghanistan since 1960.20 Pakistan has also used Islamist militancy in Indian-administered Kashmir since the early days of independence. While Pakistan’s efforts in this line were modest until 1989, in that year its involvement deepened profoundly. Pakistan’s opening was provided by the nascent Kashmir insurgency, which developed indigenously in response to India’s mismanagement of the state. Several genuinely Kashmiri militant groups emerged, some of which enjoyed Pakistani support. Yet when some

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indigenous groups began espousing independence rather than union with Pakistan, and when several turned from violence toward political activism, a new coterie of Pakistan- and Afghanistan-based groups, introduced under the expanding Pakistani nuclear umbrella, began to compete directly with older, more ethnically Kashmiri groups. Many indigenous proindependence insurgents were eliminated by Pakistan-based groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Harkat-ul-Mujahidin, and Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami. By the mid-1990s, the conflict in Kashmir had been taken over by several Pakistan-based militant groups, which were implementing Islamabad’s agenda of wresting Kashmir from India. At present, only one set of militant groups is largely Kashmiri in ethnicity (Hizb-ulMujahidin and related factions such as al-Badr). All other groups are dominated by Punjabis and Pashtuns from Pakistan.21 While these militant groups have long served Pakistan’s strategic interests, they are also to a large extent the root of Pakistan’s current internal security problem. Pakistan’s Evolving Militant Networks Prior to September 11, and the US-mandated changes in Pakistani policy that followed it, Pakistan’s militant landscape could be meaningfully parsed by sectarian orientation, theater of operation, and ethnicity.22 For example, there were militant groups (askari tanzeems) that traditionally focused on Kashmir, including the Deobandi groups (Deobandism is one interpretative tradition within Sunni Islam) Jaish-I-Muhammad (JM) and Harkat-ul-Ansar/Harkat-ul-Mujahidin (HuA/HuM); and Ahl-e-Hadith (Ahl-e-Hadith is another interpretative tradition within Sunni Islam) organizations such as the Punjabbased LeT.23 While these outfits are often referred to as “Kashmiri groups,” this is a misnomer because they include few ethnic Kashmiris among their ranks and most do not operate exclusively in Kashmir. Indeed, LeT and JM have long operated throughout India, and in recent years Deobandi groups have begun operating in Pakistan. LeT and several Deobandi militant groups have also been operating in Afghanistan against US, NATO, and Afghan forces.24 In contrast, some Kashmiri groups operating under the influence of the Islamist political party Jamaat-I-Islami (JI), such as al-Badr and Hizb-ulMujahidin, are composed of ethnic Kashmiris and have retained a focus on Kashmir.

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Other askari tanzeems (paramilitary organizations) have traditionally been sectarian in nature, including the anti-Shia Lashkar-eJhangvi (LeJ) and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).25 Both these groups are under the sway of the Deobandi organization Jamiat-eUlema Islam (JUI) and receive funding from wealthy Arab individuals and organizations. Notably, these sectarian tanzeems have overlapping membership with other Deobandi militant groups, including the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, all of which have strong connections to the JUI.26 In addition, Shia sectarian groups, once lethally active although now largely defunct, targeted Sunni Muslims and obtained funding from Iran. Since 2004 and possibly before, Pakistan has witnessed the development of a cluster of militant groups, labeling themselves “Pakistani Taliban,” that have successfully established regimes based on sharia (Islamic law) across large swathes of the Pashtun belt. Despite recent media coverage characterizing the Tehreek-e-Taliban-ePakistan (TTP) in monolithic terms, analysts do not believe that the TTP has command and control of these groups.27 The media often describe the TTP as an umbrella organization for nearly all antiPakistan Islamist militants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) as well as in key settled Pashtun areas such as Swat, Upper and Lower Dir, Buner, and Peshawar.28 However, Rahimullah Yusufzai, a leading Pakistani journalist and expert on the TTP, dismisses these assertions and contends that the organization is hardly coherent, much less disciplined.29 Officially the TTP came into being in late 2007, when several Pakistani militant commanders, led by Baitullah Mehsud, announced that they were operating under the banner of the Tehreek-e-Talibane-Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban Movement). Most of Mehsud’s many allies sought to establish various degrees of sharia within their personal areas of operations within the Pashtun belt. In late February 2008, two dissident commanders, Mullah Nazir and Hafiz Gul Bahadur, temporarily set aside their differences with Mehsud and forged the Shura Ittehad-ul-Mujahidin. The alliance was short-lived, however, and collapsed almost as soon as it was announced.30 Following Baitullah Mehsud’s death in a US drone strike in August 2009, TTP leadership announced that Hakimullah Mehsud would succeed him.31 Under the leadership of Hakimullah, the TTP has been surprisingly coherent and has actually intensified its suicide campaign against Pakistani security and intelligence agencies.32 (Sev-

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eral reports, however, some as recent as January 2012, suggest that Hakimullah Mehsud may be dead.33 These reports coincide with others concerning the TTP’s potential fragmentation.34) Likewise, TTP campaigns against civilian targets have become more vicious, singling out Shia and Ahmedis, who are respectively considered munafiqueen (hypocrites who spread discord in the community) and murtad (apostates whose killing is condoned). Important Sufi shrines have also not been spared.35 This development no doubt reflects Hakimullah’s long-term association with the sectarian terrorist group, SSP. Several militant commanders rose to prominence prior to the official consolidation of the TTP, thereby providing the necessary conditions for the formalization of the TTP network. Nek Mohammad Wazir (from the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe in Wana, South Waziristan) was perhaps the first Pakistani militant to achieve some degree of distinction. Although the so-called Talibanization of the tribal areas was initially limited to North and South Waziristan, the phenomenon next spread to Bajaur. Pakistani Taliban surfaced in areas that had previously been free of such activity, including Mohmand, Orakzai, and Kurram agencies.36 The Pakistan Taliban also emerged in the frontier areas of Bannu, Tank, Kohat, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, and Swat. Throughout the summer of 2007, the Frontier Corps and the Frontier Constabulary battled Pakistani militants associated with the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), which seized the Swat valley in late October.37 Militant groups under various local leaders have effectively exploited socioeconomic grievances (such as the failure of the state to provide services, including rule of law and access to justice) and frustration with the corrupt colonial-era governance structures in place in the FATA. The Pakistani Taliban in Swat reportedly pursued a system of redistributive justice, seizing the land of wealthy landowners and rewarding landless peasants who signed up to support the group.38 Similarly, militant commanders in the FATA have pressured political agents to provide services without demanding a bribe. They have established a functional—albeit draconian—police system and process of dispute resolution. The much-maligned qazi court system (courts run by qazis, or Islamist jurists) established in Swat required the addition of new qazis should their case load exceed 150 cases. No such provision exists for the mainstream judicial system. The Pakistan Taliban also established offices to solemnize love

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marriages. This measure appeals to youth who resent forced marriages and it reduces the high economic barrier to marriage created by bride prices.39 In April 2009, news reports proclaimed the arrival of the “Punjabi Taliban,” referring to the various militant groups ensconced in the Punjab, the most populated province in Pakistan. Despite its ostensibly recent coinage, the term “Punjabi Taliban” has a long and complex history.40 Since 2009, however, it has acquired significant political importance. Many Pashtuns support the use of the term to emphasize that Pakistan’s insurgency is not entirely “Pashtun” in essence. However, many Punjabis reject the term for the same reason, as some Punjabis prefer to attribute the violence to the “Pashtun other,” often characterized in stereotypical terms as “uncivilized,” “warlike,” and “violent.”41 In reality, the movement comprises both Pashtuns and Punjabis, as well as foreign elements. Pakistan’s political leaders have sought to exploit the controversy surrounding the “Punjabi Taliban” for political gain. Leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) object to the term, in part because of the PML-N’s ongoing support, driven by electoral considerations, for groups such as SSP and LeJ. The Punjab chief minister of the PML-N, Shahbaz Sharif, accused Interior Minister Rahman Malik of using the terms “Punjabi Taliban” and “Punjabi terrorist” to foment conflict between provinces—a tactic he argued was tantamount to a condemnation of the people of Punjab.42 While it is tempting to view the Punjab as a new theater or even as a future locus of Talibanization, militancy across Pakistan in fact is interrelated. Punjab-based groups such as the Deobandi LeJ and JM are components of the TTP and conduct attacks on its behalf. In fact, the so-called Punjabi Taliban groups form the backbone of the TTP and have played an important role in attacking Sufi, Shia, Ahmedi, and other civilian targets, particularly in the Punjab.43 In addition to these Pakistani groups, Pakistan also hosts elements of the Afghan Taliban, with shuras (leadership councils) in Quetta, Peshawar, and Karachi.44 The Afghan Taliban remains focused on ousting foreign forces in Afghanistan, overthrowing the Hamid Karzai regime, and reclaiming a role in governing Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda, whose operatives are known to reside in North and South Waziristan, Bajaur, and other areas in the Pashtun belt, also uses Pakistani territory. In addition, many al-Qaeda operatives (such as Abu Zubaidah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed) have

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been arrested in Pakistani cities.45 US commandos in a raid in Abbotabad in Punjab killed bin Laden himself in May 2011. Since late 2001 and 2002, many of Pakistan’s militant groups— particularly those with a Deobandi background—have either splintered or changed their targets and tactics. Many Deobandi groups are tightly allied to the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban organizations and are increasingly aiming their attacks at the Pakistani state, even though some elements within these groups continue to enjoy state support (both formal and informal). Their targets have included former president Musharraf, as well as other high-profile military and civilian leaders. Al-Qaeda leaders, including Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu al-Yazid, also continue to operate and plan attacks from the tribal areas. Recently executed and preempted attacks attest to these linkages (e.g., the foiled 2010 European attack planned in North Waziristan, the disrupted plan to attack US and German targets in 2007, and the preempted trans-Atlantic plot in 2006, as well as the successful July 2005 attack in London). All these conspiracies were sponsored at least in part by militant networks based in Pakistan’s tribal areas.46 The Pakistani people were slow to embrace the government’s counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts. Public opinion surveys in Pakistan conducted in 2007 and even later demonstrate that, in general, Pakistanis overwhelmingly supported peace deals with militants and believed that such efforts would secure peace, despite consistent evidence to the contrary. Equally important, Pakistanis remained opposed to the army’s offensives against Pakistan’s own militants. These trends remained more or less constant until April 2009, when public opinion dramatically shifted after the Taliban reneged on the “sharia-for-peace” deal in Swat and overran Buner. Survey results in May 2009 and July 2009 suggest that the public has become opposed to peace deals and is increasingly supportive of military action.47 Polling by the Pew Research Center in April 2010, however, found some slippage in these numbers, although most Pakistanis remain worried about Islamist extremism.48 Pakistan’s Support for the Militants US policies that seek to compel Pakistan to cease its support for militant groups assume that the country could do so if it mustered the requisite political will. They are also undergirded by the assumption

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that Pakistan could do more to counter the various groups it currently supports. It is far from obvious that any combination of carrots and sticks can induce Pakistan to muster such will, and even if it did it is doubtful that Pakistan could reverse the course of militancy after decades of nurturing violent extremism. In this section, I advance several propositions about the degree of state support for various groups and assess the state’s ability to control or counter them. This assessment draws overwhelmingly on my fieldwork in Pakistan (including discussions with military, intelligence, and civilian officials, as well as with journalists and analysts) over several visits since 2000, fieldwork across Afghanistan since 2007, and extensive interactions with US officials over the same period. Pakistan’s intelligence agencies and army tend to sort the country’s militants into a range of groups over which the state exercises varying degrees of control. Pakistan is widely assumed to wield significant influence over the Afghan Taliban, including the North Waziristan–based Haqqani network, holding Taliban leaders’ families hostage in Pakistan to ensure compliance. Since 2001, however, the Afghan Taliban has undergone significant change due to the constant turnover of midlevel commanders.49 New commanders are less beholden to Pakistan in part because of their age: they were children when the ISI was nurturing the Taliban in the mid-1990s. Moreover, the tribal base and ties of the Afghan Taliban are also changing. Thus, Pakistan is struggling to cultivate influence among the evolving Afghan Taliban elements, even while seeking to control elements of Mullah Mohammed Omar’s Quetta Shura, the top leadership council of the organization.50 Islamabad worries that members of the Quetta Shura may seek a separate peace with Afghan president Karzai that does not take Pakistan’s interests into account. Exemplifying its efforts to prevent such an agreement, Pakistan arrested Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Karachi in February 2010 because he was negotiating with Karzai independent of Islamabad.51 US analysts tend to believe that Pakistani intelligence agencies also maintained reasonably tight control over LeT. But LeT has developed proxies in India (principally through the Indian Mujahidin) and logistical bases in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Nepal, among other countries. Some LeT cells within India are partially independent of LeT’s headquarters in Muridke, according to US and Indian officials.52 One important indication of the relation-

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ship between the ISI and LeT is the fact that after the Indian parliament was attacked by JM in 2001, signals traffic indicated that the ISI was angry with JM for launching the attack. In contrast, after the November 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai, significantly less traffic was detected. Such traffic could have been a strategy used by Pakistan to avoid being linked with the 2001 attack. But if Pakistan uses signals traffic as an instrument of perception management it is puzzling that it did not employ this strategy in 2008.53 According to Indian officials who interrogated him after his indictment, David Headley, an American involved in the Mumbai attacks, conceded ISI involvement.54 US officials have not endorsed this claim. But according to some reports, the current director general of the ISI, Shuja Pasha, acknowledged that persons connected to the ISI were involved in the attacks but insisted that the operation was rogue.55 It should be noted that LeT has never attacked foreign or domestic targets within Pakistan and that the literature of the organization remains strongly pro-state.56 The Deobandi groups lie at the other extreme: Pakistan’s ability to control these groups varies, and is tentative at best. The Bahawalpur-based network of Masood Azhar’s JM is perhaps the most tightly leashed of all the Deobandi groups. Pakistani analysts explained to me in July 2010 that the army is keen to continue supporting Azhar because he has remained adamantly pro-Pakistan and has refrained from attacking the state. Azhar demonstrated his prostate bona fides as early as 2001, when he opposed calls from within his organization to attack Western targets in Pakistan, as well as the Pakistani government, and informed the ISI of these conspiracies.57 Pakistani analysts argue that as long as he can maintain the coherence of his following in the Punjab, members of his group are less likely to join the TTP. However, elements of JM have already split from Azhar and launched attacks against foreign and domestic targets in Pakistan. Other, intimately interrelated Deobandi groups, such as the network of commanders under the umbrella of the TTP, are beyond the grasp of the state, as evidenced by their sustained attacks within Pakistan. The military and the ISI have tried to manage this complex web of allied foes by cultivating or aggravating disagreements among commanders. For example, Pakistan cultivated Mullah Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir to counter the anti-state elements of the TTP, particularly Baitullah and Hakimullah Mehsud. 58 Pakistan has also

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tried engaging and placating the militants with various peace deals, while at other times it has sought to defeat them militarily (with varying degrees of determination and success).59 Unfortunately, it is unlikely that Islamabad will have the ability—much less political will—to significantly degrade these groups. Despite its seeming dedication to combating those elements of the TTP that target the state, Pakistan will likely remain unable to eliminate even those actors. This failure is a function both of the overlap in membership between vehemently anti-state organizations and the Deobandi groups that Pakistan still views as assets—JM, the Haqqani Network, and the Afghan Taliban, among others—and of the military’s anticipation of a future battle against India, whether in India or Afghanistan, which makes Islamabad reluctant to fully cut ties with its proxies.

Pakistan’s Endgame in Afghanistan? The unfolding of the war in Afghanistan has witnessed many developments deeply discomfiting to Pakistan, especially its military and intelligence agencies. First and foremost is the growth of Indian influence. There is no doubt that the actual level of “nefarious” Indian activities is far below that alleged by Pakistan. However, there should also be no doubt that the Indians are more involved in Afghanistan than New Delhi claims. India denies doing anything other than development work. However, this “development work” has taken place along the southern borders abutting the sensitive Baluchistan province—which has been a historical theater for Indian interference—as well as the Pashtun areas of FATA and KhyberPakhtunkhawa. Given the intermittent agitation among Pashtuns for various degrees of autonomy, their episodic demands to be reunited with Pashtun territories in Afghanistan, and other anti-state movements, Pakistan fears Indian and Afghan interference in these areas.60 While the Taliban delivered very few tangible achievements to Islamabad in exchange for its support, it was able to ensure that Indian influence was restricted to the Panjsheer area. As the United States begins to assemble its strategy for Afghanistan in the near term, all of Afghanistan’s near and far neighbors are engaging in multiple-level games to discern their own best options. India is considering its own options under a diminishing US

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security umbrella as the United States moves away from large-scale counterinsurgency operations and toward counterterrorism, with a continued focus upon training security forces and on institutional capacity building. Some Indians believe that Afghanistan is a test case: if India cannot shape events in its own backyard, how can it be a genuine regional power—much less a global power? At the other extreme are those who believe that India has few important interests in Afghanistan and that the risk of loss of life and treasure is not justified by any possible gains. Those occupying the middle ground will most likely prevail. These observers argue that Afghanistan is important to Indian interests, that it is a test case for India’s claims to be a regional and extra-regional power, and that India must remain engaged there in order to shape the environment to India’s advantage. However, they argue that India needs to take security issues much more seriously, fortifying Indian missions and protecting its citizens employed in Afghanistan.61 Pakistan, for its part, will resist such moves at all costs. Pakistan’s revisionism no longer centers on the territorial dispute over Kashmir; rather, Pakistan now focuses on resisting Indian claims of hegemony in South Asia. As Afghanistan is a key theater for Indian influence, Pakistan will not abandon its activity there. That said, much has changed since September 11, including the Taliban itself. While Mullah Omar’s Quetta Shura may be loyal to Pakistan (or can be forced to act so by pressuring family members in Pakistan), the newer commanders who fill out the middle and lower ranks thinned by sustained US/NATO raids dislike Pakistan as much as they do the United States. They are not going to be reliable allies. For this reason, the network of Jalalluddin Haqqani (now controlled by his son Siraj) is Pakistan’s most reliable proxy. The Haqqani Network has been behind the most lethal attacks in Afghanistan, including attacks on the Indian and US embassies, among others.62 Because Pakistan’s preeminent concerns in Afghanistan pertain to India’s ascent, Pakistan will seek to undermine any effort at reconciliation that bypasses Islamabad. This is no doubt the motivation behind the assassination of key Northern Alliance leader Burhanuddin Rabbani (for which Western officials hold the Haqqani Network responsible).63 The strategy paid off. In the wake of Rabbani’s death, Afghan president Karzai broke off talks with the Taliban in preference to dealing directly with Pakistan, the force behind the Taliban.64

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All of this suggests that Pakistan has a greater determination to influence events in Afghanistan than the United States or its NATO allies, and that Pakistan will not relent until a political disposition is reached in Afghanistan that maximizes Pakistani influence and minimizes that of India.

Notes This chapter, in places, reproduces some of my previous work “Learning to Think the Unthinkable: Lessons from India’s Nuclear Tests” and “Militant Challenge in Pakistan.” 1. See Don Rassler and Vahid Brown, Haqqani Nexus and the Evolution of al-Qa’ida; Michael Mullen, “Statement Before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Afghanistan and Iraq”; C. Christine Fair, The Counterterror Coalitions: Cooperation with Pakistan and India; among numerous others. 2. Surprisingly, while anti-Americanism has long been high in Pakistan, it did not intensify in the wake of the controversial capture and killing of Osama bin Laden during a unilateral US raid on the Pakistani cantonment town of Abbottabad. See Pew Global Attitudes Project, “U.S. Image in Pakistan Falls No Further Following Bin Laden Killing.” 3. John Barry et al., “Why Only a Bomb Would Do,” Newsweek, October 19, 1998, pp. 24–27. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Fair, “Learning to Think the Unthinkable.” 7. Fair, “Learning to Think the Unthinkable”; Talbott, Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, and the Bomb. 8. “India-US Relations: A Vision for the 21st Century,” India News, March 21, 2000, http://www.indianembassy.org/inews/2000_inews/april _2000.pdf. 9. Tellis, “South Asia: U.S. Policy Choices,” p. 88; also see Tellis, “The Merits of Dehyphenation.” 10. See discussion in Fair, The Counterterror Coalitions. 11. Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir. 12. See discussion in Fair, The Counterterror Coalitions. 13. Fair, “Under the Shrinking US Security Umbrella.” 14. See Ahmed, “Colin Powell Tries His Hand Again”; John Cherian, “Diplomatic Concerns,” Frontline, October 27–November 9, 2001. 15. “Kashmir’s Troubles,” The Economist, December 2010. 16. Prime Minister’s High Level Committee, Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India.

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17. For the most articulate version of this vision, see Tellis, India as a New Global Power: An Action Agenda for the United States. 18. Bouton and Ayres, “We Need India’s Help in Afghanistan”; see also “WikiLeaks Cablegate: India Should Reduce Footprint in Afghanistan, Says Pak,” IBNLive.com, December 11, 2010, http://ibnlive.in.com/news /wikileaks-cablegate-india-should-reduce-footprintin-afghanistan-says -pak/136264-53.html. 19. M. Karim Faiez and Mark Magnier, “Taliban Claims Responsibility for Kabul Embassy Attack,” Los Angeles Times, October 9, 2009; Jack Healy and Alissa J. Rubin, “U.S. Blames Pakistan-Based Group for Attack on Embassy in Kabul,” New York Times, September 15, 2011. 20. This section is reproduced from Fair, “Militant Challenge in Pakistan.” See Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military, pp. 171–175. 21. See Fair, “Who Are Pakistan’s Militants and Their Families?” and Fair, “Militant Recruitment in Pakistan: Implications for Al-Qaeda and Other Organizations.” 22. This section is reproduced from Fair, “Militant Challenge in Pakistan” and draws from Fair, “Who Are Pakistan’s Militants and Their Families?” and Fair, “Militant Recruitment in Pakistan.” 23. Deoband and Ahl-e-Hadith are two Sunni schools of thought. An exposition of the differences between these and other groups is beyond the scope of this essay. See Husain Haqqani, “The Ideologies of South Asian Jihadi Groups,” pp. 12–26. 24. See Fair, “Antecedents and Implications of the November 2008 Lashkar-e-Taiba Attack upon Mumbai.” 25. Many of these groups have been proscribed numerous times only to reemerge and operate under new names. This chapter uses the names that are likely to be most familiar to readers. 26. Abou Zahab and Roy, Islamist Networks: The Afghan-Pakistan Connection; and Fair, “Militant Recruitment in Pakistan,” pp. 489–504. 27. One long-time observer of militancy in Pakistan, Mariam Abou Zahab, strongly discounts the claim that the TTP is a coherent alliance. She argues that the constituent parts of this inchoate alliance are driven by local factors and constrained, in good measure, by tribal boundaries that circumscribe the leadership. Thus, she discounts claims that the TTP is a unified organization running the length and width of the Pashtun belt. This view is buttressed by the author’s field interviews in Pakistan, February and April 2009. 28. FATA includes the seven tribal agencies of South and North Waziristan, Orakzai, Kurram, Khyber, Mohmand, and Bajaur agencies. 29. Rahimullah Yusufzai, “A Who’s Who of the Insurgency in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province.” 30. See Hassan Abbas, “Increasing Talibanization in Pakistan’s Seven Tribal Agencies,” pp. 1–5; Hassan Abbas, “A Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban

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Pakistan,” pp. 1–4; Syed Shoaib Hasan, “Profile: Baitullah Mehsud.” Pakistan considers Maulvi Nazir an ally because he helped oust or kill numerous Uzbeks in South Waziristan. He is also seen as a dedicated foe of US and NATO forces, as he sends fighters to Afghanistan. Gul Bahadar has had a number of differences with Baitullah Mehsud. It is not clear what this alliance means for Pakistan or for the United States and allies in Afghanistan. See Saeed Shah, “Taliban Rivals Unite to Fight US Troop Surge,” The Guardian (London), March 3, 2009. 31. Zahid Hussein, “Hakimullah Mehsud Named as New Pakistan Taleban Leader,” TimesOnline.com, August 23, 2009. 32. Pak Institute for Peace Studies, PIPS Security Report 2009; and “Hakimullah Mehsud,” NYTimes.com, April 29, 2010, http://topics.nytimes .com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/m/hakimullah_mehsud/index.html; “Pakistan Blast Sharpens Concern on Taliban,” PBS Newshour, April 1, 2010, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june10/pakistan_01-01.html. 33. “Hakimullah Dead in Drone Strike?” The Nation (Pakistan), January 16, 2012. 34. Ahmad, “The Realignment of Jihadist Groups in the PakistanAfghanistan Region.” 35. Since 2005, Pakistani militants have launched more than seventy suicide attacks against Sufi shrines, killing hundreds. Attacks have intensified in recent years. For example, Lahore’s prominent Datta Ganj Bakhsh— perhaps the most important Sufi shrine in the Punjab—was attacked in late June 2010. See Owais Tohid, “In Pakistan, Militant Attacks on Sufi Shrines on the Rise,” Christian Science Monitor, November 5, 2010; Sabrina Tavernise, “Suicide Bombers Strike Sufi Shrine in Pakistan,” New York Times, July 1, 2010. 36. It should be noted, however, that Kurram has long been the site of sectarian violence due to the large population of Shia in that agency. See Abou Zahab, “The Regional Dimension of Sectarian Conflicts in Pakistan,” pp. 115–128. 37. Fair, “Pakistan Loses Swat to Local Taliban.” 38. See Jane Perlez, “Landowners Still in Exile from Unstable Pakistan Area,” New York Times, July 27, 2009; and Khan, “Imperialism, Religion and Class in Swat.” Khan’s article expands on an earlier piece, “Behind the Crisis in Swat,” The News (Pakistan), November 27, 2008. For a countervailing view, see Farhat Taj, “No Class War in Swat,” The News (Pakistan), December 18, 2008. 39. This information was obtained by the author during fieldwork in February and April 2009 in Peshawar, Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore, and in August 2010 in Peshawar, Mingora, Islamabad, and Lahore. 40. See Sabrina Tavernise et al., “United Militants Threaten Pakistan’s Populous Heart,” New York Times, April 13, 2009. See also Abbas, “Defining the Punjabi Taliban Network,” pp. 1–4.

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41. Author fieldwork in Peshawar, Mingora, Islamabad, and Lahore in June and July 2010. For a sample of the controversial coverage of the group and the term, see South Asian News Agency, “Rehman Malik Asserts He Used No Term Like ‘Punjabi Taliban,’” South Asian News Agency, June 4, 2010, http://www.sananews.net/english/2010/06/04/rehman-malik-asserts -he-used-no-term-like-%E2%80%98punjabi-taliban%E2%80%99/. 42. Rahimullah Yusufzai, “The Discourse on Punjabi Taliban,” The News (Pakistan), July 6, 2010. 43. Bill Roggio, “Suicide Bomber Kills 60 at Mosque in Pakistan’s Northwest.” 44. See, for instance, Levin, “Opening Statement of Senator Carl Levin, Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on Afghanistan and Pakistan”; Ian Katz, “Gates Says Militant Sanctuaries Pose Biggest Afghanistan Threat,” Bloomberg News, March 1, 2009, http://www.bloomberg.com /apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aehmlRXgKi2o&refer=home; and Rubin, “Saving Afghanistan.” 45. See comments made by National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, cited in BBC, “Al-Qaeda ‘Rebuilding’ in Pakistan,” BBC News, January 12, 2007; see also Kronstadt, U.S.-Pakistan Relations. 46. Jones and Fair, Counterinsurgency in Pakistan, p. 31. 47. Fair, “Pakistan’s Own War on Terror: What the Pakistani Public Thinks.” 48. Because the Pew Research Center’s questions and sampling approach differed from those used by the other polls cited here, the results are not strictly comparable. See Pew Research Center, “America’s Image Remains Poor.” Unlike the International Republican Institute (IRI) polls, the 2009 poll conducted by Christine Fair, Neil Malhotra, and Jacob Shapiro, or the 2009 WorldPublicOpinion.org poll (in which Fair was a collaborator), the Pew survey sample is overwhelmingly drawn from urban residents (55 percent). Only one in three Pakistanis, however, live in urban areas. 49. For an excellent exposition of how the Afghan Taliban has evolved, see Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop, pp. 81–96. 50. Although the Afghan leadership council retains this moniker, its key leaders have long taken up residence elsewhere, such as in Karachi, under the ISI’s protection and monitoring. Chishti, “The Karachi Project.” 51. Dean Nelson and Ben Farmer, “Hamid Karzai Held Secret Talks with Mullah Baradar in Afghanistan,” The Telegraph (London), March 16, 2010. 52. Fair, “Students Islamic Movement of India and the Indian Mujahideen”; and Roul, “Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Strategy of ‘Encircling’ India.” 53. Author discussions with US military, state, and intelligence officials in 2010 and earlier, as well as with Indian intelligence officials in April 2010.

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54. Jason Burke, “ISI Chiefs Aided Mumbai Terror Attacks: Headley,” The Hindu, October 19, 2010; Jane Perlez, Eric Schmitt, and Ginger Thompson, “U.S. Had Warnings on Plotter of Mumbai Attack,” New York Times, October 17, 2010. 55. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, pp. 46–47. 56. This discussion draws on the author’s ongoing research into published LeT texts. Exposition of these texts will be the subject of a forthcoming work. 57. Howenstein, “The Jihadi Terrain in Pakistan,” pp. 28–31. 58. See Yusufzai, “The Emergence of the Pakistani Taliban” and “A Who’s Who of the Insurgency.” For details about the various commanders, see Wadhams and Cookman, “Faces of Pakistan’s Militant Leaders.” 59. These deals and military efforts are detailed extensively in Jones and Fair, Counterinsurgency in Pakistan, pp. 33–84. 60. For a historical account of Indo-Afghan relations, see Dilip Mukherjee, “Afghanistan Under Daud”; de Riencourt, “India and Pakistan in the Shadow of Afghanistan”; and Vaidik, “India and Afghanistan.” Indian covert operations are rarely discussed in public and have attracted little media attention. Nonetheless, see Scott Baldauf, “India-Pakistan Rivalry Reaches into Afghanistan,” Christian Science Monitor, September 12, 2003; M. H. Ahsan, “‘RAW Is Training 600 Baluchis in Afghanistan’: Mushahid Hussain,” Boloji.com, July 2, 2007. 61. Fair, “Under the Shrinking US Security Umbrella.” 62. Rassler and Brown, Haqqani Nexus and the Evolution of al-Qa’ida. 63. “NATO Says Top Haqqani Leader Killed in Strike,” CNN.com, October 5, 2011, http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/05/world/asia/afghanistan -violence/?hpt=T2. 64. See “Karzai Rules Out More Taliban Negotiations—Afghan President Says Killing of Peace Envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani Has Convinced Him to Change Focus,” The Guardian, October 1, 2011.

6 The Arab World: Grappling with Multiple Consequences Andrew Flibbert

The United States has been waging a war on terror since

2001, with far-reaching consequences at home and abroad. An assessment of the results in one critical domain—the Arab world— requires both a general understanding of the war and a close analysis of its most pronounced and potentially transformative effects on this particular front. Given the Arab world’s distinctive profile compared to the larger Islamic world, one cannot assess the impact of 9/11 and its aftermath without focusing directly on the region. Toward this end, I set the stage by offering a brief interpretation of the war on terror’s origins and nature, follow that with a discussion of the definitional and analytical challenges of addressing the Arab world, and then provide three clusters of observations about what can be called the war’s first-, second-, and third-order effects. An analysis of the war on terror’s ordered effects explains the varied and dynamic impact of US actions, as one set of effects produces others, which in turn have additional consequences far removed from the original events. This chapter is an effort to disentangle the many strands of the story in the hope of achieving a better understanding of 9/11 and its aftermath.

The War on Terror in US Grand Strategy The 9/11 attacks presented an extraordinary challenge to the George W. Bush administration in 2001, but the US response—whether in 93

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the Arab world or elsewhere—was not predetermined, inevitable, or automatic. The war on terror was a war of choice, to use a phrase associated with Iraq.1 The domestic shock of 9/11 gave the White House an unusually free hand to react as it saw fit, with the American public supporting a range of possible responses and Congress acquiescing on the details.2 The post–Cold War international environment put few limits on the United States at a time of unchecked US dominance in the absence of peer competitors. With such weak domestic and international constraints, the war on terror flowed almost entirely from the personalities, thinking, and choices of a small group of policy principals in the White House, Pentagon, and State Department. It was a historical moment of unusual opportunity and fluidity, when crisis-induced trauma coincided with great political and military capability to permit a dramatic foreign policy initiative.3 An odd assortment of like-minded but diverse decisionmakers in the administration set the war’s initial course, and what transpired in subsequent years reflected the complications of this unusual mix. President Bush and his top advisers—Vice President Richard Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Secretary of State Colin Powell—had a range of political orientations, bureaucratic commitments, and intellectual predispositions that together shaped the decisions they made in devising and implementing US policy. The president’s views on international relations at the outset were famously unformed. The vice president’s perspective, in contrast, was more than fully formed, and he shared the defense secretary’s inclination for transformative actions. The national security adviser was a capable but inexperienced old-school realist, while the secretary of state was a cautious and relatively moderate military man, best known for his preference to fight wars only when decisive victory is assured. Other figures in and out of the administration played key, if secondary, roles: Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith at the Defense Department, George Tenet at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), political appointees throughout the executive branch, and policy intellectuals in think tanks and academia.4 The architects of US policy in the Bush administration came to agree, by and large, on a few core strategic ideas that drove the war on terror and its central initiatives: the efficacy of military force for the United States; the need to address the domestic origins of international threats and challenges; the imperative of a dominant, if pre-

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sumptively benevolent, United States, reshaping the world for the American and common good; and an emphatically bimodal, Manichean reading of international life—a starkly defined world of friends and enemies. These ideas underpinned a new orientation in US foreign policy, one that tapped into longstanding but dormant thinking that could be applied to the circumstances of the twenty-first century. In this sense, the 9/11 attacks set not only political and military forces in motion, but ideational ones as well, becoming part of a narrative of threat and opportunity for the United States in the world. The attacks contributed to a reconfigured US grand strategy, or a new set of ideas and plans linking national means and ends in foreign policy.5 The war on terror came to encompass three primary elements in very short order: the almost immediate invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001; the invasion of Iraq, put on the table just after September 11 and launched eighteen months later in March 2003; and a much broader and more amorphous global effort by the United States to confront its Islamist adversaries worldwide. The latter included a range of policy instruments and initiatives, from military force, covert action, intelligence gathering, and legal innovations to new forms of policing and forensic cooperation, an intense diplomatic effort, and a sophisticated foray into global financial tracking and leverage. At home, the war on terror entailed a significant restructuring of the security bureaucracy in the federal government and sizable increases in military and intelligence spending, with the intelligence budget doubling over ten years and military outlays reaching extraordinary levels.6 At a time when rising powers like China and India were retooling their economies for global competition, the United States committed itself to major security expenditures in the service of this larger endeavor.7 The war on terror, in its multiple dimensions outlined above, continued through both terms of the Bush administration and into the Barack Obama years, even as circumstances changed in Iraq and Afghanistan and attention shifted to national and global economic concerns. The invocation of war—a war on terror—served domestic political and mobilizational purposes that few other concepts could match, even if it was undermined by the vague, muchcriticized problem of declaring war on essentially a politicomilitary strategy. While the Obama administration discarded the phrase, the war on terror remained an orienting or organizing de-

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vice in US policy and became a kind of metanarrative. Its scope and impact did not approach the preceding generation’s Cold War, which structured US policy from top to bottom, transformed the global economy, and led US decisionmakers to see the world through the prism of Soviet-US rivalry. But if the Cold War affected US policy in all dimensions, the war on terror shaped a good deal of it, perhaps only limited by the marked structural asymmetry of the antagonists and the reality of an emerging multipolar order that precluded a sole US focus on terrorism.

The Arab World and the War on Terror The war left a mark on US relations with much of the world, although the Arab world bore much of its impact. Reference to the Arab world raises a definitional issue and requires justification, because it is not self-evident that such a large number of countries and diverse peoples merit examination as a coherent whole. What precisely is the Arab world and why is this particular ethnicity—sometimes but not always politicized—a relevant unit of analysis in the war on terror? Diversity, Variability, Complexity Broadly defined, the Arab world comprises two interrelated populations totaling nearly 400 million people. First, there are approximately 350 million people in the twenty-two countries with large Arabic-speaking populations, all members of the Arab League and located in the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of East Africa.8 Second, one might include the large migrant and immigrant Arab populations elsewhere, including in Western Europe, North America, and parts of Latin America. All these people have historical, linguistic, and cultural connections to Arab identity, which is the salient social marker in this case and is not constructed around country, geography, religion, or political view. The Arab world is spread across at least four continents, even if its core population and political center of gravity is in the Middle East.9 The Arab world’s size, diversity, and complexity make it difficult to discern and conceptualize meaningfully the war on terror’s effects

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on it as a whole. This is because the impact in Saudi Arabia has been different from the impact in Iraq, Egypt, and Morocco, and also different from the impact in, for example, London, Marseille, Ramallah, or even Dearborn, Michigan. National variation in the Arab world is substantial and it matters. National contexts act like prisms, refracting broader international influences like an altered US approach to the world. National-scale political actors like states shape, tap into, transform, and politicize identities like Arab ethnicity, and they do so in very different ways. These national differences across the Arab world mean that the impact of the war on terror is unintelligible without reference to the various national political contexts in which it is fought.10 Even within individual countries, one has to differentiate and parse. Events in the past decade have unfolded differently in the socalled Arab street compared to its ruling circles, or among the wealthy compared to the poor, or for men compared to women, Muslims compared to Christians, and the old compared to the young. Iraq’s Sunni and Shia Arab populations have been affected so differently that their common ethnicity and Iraqi citizenship tell us less than their sectarian identities. We also have variation over time, as the past ten years have witnessed considerable and ongoing movement in how people have responded to and been affected by the war on terror. For approximately 120 million young people in the Arab world—roughly one in three in a youthful population—9/11 happened before they were born or were even remotely politically aware. This means, for example, that for twenty-seven million Egyptians, eleven million Iraqis, and eight million Saudis under age fifteen, 9/11 is part of the past, but the war on terror is part of their present.11 Social Connection and Distinctiveness For all its variability and the complexity this creates, the Arab world does have, nonetheless, a distinctiveness that makes it worth considering as an analytical whole. It does not have any genuine political unity—Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism have been weak for decades, and the logic of competitive state building has increased the political distance between the Arab states over the decades since their establishment and independence. But it does have social connections with political consequences.12 For Arabs in dozens of countries in the

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world—connected by ethnicity, culture, and strands of history—9/11 had the effect of lumping them together, as social connections led to ethnic profiling, forms of stereotyping, and guilt by association. Identity politics have this double-edged quality, for the ties that bind are the ties that cut. To have even one foot in the Arab world in terms of native language after 9/11 created a kind of socially shared political liability and challenge. Ties of origin and identity also linked Arabs everywhere to the putative grievances invoked by Osama bin Laden—however disingenuously—whether in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or Palestine. While the 9/11 plot was conceived in Afghanistan, planned in Germany, and carried out in the United States, the attackers were Arabs, and most of al-Qaeda’s central targets and concerns were located in the heart of the Arab world.13 As a result, one could not have been an Arab after 9/11 and not been affected by the attacks and the US response, which had consequences for Arabs that were distinctive compared to those faced in the rest of the world, the larger Islamic world, the nonArab countries of South Asia (Afghanistan and Pakistan), and the non-Arab countries of the greater Middle East (Iran and Turkey).

Ordered Effects Given these general considerations, three narrower sets of observations are possible. The first addresses briefly how the war on terror has played out in specific parts of the Arab world, including Iraq, in the Arabian Peninsula, in Palestinian-Israeli relations, and for US security allies like Egypt and Jordan. The second describes how the war on terror led indirectly to what might be called second-order effects, namely a widespread alienation and partial reorientation of noteworthy portions of the Arab world. A final set of observations comprises a more speculative claim about the war on terror’s thirdorder effects: how a revival and transformation of the Arab world might be connected to the terror attacks in unexpected, uncertain, and even uncomfortable ways. First-Order Effects: The Impact on the Arab World The war on terror had an immediate impact on the Arab world, starting in Iraq but insinuating itself eventually into everything from the

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peace process and US relationships with regional allies to domestic political and economic dynamics in several Arab states. These effects were of the first order because they stemmed directly from US policy choices and actions of every conceivable kind—boots on the ground; political commitments made; military basing, overflight, and prepositioning arrangements; intelligence cooperation and assets deployed; free-trade agreements reached; foreign aid appropriated; and immigration procedures altered. The effects can be chronicled in a variety of locales, some more central than others, but all with noteworthy consequences. The Iraq War. Aside from Afghanistan, the most prominent early action in the war on terror was the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, beginning in March 2003. Iraq’s characterization as “the central front in the war on terror” resulted entirely from the Bush administration’s decision to identify it as such and, subsequently, to make it so.14 Explanations of the war and its origins remain the subject of intense debate and are divided between accounts centered on intelligence failure, ideological factors, oil interests, power balancing, imperial aspiration, Israel, and presidential vendetta.15 Disagreement over the war’s origins may never be resolved definitively because, in an important sense, multiple interests and considerations were implicated in the war decision and appear to have driven the outcome. Most analysts agree nonetheless that circumstances in 2001 did not wholly necessitate the war, either in direct fashion (akin to Pearl Harbor) or in a creeping, gradual manner (as in Vietnam). Rather, it was a decision that had a particular rationality and made sense for various, admittedly contested reasons to key figures in the Bush administration. Once committed to a line of argument favoring the war, the administration did what it could to make it happen.16 Even if the war on terror did not have to be fought in Iraq, and Saddam Hussein’s connections to global terror and weapons of mass destruction were oversold, Iraq’s status and identity as a powerful state in the heart of the Arab world was not coincidental or irrelevant to the war’s origins in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Iraqi and Baathist association with Arab identity linked it to al-Qaeda in the minds of Bush administration officials, who were fearful of a socalled axis of evil connecting state and nonstate actors. 17 In this sense, there was a sociocultural aspect to the thinking that led to the war and persuaded its proponents to fold an Iraq gambit into a larger

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global venture.18 Iraq’s majority-Arab identity made it seem like a logical and appropriate target to the administration.19 Stripping the identity piece out of an explanation for the war risks accepting an impoverished, post hoc account that ignores the obvious in favor of the obscure, the trivial, the unlikely, or the incorrect.20 The Bush administration, after all, did not target North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, or Cuba in the war on terror. It went to war in an Arab country because it presumed that Arab identity mattered—social facts, such as the connections created by shared Arab identity, shaped and animated its decisionmaking.21 Premises guiding a political choice may turn out to be false and even foolish, but the choice remains inexplicable without reference to them.22 The thinking that led to the invasion of Iraq had implications for both the nature of the war and the shape of the peace, or lack thereof, in subsequent years. With too few troops and inadequate postwar planning, domestic political authority all but collapsed in Iraq. This led to a brutal insurgency, dramatic acts of terrorism, economic stagnation, crumbling infrastructure, rampant criminality, sectarian and ethnic polarization, and low-grade civil war. Conditions were ripe for the emergence of a native al-Qaeda offshoot, which appeared as a self-fulfilling prophecy in the months after the US invasion in March 2003. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) contributed to rising violence and launched a few spectacular attacks from 2004 to 2007, though its actual significance on the ground may have been overstated.23 Eventually, it and other militant groups overstepped their capabilities and the political conditions—mostly Sunni fear—supporting their activities by provoking Iraq’s tribal leaders. The combination of a new US counterinsurgency strategy, a modest troop surge, and the Anbar Awakening weakened AQI dramatically.24 By the tenth anniversary of 9/11, apparently little was left of the organization, even if US officials warned of the group’s resurgence after the completion of the US military drawdown in late December 2011.25 Iraq’s future role in the war on terror remains to be defined, but it will be largely decided by Iraqis themselves.26 The Arabian Peninsula: Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Even without the war on terror, Saudi Arabia itself was on the cusp of a potentially major period of domestic change at the beginning of the new century in 2001. Rapid population growth, a weakening legitimacy formula, a more dangerous geostrategic environment, an aging

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and fragmented royal family, and shifts in global energy markets together challenged the House of Saud and its long-term prospects. The war on terror added significantly to these pressures by forcing the regime and its most militant opponents into a more direct confrontation, while also presenting the possibility of a breakdown in Saudi-US ties. It exposed the Saudi regime to new domestic perils while simultaneously calling into question its most vital international relationship.27 Over the course of a turbulent decade, the kingdom contended with its domestic opponents and weathered the storms associated with the US war in Iraq. It proved adroit in managing US concern, more prevalent in the media and Congress than the White House, about Saudi state and societal connections to political Islam. The 2003 shift of US military assets from Saudi Arabia to Iraq, as well as to Qatar’s al-Udeid airbase and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, lessened one aspect of Saudi domestic vulnerability: the expanded US presence in the kingdom originally excoriated by Osama bin Laden.28 In the process, it reduced the immediate geostrategic value of the country to the United States at a time of rising bilateral tension. Changes in technology and force projection capabilities, however, combined with doctrinal developments borne of the Revolution in Military Affairs to help re-equilibrate the Saudi-US deal.29 An eventual Iraqi insistence on full US troop withdrawal from Iraqi territory helped to resolidify the Saudi-US partnership by making it evident how much the United States still needed Saudi Arabia, both as a regional stabilizer and an energy producer. With permanent US bases in Iraq no longer in the cards because of parliamentary opposition in 2011, Saudi Arabia’s closed and tightly controlled political process continued to serve US interests. Farther south, Yemen’s place in the war on terror was distinctive and unenviable. Caught in the crossfire between the United States and an al-Qaeda presence, the regime in Sana‘a watched as the country became a battlefield. Unlike its better-positioned counterparts in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, it did not benefit from US counterterror efforts, as the United States pressed for advantage by using drones and other remotely piloted vehicles to target militants for assassination. Yemen’s weak state, for its part, could not stop al-Qaeda activists and fellow travelers from launching attacks of their own. Over the course of a decade, such attacks occurred both locally (the USS Cole in October 2000) and globally (the printer-cartridge bomb-

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ing attempts in October 2010), eventually organized by a consolidated al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).30 That Yemen was still a staging ground for such attacks a decade after the USS Cole incident highlighted the ongoing dilemma posed by weak states for the United States. Palestinian-Israeli relations. As if orchestrated by bin Laden himself, the war on terror came at an unfortunate moment for efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Its stark Manicheanism tended to put Palestinian Arabs on one side of a divide and their Israeli counterparts on the other, and it worked at cross purposes with US efforts to bring the two parties back into dialogue. The Bush administration’s single-minded campaign against Islamists after 9/11 enhanced a security-first view of the peace process, reinforcing the idea that peace could not be achieved until order and security were established. In this sense, it gave veto power to those actors on both sides who sought to derail or avoid a compromise. This contrasted with a view that saw peace, in the form of a negotiated two-state settlement, as the fundamental driver of subsequent improvements in security, with both parties maintaining their ends of the bargain by confronting their most intransigent domestic elements. In Palestinian internal politics, the war on terror also contributed to divisions between Hamas and the old-guard, secular nationalists of the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority was losing ground in Palestinian society anyway, given its corruption problems, the disappointments of a failed peace effort, and the rising tide of Islamist activism. The war on terror helped right-leaning elements in Israel to use a divide-and-conquer strategy with Palestinians, while allowing an embittered, declining political left to back away from negotiations, having been damaged by its association with the peace process. With international attention diverted to Iraq and elsewhere, Israel had an opportunity to consolidate its hold on the West Bank, strengthen its regional dominance, and focus geostrategic attention on a unified cast of adversaries, from Hamas and Hizbullah to Iran. The war coincided with Israel’s rightward movement and allowed party leaders to harness the antipathy toward Islamism in the United States by reframing its conflict with the Palestinians as part of a USled war on terror.

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The security allies: Egypt and Jordan. The war on terror was fought on a global scale, but two crucial US allies in the Arab world revealed some of the war’s tensions and contradictions, particularly in the realm of democratic politics. Early on, President Bush’s rhetorical emphasis on democracy in the Middle East put pressure on regional allies like Egypt, where the Hosni Mubarak regime had to pay greater lip service to matters of domestic governance and democratic accountability. Its critics contended that the Bush administration’s actual commitment to democracy did not match its liberal imperialist declarations about the “power of freedom.”31 But such declarations did cut to the quick in certain Arab capitals, where leaders may have feared that the United States had embraced a new strategic orientation rooted in a more aggressive promotion of political change starting with Baghdad. In time, it became apparent to Cairo that Washington wanted a security ally more than a model of democracy. Not surprisingly, the Bush administration was sympathetic to Egyptian claims that it faced an Islamist threat of its own. The absolutist, black-and-white language of the war on terror made it difficult for the United States not to support Mubarak in his ostensible antiterror policies, even at a cost to US credibility in the Arab street. US officials took advantage of Egypt’s long experience in repressing its Islamist opposition, reportedly using the country as a detention and interrogation site, as well as soliciting intelligence in targeting al-Qaeda.32 This position continued under the Obama administration, despite the soaring rhetoric of President Obama’s June 2009 Cairo speech and his call for a “new beginning” with the Muslim world.33 US policy throughout the decade supported authoritarian allies like Egypt among the Arab states, with little movement toward a more comprehensive security approach that addressed root matters like the role of British colonial policy or Gamal Abdel Nasser’s desert prisons in furthering Islamist militancy.34 With the Arab Spring and Mubarak’s ouster, electoral victories by the Muslim Brotherhood in 2011 and 2012 complicated the US position but did not end the relationship. Jordan, for its part, played a similar role in the war on terror, with a tough-minded General Intelligence Directorate and the growth of security cooperation with the United States after its peace treaty with Israel in 1994. In becoming a leading recipient of US foreign aid, the Hashemite Kingdom acquired a double strategic significance,

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given Jordan’s geographic location between Israel and Iraq.35 It proved invaluable to the United States as a frontline state in the Iraq War and contributed to countering Iraq’s insurgency. The presence in Iraq of Jordanian-born al-Qaeda activists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi led to intelligence cooperation. Like Egypt, Jordan reportedly provided a site for detention and, especially, interrogation in the war on terror.36 This may not have been without cost. One consequence of Jordanian-US intelligence cooperation was a particularly deadly operation by a Jordanian double agent for al-Qaeda, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who killed seven CIA officers in a suicide attack in Khost, Afghanistan, in late December 2009.37 Some of the political effects of the war on terror were more diffuse. The succession to the throne of King Abdullah II in February 1999, followed by Morocco’s King Mohammed VI in July of the same year, had raised hopes of potential change in the Arab monarchies of the Middle East. But the subsequent pressures of 9/11 and the US response pushed Jordan and Morocco in similar directions, bringing one more fully into the American orbit and permitting the other to target Salafi groups under the pretense of an antiterror campaign. The war on terror made it easier for Abdullah to limit political liberalization initiatives, and it created an opportunity for the king to consolidate both his rule and his place in the security regime governing the region under US oversight. The war proved less directly consequential for Morocco, but Mohammed VI nonetheless was able to use it to pursue his own agenda. The war on terror left its mark on the Arab world from Morocco and Egypt to Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf, with echoes spanning much of the globe, whether in immigration debates in Europe or over civil liberties in North America. The war’s authors characterized the core security challenges facing the United States in a particularly narrow and simple way. They insisted that al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups were expressions of inscrutable, irrational hatred and primordial identity. They rejected viewing them as locally oriented militants and political operators, or as by-products of US dominance or blowback from other US choices in world politics. 38 This focus on emotion, belief, and repulsion toward American values and identity had implications for the viability of potential solutions to the problem, as it was framed. It privileged a military approach, for as T. E. Lawrence once claimed, in a not altogether different con-

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text, “An opinion can be argued with; a conviction is best shot.”39 This strategic commitment to the efficacy of force faded eventually with the disappointments it yielded in Iraq, but it remained at the heart of the war on terror elsewhere. Second-Order Effects: Alienation and Reorientation If the first-order effects of the war on terror reflected the Arab world’s diversity and variability, the second-order effects were more uniformly evident across the region. While the war on terror meant different things in different places and at different times, it contributed to the emergence of a general sense of disappointment, dismay, and even some disgust in the Arab world with the leadership of the United States in the decade after 9/11. It led to a kind of alienation and, over time, an incipient reorientation. This reorientation was partly inward, as people in the Arab world looked increasingly to local or domestic solutions to problems. And it was partly outward, as people looked to non-American models, ideas, allies, and even sources of investment, some coming from outside the Arab world in places like Turkey or Iran. In this regard, the war on terror affected the Arab world as a whole by rendering the United States more distant and more dangerous, but also more irrelevant to the aspirations of millions of Arabs. It made the United States more inaccessible due to the increased difficulty of traveling to the country, and more immediately hazardous for those facing US intervention of one kind or another. 40 It made the United States the object of newly acute fear and disappointment: fear, because the war on terror had real teeth and reach and was effective in tracking down suspects; disappointment, because it became less likely after 9/11 that the United States would be a source of hope for those under authoritarian regimes seeking better governance, improved economic prospects, and more dignity in life. The war on terror made it clear that the United States would not usher in a post–Cold War era of peace, prosperity, and democracy, but would pursue its own interests—narrowly defined—and its own forms of justice. Americans talked about promoting democracy, but the war on terror created new political space and opportunities for resistance to democratization by US allies in Cairo, Amman, Riyadh, and elsewhere.41

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For this reason, while the vast majority of people in the Arab world were never directly sympathetic to al-Qaeda or bin Laden, they became more skeptical of the United States in the decade after 9/11.42 They may have had good reason, because US willingness and capacity to lead globally and regionally suffered after 9/11. In a variety of essential areas—from democratic prospects to economic development, Arab-Israeli peace, and regional security—the United States became less central to the Arab world in this period. By what it did and failed to do, the United States all but rendered itself the dispensable nation, to subvert the phrase coined by former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright in 1998.43 While Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared in June 2011 that the NATO alliance was so weak that it risked “collective military irrelevance,” the United States, in fact, risked political and economic irrelevance in the Arab world.44 Its narrow strategic focus, for a time at least, lost the hearts and minds of millions in the region.45 Some of this alienation had started in the 1990s with sanctionsera Iraq and then intensified during the Iraq War, which eliminated Saddam Hussein but also spawned Iraqi state failure and dismayed many in the Arab world. Aside from the complications of its extended involvement in Iraq, the United States was slow to respond to the liberalizing demands of the Arab Spring, having supported the likes of Mubarak and Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali for too long to abandon them too quickly. In the Arab-Israeli conflict, it shelved the active promotion of peace and was unable to constrain Jewish settlement in the Occupied Territories. All parties saw the reluctance of the United States to engage issues unrelated to the metanarrative of a global Islamist threat. Regional alienation became more widespread, as US ambivalence undermined its credibility in a significant portion of the Arab world. Third-Order Effects: Revival and Transformation? A final observation regarding the impact of the war on terror is more speculative and normatively charged. While the past decade has witnessed a flurry of developments for Arabs—many disturbing and disappointing—another kind of change is afoot, offering unprecedented possibilities. The Arab Spring brought a wave of protest and unrest to more than a dozen countries, from Tunisia and Libya in the Maghreb to Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, and beyond. Catching most ob-

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servers off guard, it constituted an expression of alienation, reorientation, and potential revival in the Arab world. Perhaps most surprisingly, and in strange and unintended ways, 9/11 and the war on terror may be connected to this possibility of transformation. The protests and rebellions occurred mostly in the Middle East and North Africa, and they had something in common: they were driven partly by a kind of regional revolutionary contagion. It was not pure coincidence that several Arab countries experienced upheaval or moved toward political transitions at about the same time or in quick succession. It defies reason to ignore the connections between events that started in December 2010 (Tunisia and Algeria), January 2011 (Egypt, Jordan, and Oman), February 2011 (Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain, Libya, and Kuwait), and March 2011 (Syria).46 The political opportunities created by technology were important here, not just in organizing protests internally but in communicating externally and allowing others to connect to protests and to act on their own grievances.47 Common themes were evident in many of the cases, with a great many in the Arab world wanting what people elsewhere desire: responsive government, better economic prospects, and a measure of justice and dignity in how they live and are treated by authorities.48 Commonalities notwithstanding, the uprisings collectively known as the Arab Spring have played out in the distinctive circumstances of various national populations. Hence, the world witnessed Egypt’s urban-based, tech-savvy disgust with the Mubarak regime; Tunisia’s rural and spontaneous opposition to the abuses of the Ben Ali regime; Libya’s regionally oriented rebellion, which became a virtual civil war, given the weakness of the Libyan state; and Syria’s grim confrontation between protesters who sensed an opportunity— based on what was happening elsewhere in the Arab world—and the Bashar al-Assad regime’s determination to not go the way of Mubarak, Ben Ali, or Muammar Qaddafi.49 The results in each of these cases differed, because common origins and related grievances need not lead to similar outcomes. But they shared something in the original spark of alienation and disillusionment. How are 9/11 and the war on terror related to the Arab Spring? No doubt, the original terror attacks and the US response changed domestic and regional dynamics in several countries of the Arab world. And while the causal links are hard to discern and assess, consider what the Arab world would look like today if one could rewind

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history and delete the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The Arab Spring might very well not have occurred nearly a decade later. This is a tenuous counterfactual assumption, because so much changed in the ten years after 9/11, and the origins and etiology of the Arab Spring are unclear. But if one could rewind history and eliminate 9/11, not only would the world have avoided the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but also in all likelihood, other conditions in the Arab world would have been different—some for the better; some probably for the worse. Perhaps more progress could have been made in Arab-Israeli relations, because 9/11 dealt a blow to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Perhaps also, not having the war on terror would have meant not having some of the political troubles that fomented and fed the alienation that drove major changes in the Arab world a decade later. In other words, 9/11 led to tens of thousands of casualties in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, helped to reinforce several authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa, delivered a virtual coup de grâce to floundering Arab-Israeli peace efforts, and furthered domestic polarization in much of the region. But all this, rather paradoxically, created a political environment that was more conducive to movement forward, to breaking the grip of authoritarianism in the Arab world, and to fundamental change. It is as if bin Laden and the Bush administration looked at the Arab world and unwittingly implemented one of “Rumsfeld’s Rules”: if one cannot solve a problem, make it bigger (to mobilize the resources to solve it).50 It would be a stunning irony if bin Laden’s brutal attacks and the US response to them combined to set the stage for something better in one part of the world. Then again, it would not be the first time that war surprised us in its multitiered and transformative effects.

Notes 1. The original formulation of Iraq as a “war of choice” was in Thomas Friedman, “The Long Bomb,” New York Times, March 2, 2003. 2. The public favored war with Somalia and Sudan as much as Iraq. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and the Council on Foreign Relations, “Americans Favor Force in Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, and . . . ,” January 22, 2002, http://www.people-press.org/2002/01/22/americans-favor -force-in-iraq-somalia-sudan-and/ 3. As James M. Lindsay writes regarding congressional tendencies in foreign policy, “How aggressively Congress exercises its foreign policy

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powers turns on the critical question of whether the country sees itself as threatened or secure. Times of peace favor congressional activism. Times of war favor congressional deference.” Lindsay, “From Deference to Activism and Back Again,” p. 184. See also Owens, “Presidential Power and Congressional Acquiescence in the ‘War’ on Terrorism.” 4. See Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, along with memoirs that include George W. Bush, Decision Point; Dick Cheney, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir; Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown: A Memoir; and Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington. 5. For an initial written expression of these ideas, see White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, 2002. For a critical perspective, see Smith, A Pact with the Devil. 6. Federation of American Scientists, Intelligence Resource Program, http://www.fas.org/irp/budget/index.html. 7. For an incisive critical view, see Lustick, Trapped in the War on Terror. 8. Calculations are complicated by the large non-Arab ethnic minorities in Arab-majority countries. United Nations Statistics Division, Population and Vital Statistics Report, http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic. 9. A sweeping account is Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples. Dated but still useful is Korany and Dessouki, The Foreign Policies of Arab States: The Challenge of Change; Maddy-Weitzman, The Crystallization of the Arab State System, 1945–1954; and Sharabi, Theory, Politics, and the Arab World: Critical Responses. 10. For a critical geopolitics approach, see Ingram and Dodds, Spaces of Security and Insecurity. 11. Variations in Arab opinion are evident in Arab American Institute polling, http://www.aaiusa.org/pages/opinion-polls/. Population breakdowns by age are in Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, https://www .cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook. 12. Greg Gause puts this connection in terms of transnational identities. Gause, The International Relations of the Persian Gulf, pp. 8–12. See also Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics. 13. Gerges, The Far Enemy. 14. George W. Bush, “A Central Front in the War on Terror,” September 7, 2003, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/09 /20030909.html. 15. Cramer and Thrall, Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? 16. Emphasizing policy momentum and path dependence is Harvey, Explaining the Iraq War. On how the administration succeeded in “selling” the Iraq War, see Kaufmann, “Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas,” pp. 5–48; and Western, “The War over Iraq,” pp. 106–139.

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17. The term came from speechwriters David Frum and Michael Gerson, and refers to ties between state and nonstate actors. Woodward, Plan of Attack. 18. For elaborations, see Flibbert, “Ideas and Entrepreneurs.” 19. On the “logic of appropriateness,” see March and Olsen, “The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders.” 20. What was obvious about Iraq in September 2001 was its identity, not its power. As it turns out, Iraqi power was severely degraded in every domain (including weapons of mass destruction) by years of inspections and sanctions. As Robert Jervis notes (p. 123), it is surprising that US intelligence analysts misread Iraqi capabilities, which were supposed to be more readily discernible than its intentions. Other explanations for the war are conceivable but rely heavily on the unlikely (simple US miscalculations of power), the obscure (US policymakers serving on oil-industry governing boards), the trivial (Saddam Hussein’s plot to assassinate President George H. W. Bush in 1993), or the incorrect (the presence of weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi cooperation with al-Qaeda). Jervis, Why Intelligence Fails. 21. According to Durkheim, social facts are “ways of acting, thinking, and feeling, external to the individual and endowed with a power of coercion, by reason of which they control him.” Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method, p. 93. 22. Political blunders, along with crisis conditions, are fertile ground for analyzing social and psychological biases in decisionmaking. On the latter, see Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics. 23. Tilghman, “The Myth of AQI.” 24. US work with Sunni tribal leaders began in September 2006 outside Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, organized by a local US commander, Colonel Sean MacFarland. See Smith and MacFarland, “Anbar Awakens: The Tipping Point.” For Iraqi and American participant perspectives, see Montgomery and McWilliams, Al-Anbar Awakening: Volume II, Iraqi Perspectives; and McWilliams and Wheeler, Al-Anbar Awakening: Volume I, American Perspectives. 25. Michael S. Schmidt and Eric Schmitt, “Leaving Iraq, U.S. Fears New Surge of Qaeda Terror,” New York Times, November 5, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/world/middleeast/leaving-iraq-us-fears -new-surge-of-qaeda-terror.html?pagewanted=all. 26. Flibbert, “The Second Image Coerced.” 27. For a reconsideration of the origins of that relationship, see Vitalis, America’s Kingdom. 28. On al-Qaeda’s decline, see Gerges, The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda. 29. An accessible account of changing technology is Singer, Wired for War.

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30. On the merger of al-Qaeda branches, see Jane Novak, “Arabian Peninsula al Qaeda Groups Merge,” Long War Journal, January 26, 2009, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/01/arabian_peninsula_al.php. 31. George W. Bush, “President Discusses the Future of Iraq,” February 26, 2002, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003 /02/images/20030226-11_p27180-23-515h.html. 32. Extraordinary Rendition in U.S. Counterterrorism Policy: The Impact on Transatlantic Relations, House of Representatives, Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight and Subcommittee on Europe, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Washington, DC, April 17, 2007. 33. President Barack Obama, “The President’s Speech in Cairo: A New Beginning,” June 4, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/NewBeginning. 34. For a recent appraisal of Sayyid Qutb, with reference to his years in Tora Prison, see Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism. 35. Jordan received $700 million in debt forgiveness after making peace with Israel and has been a “key partner” and among the top recipients of US aid for its role in the war on terror. Curt Tarnoff and Mariah Leonardo Lawson, “Foreign Aid: An Introduction to U.S. Programs and Policy,” Congressional Research Service, April 9, 2009. 36. Extraordinary Rendition in U.S. Counterterrorism Policy, April 17, 2007. 37. Richard A. Oppel Jr., Mark Mazzetti, and Souad Mekhennet, “Attacker in Afghanistan Was a Double Agent,” New York Times, January 4, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/asia/05cia.html?scp=1&sq =cia%20jordanian%20double%20agent%20suicide%20bombing&st=cse. 38. Katzenstein and Keohane, Anti-Americanism in World Politics. 39. T. E. Lawrence, “Science of Guerrilla Warfare.” 40. Political scientist Walid Hazbun reports a 50 percent drop in Arab visitors to the United States in the year after 9/11. Hazbun, Beaches, Ruins, and Resorts, p. 196. 41. For one of many accounts, see Wilson, Human Rights in the “War on Terror.” 42. James Zoghby and Arab American Institute Foundation, Arab Attitudes 2011, http://aai.3cdn.net/5d2b8344e3b3b7ef19_xkm6ba4r9.pdf; Arab American Institute and Zoghby International, Attitudes of Arabs, 2005: An In-Depth Look at Social and Political Attitudes of Arabs, http://www.arab voices.net/2005_attitudesofarabs.pdf. See also Pew Global Attitudes Project, “Arab Spring Fails to Improve U.S. Image,” May 17, 2011, http://pew research.org/pubs/1997/international-poll-arab-spring-us-obama-image -muslim-publics. 43. “Transcript: Albright Interview on NBC-TV February 19,” February 19, 1998, http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/02/19/98021907_tpo.html.

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44. Thom Shanker, “Defense Secretary Warns NATO of ‘Dim’ Future,” New York Times, June 10, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/world /europe/11gates.html. 45. The shift in US counterinsurgency strategy after 2006 led to a “hearts and minds” approach in Iraq and Afghanistan, but this change never made its way fully to US grand strategy. For an incisive discussion by an influential theorist-practitioner, see Kilcullen, Counterinsurgency. 46. For a timeline, see Garry Blight, Sheila Pulham, and Paul Torpey, “Arab Spring: An Interactive Timeline of Middle East Protests,” January 5, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/mar/22/middle-east -protest-interactive-timeline. 47. For relevant work on political opportunity structures, see Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism. On the place of technology like satellite television in constructing multiple and contested Arab public spheres, see Lynch, Voices of the New Arab Public. 48. For data on what Arabs want, see James Zoghby and Arab American Institute Foundation, Arab Attitudes 2011, http://aai.3cdn.net/5d2b8344e3 b3b7ef19_xkm6ba4r9.pdf. 49. One of the first comparative analyses is Lisa Anderson, “Demystifying the Arab Spring.” See also, “The Arab Spring,” special section of the International Journal of Middle East Studies 43, no. 3 (August 2011). 50. The defense secretary apparently was paraphrasing Dwight D. Eisenhower. Donald Rumsfeld, “Rumsfeld’s Rules: Advice on Government, Business, and Life,” Wall Street Journal, January 29, 2001.

7 Iran and Turkey: Pivotal Regional Powers Mohammed Ayoob

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, spawned the US

war on terror that came to define US foreign policy for a whole decade. In operational terms, the war on terror meant the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq in order to root out the terrorist groups that had committed the horrific acts of 9/11 and presumably intended to inflict further damage of a similar sort on the US homeland. Although initially defined as a war against terrorists, the war on terror soon morphed into two major military campaigns aimed at overthrowing the regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, which were perceived as aiding and abetting terrorists targeting the United States. Although invading Afghanistan as part of the war on terror made some sense because the Taliban regime in that country had provided refuge to al-Qaeda—the group whose operatives had carried out the terrorist attacks against New York and Washington—the extension of the war-on-terror logic to Iraq was seen by many as disingenuous and as serving the particular agenda of a small circle of advisers around President George W. Bush.1 Both campaigns were successful in overthrowing the regimes they targeted but with consequences, intended and unintended, that will be with us for several decades to come. As stated above, Washington’s choice of Afghanistan for retribution for the terrorist attacks appeared reasonable, although there was considerable difference of opinion on whether the invasion of the country and the overthrow of the Taliban was the right way to eliminate the al-Qaeda threat. Several commentators argued that it would

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only help al-Qaeda mutate into new forms as well as heighten antiAmericanism in Pakistan, thus defeating the very purpose of the invasion. Others argued that the invasion of Afghanistan with the intention of regime change would transform a counterterrorism operation into a counterinsurgency one and thus, by conflating al-Qaeda with the Taliban, drag the United States into an unwinnable war in that country. All these predictions have come true to varying degrees. With the decimation of al-Qaeda Central and its expulsion from Afghanistan, al-Qaeda has been transformed more and more into a set of franchises operating independently in Iraq, Yemen, and other parts of the Middle East. Simultaneously, the United States and its allies have been stuck in a quagmire in Afghanistan with the Taliban reemerging as the major challenger to the US-imposed order. The negative impact of the invasion of Afghanistan has been felt most harshly in neighboring Pakistan, which has simultaneously become the epicenter of transnational terrorist activity as well as the primary target of jihadist terrorism itself. The former outcome has resulted partly from the relocation of the al-Qaeda leadership into Pakistan and the latter because several al-Qaeda–related jihadist groups, initially nurtured by the Pakistani military, turned against the Pakistani state following President Pervez Musharraf’s decision in 2001 to side with the United States in the latter’s campaign against alQaeda and the Taliban. The combination of these two factors has brought Pakistan to the brink of state failure.2 While the invasion of Afghanistan could at best be seen as bringing mixed results, the invasion of Iraq was totally counterproductive. It led to the unraveling of the Iraqi state that proved a boon for transnational jihadists in search of new bases after their expulsion from Afghanistan. The US policy of playing favorites between the Sunnis and Shia of Iraq accentuated sectarian divisions and internecine strife that took a tremendous toll in terms of life and property and continues to thwart the construction of a functioning polity in Iraq. Instead of facilitating Iraq’s transition to democracy, the United States left behind an Iraq torn by dissensions and potentially at war with itself.3 Furthermore, the invasion of Iraq had a major negative impact on Arab and Muslim opinion of the United States. The United States was not merely trapped in the Iraqi quagmire; the action unleashed violent and nonviolent responses against the United States not only in Iraq but also across much of the Muslim world. The invasion of

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Iraq, following on the heels of the invasion of Afghanistan, was seen in the Middle East and beyond as part of a larger US design to decimate and debilitate the Muslim world for reasons ranging from access to energy to ensuring Israeli dominance of the Middle East.4 This perception attracted fresh recruits to the global jihadist cause, thus defeating the very purpose of the twin invasions that were aimed at rooting out al-Qaeda. While al-Qaeda’s appeal among segments of Muslim populations has petered out in the last decade, this has been largely because its own actions have turned Muslim opinion against it and is largely unrelated to the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.5 Thus a combination of US failure to establish a stable and democratic state in Iraq with the negative international impact of the US invasion of Iraq has left US credibility in the Middle East and the broader Muslim world in tatters. Washington’s failure to put in place a secure and legitimate political structure in Afghanistan after the overthrow of the Taliban has further eroded its standing in the larger Middle Eastern region. Equally important, it appears that Pakistan may become the next major theater in the war on terror as the Pakistani state becomes increasingly debilitated and is unable to meet the challenges posed by jihadist elements as well as by ethnic and sectarian strife in various parts of the country. To add to this, tensions between the United States and Pakistan over the conduct of the war on terror and the repeated violation of Pakistani sovereignty by the United States, especially by the use of unmanned drones that have often inflicted civilian casualties, have made bilateral relations between the two countries extremely uneasy. These tensions have added to the already existing hostile opinion of the United States among the Pakistani public, and the bilateral relationship appears to be sliding downhill fast.6

Iran and Turkey as Key Players in the Region It is no wonder that in this context of dramatic if ill-informed military adventures and equally dramatic political failures, most discussions regarding the impact of 9/11 and the war on terror on the broader Middle East are concentrated on the Iraqi and AfghanistanPakistan (AFPAK) theaters. Consequently, not enough emphasis has been laid on the impact of the events that unfolded as a consequence

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of the war on terror on the two major regional powers—Iran and Turkey. A discussion of this subject is very important both because the war on terror has had major implications for Iran and Turkey and because these two countries are likely to determine the future course of events in the broader Middle East—more than either Iraq or AFPAK. This is likely to be the case because Turkey and Iran have emerged as the pivotal powers in the region and it is impossible to envision a stable and legitimate security structure in the greater Middle East without their willing participation. Furthermore, their bilateral relations, which are expected to combine elements of both discord and cooperation, are likely to provide the framework within which regional politics will be conducted.7 It is clear that with the credibility and legitimacy of the global hegemon, the United States, in decline in the Middle East following its largely futile military adventures of the past decade, pivotal regional powers such as Turkey and Iran are bound to gain in influence in the region and are likely to flex their political and economic muscle to a greater extent than in the recent past. US failures in Iraq and Afghanistan have provided Iran and Turkey much greater space for political maneuver and regional influence, often at the expense of the United States. Before we go any further, it is important to make the case that Iran and Turkey are indeed the pivotal powers in the broader Middle East region stretching from the western borders of India to the Bosporus Straits. By indices of both hard and soft power these two countries are preeminent powers in their respective subregions—Iran in the Persian Gulf and Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean. Since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak there has been speculation that Egypt may regain its traditional role as the leading Arab power and center of the Arab system. However, this seems a distant dream given the problems of political transition, military domination, and socioeconomic debility in which Egypt is currently mired. Turkey is now the sixteenth or seventeenth largest economy in the world—fifteenth in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms with its gross domestic product (GDP) growing at a rate of around 9 percent, second only to that of China.8 In the years since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been in power, Turkey’s per capita income has grown threefold.9 Its trade has increased in geometric progressions around the Middle East and beyond, with former Cold War enemy Russia now Turkey’s largest trading partner.10 Turkey has the

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second largest standing army within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) after the United States. Its soft power has grown tremendously as Turkish democracy has undergone consolidation, and Arab populations see it as a shining example if not the model of successful democratization.11 The way the AKP government has curbed the military’s traditional political role has tremendously added to its attraction among Arab publics that have long suffered under autocratic regimes supported by the military.12 Turkey’s success in combining its Islamic identity at the societal level with a secular state is also seen as an example worth emulating in other countries of the Middle East. Finally, Turkey’s stance on the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the blockade of Gaza has added to its popularity in the Middle East.13 Iran possesses the fourth largest oil reserves on the planet and is the third largest exporter of oil. It also is home to the second largest reserve of natural gas after Russia, thus making it an energy giant.14 Iran’s oil and natural gas reserves make it a very important player in the energy market, now and well into the future, when natural gas is expected to play a more prominent role as a source of energy. Despite the Iranian regime’s problems of domestic legitimacy and the emergence of a system of what I call “praetorian corporatism,” its political system has been much more open than those of its Arab neighbors until recently.15 It also possesses considerable soft power in the Middle East because of its open and sustained defiance of US global hegemony and of America’s perceived surrogate Israel’s attempt at regional hegemony. Iran’s attempt to acquire nuclear capabilities against heavy odds has also endeared it to Arab publics, although several Arab regimes are opposed to the idea of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons capability. In fact, according to Wikileaks, the Saudi monarch went to the extent of advising the US president to “cut off the head of the snake” by launching military strikes against Iran’s nuclear program.16 In spite of these assets, Iran’s soft power is considerably less than that of Turkey and its image suffered a great deal as a result of the crackdown on popular protests following the controversial presidential elections of 2009. Iran’s economic performance has also been uninspiring thanks in part to Western sanctions and in part to the mismanagement by the Iranian regime. Had Iran not possessed the energy resources that it does and had the price of oil not stayed relatively high in the past few years, the country would have been in dire

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economic straits. Although its popularity in the Arab world has suffered of late because of its support for the Bashar al-Assad regime’s brutal crackdown in Syria, nonetheless it still has considerable attraction for the Arab publics because of its resistance against Western, especially US, hegemony as well as its opposition to Israel’s regional hegemony. The US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have helped create a situation that has made it conducive for both Iran and Turkey to defy or work at cross-purposes with Washington. US confrontation with Iran over the latter’s effort to enrich uranium and thus, as Western policymakers and a number of analysts allege, covertly build nuclear weapons capability is in many ways a direct outcome of the war on terror. Similarly, the reorientation of Turkish foreign policy toward the Arab and Muslim world and the deterioration in Turkish-Israeli relations, both of which are likely to have major consequences for Turkey’s relations with the United States and Europe, are also related substantially although not exclusively to the war on terror. For the sake of analytical clarity, this chapter will deal sequentially with US relations with Iran and Turkey since 2001 and the launching of the war on terror.

The United States and Iran The US and allied invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq had a mixed impact on Iran. On the one hand, by overthrowing the regimes of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein—Iran’s primary regional antagonists— they dramatically improved Iran’s strategic environment and removed important constraints on Iran’s regional behavior. Furthermore, US inability to bring the two wars to successful conclusions emboldened Tehran considerably. Tehran estimated that with Washington concurrently stuck in two quagmires, the likelihood was vastly reduced of the United States engaging in coercive action against Iran, whether on the uranium enrichment issue or on Tehran’s support of the Lebanese Hizbullah and the Palestinian Hamas (both dubbed terrorist organizations by Washington). Additionally, regime changes brought about by the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq provided greater opportunity for Iran to influence the political future of both countries because major political actors in both Afghanistan

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and Iraq were and continue to be beholden to Tehran in multiple ways. Iran was a close ally of the Tajik-led Northern Alliance during Taliban rule in Afghanistan. In fact, Iran facilitated US contacts with the Northern Alliance in the run-up to the invasion of Afghanistan. Consequently, its influence in the Tajik areas of northern Afghanistan and with Tajik political actors, who initially dominated the Afghan political landscape after the overthrow of the Taliban, continues to remain strong. At the same time, Iran is also the patron of the Shia Hazaras of central Afghanistan who form 20 percent of Afghanistan’s population and had suffered from oppression and discrimination at the hand of Kabul’s Pashtun rulers both under the monarchy and under the Taliban. It is only with the fall of the Taliban that for the first time in Afghanistan’s history the Hazaras have achieved a degree of political influence somewhat commensurate with their population and their strategic location. Iran’s influence with the Hazaras provides it substantial clout in Afghanistan’s internal affairs. Iran has close cultural and economic ties with the Tajikdominated province of Herat in western Afghanistan, which had been a part of Iran until 1857. According to a leading scholar of Iran, “One of Iran’s main objectives [in Afghanistan] is to create an economic sphere of influence in Herat and turn it into a security buffer zone. Iran ultimately wants to become the hub for transit of goods and service between the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Central Asia, China and India.” The bulk of the $660 million of reconstruction aid pledged by Iran to Afghanistan in 2002 has been spent in western Afghanistan to improve infrastructure, education, and communication, including work on a 176-kilometer railroad from Iran to Herat.17 This expansion of Iranian influence into Afghanistan would not have been possible had the Taliban, who had ousted Iran’s Tajik protégé Ismail Khan from Herat in 1995, continued to rule the country. It is unlikely that the United States would have been able to anoint Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan at the Bonn Conference in December 2001 without Iran’s help. Iran had initially advocated the return of the Tajik Burhanuddin Rabbani, who had been ousted by the Taliban, but decided to throw its support behind Karzai to signal, among other things, its willingness to cooperate with the United States in Afghanistan. It had sent such a signal earlier as well during the US invasion by acting as the conduit for US aid to the

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forces of the Northern Alliance that ousted the Taliban regime from Kabul. However, President Bush’s State of the Union speech in early 2002 included Iran with Iraq and North Korea in the “axis of evil,” and the United States soon rebuffed Tehran’s conciliatory approach.18 This shut the door on any prospect of rapprochement between Washington and Tehran, discredited the moderate Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, and contributed to the election of hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran. It also set the scene for strategic competition between the United States and Iran in Afghanistan, although both shared the goal of preventing the Taliban from returning to power. Consequently, Iran decided to extend limited aid to anti-US and anti-NATO elements in Afghanistan in order to keep the United States and its allies off-balance and mired in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Things have gone downhill since then, despite President Ahmadinejad’s congratulatory message on Barack Obama’s election in 2008 and President Obama’s initial message of goodwill to Iran at the time of the Iranian New Year in March 2009. The United States did not follow up Obama’s message with any concrete gesture, such as lifting of sanctions on spare parts for civilian planes. The lack of such spare parts has led to several crashes in Iran and many fatalities. In fact, the United States and its allies kept tightening the sanctions noose on Iran, thus sending the message that Washington was not serious regarding its intent of rapprochement with Iran.19 Paradoxically, at the same time that US-Iranian relations were going from bad to worse, the decimation of Iraq’s residual military capabilities (much of which had already been destroyed in the 1991 Gulf War) as a result of the US invasion in 2003 reinforced Iran’s political and military preeminence in the energy-rich Persian Gulf. It did so by irrevocably destroying the regional balance of power and tilting it unmistakably in Iran’s favor. According to some analysts, it paved the way for the emergence of a Shia crescent in the Middle East.20 Bolstering Saudi capabilities, principally by the transfer of sophisticated weaponry by the United States, is unlikely to change the balance of power in the Persian Gulf given the vulnerabilities of the Saudi state and its regime as well as Saudi Arabia’s lack of soft power (other than cash) to influence events in the long term.21 The removal of the Saddam Hussein regime—loathed by the Iranians for having unleashed the extremely bloody eight-year war

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against Iran with the help of the Gulf monarchies and the United States—and its replacement by a quasi-democratic system in Iraq has also helped expand and consolidate Iranian influence in that country. Relatively free elections in Iraq have helped Shia parties, reflecting the demographic majority in the country, to take control of most of the levers of power in Baghdad. In addition to their sectarian affinity with Iran, most of the prominent Shia leaders of Iraq had been in refuge in Iran during the Saddam Hussein years, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp trained several Iraqi Shia militias. While the Shia factions have been far from united in post–Saddam Hussein Iraq, Iran has retained influence with the three most important ones—the Dawa Party, the Sadrists, and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq—and often nudged them to work with each other and with the Sunni factions in the country. Iran is the country with the greatest leverage with the Shiadominated government of current prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who would not have been able to put together a coalition after haggling for nine months, and become prime minister for a second time after the last elections in 2010, had Iran not weighed in on his behalf.22 Additionally, Iranian financial support keeps many Iraqi Shia institutions, parties, and leaders afloat. Furthermore, Iran is now Iraq’s second largest trading partner after Turkey, which has a near monopoly on trade with Iraqi Kurdistan.23 Iran forms the lifeline of the Iraqi economy in the predominantly Shia south. Iranian pilgrims flock to the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, providing livelihood to thousands of Iraqi citizens. Cheap Iranian manufactured products flood the Iraqi market, and Iranian contractors are involved in infrastructure projects such as power, health, and housing. In short, the Iraqi government’s dependence on Iran in political and economic terms is of a very high order. This dependence is likely to rise further following the departure of US forces from Iraq, as any Shia-dominated government in Baghdad is bound to realize that given the latent hostility of Sunni Arab regimes in Iraq’s vicinity, Iran is its only dependable ally in the region and one that it cannot afford to alienate. This is a major reason why Baghdad has turned a blind eye toward the supply of arms and ammunition by Iran to the Syrian regime transiting through Iraqi territory.24 While Iran is not averse to seeing a Shia-dominated Iraq, it does not want sectarian and ethnic rifts to reach a stage where the disinte-

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gration of the country becomes a real possibility. This disintegration could aggravate Sunni-Shia tensions in the Middle East, which would be detrimental to broader Iranian interests in the predominantly Sunni Muslim Middle East, and it could lead to the emergence of an independent Kurdish state from the ruins of a dismembered Iraq. It is, therefore, very likely that Tehran will rein in the extreme sectarian proclivities of any Shia-dominated government in Baghdad in order to preserve the territorial integrity of Iraq and provide the Sunni Arab and Kurdish minorities enough stake in the state to neutralize secessionist demands.25 At the same time as Iran’s influence vastly expanded in its neighborhood, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US and NATO military presence on the two flanks of Iran increased the fear among Iran’s decisionmakers of a US pincer movement against Iran in order to effect regime change in Tehran on the lines of the one accomplished in Baghdad. This led to two Iranian responses: one, to adopt a strategy of low-level support to anti-American forces to keep the United States mired in the Afghan and Iraqi theaters; two, to expedite the acquisition of nuclear weapons capability by mastering the uranium enrichment technology and clandestinely acquiring the knowhow to produce nuclear weapons if Iran’s strategic environment worsens to a degree where such capability may become necessary.26 The Iranian search for nuclear weapons capability, although initially prompted by the eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s during which it became clear that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and was developing nuclear weapons, seems to have been accelerated with the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the massive deployment of US military power that preceded and accompanied the two invasions. Moreover, Iran is also keenly aware of Israeli nuclear weapons capability, which, in the words of Nader Entessar, “presents a singularly unique challenge to Iran’s security . . . the Islamic Republic’s strategic decision-makers are keenly aware of Israel’s significant military potential and its ability to wreak havoc in Iran.”27 According to Entessar, “The single most important driving force in Iran’s nuclear calculus is its threat perception or . . . its ‘strategic loneliness.’”28 None other than Israel’s defense minister Ehud Barak, in a candid moment, recognized the strategic rationality of such a policy. In an appearance on Charlie Rose in November 2011, Barak was asked whether he would want to acquire nuclear weapons if he were an

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Iranian government minister. Barak responded very candidly: “Probably, probably. I know it’s not—I mean I don’t delude myself that they are doing it just because of Israel. They look around, they see the Indians are nuclear, the Chinese are nuclear, Pakistan is nuclear, not to mention the Russians.”29 While downplaying the Israeli nuclear weapons capability, Barak neglected to mention that Iran’s policymakers perceive the US nuclear and nonnuclear armada in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea as the greatest threat to their security. The conclusion that Iran is launched on acquiring nuclear weapons capacity seemed to be corroborated by a report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on November 8, 2011. According to the report, the IAEA “had accumulated more than 1,000 pages of documentation that had led it to believe that suspected nuclear weapons work was done under a ‘structured programme’ up to 2003, and that ‘some may still be ongoing.’”30 While this information was not new, the fact that it was explicitly stated in the IAEA report indicated that the nuclear watchdog was seriously concerned about Iran’s ongoing interest in acquiring nuclear weapons capability. Covert Israeli and US activity—assassination of nuclear scientists, blowing up missile depots, infecting computer programs used for uranium enrichment—may have helped delay Iran’s nuclear program. However, such actions plus economic sanctions imposed on Iran at the behest of Western powers and periodic threats by Israel and the United States that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was not “off the table” also have had the opposite effect of convincing Iranian decisionmakers that they live in a very dangerous strategic environment. The US decision to invade nonnuclear Iraq while desisting from militarily confronting a nuclear North Korea must have been interpreted by Iran’s rulers that even rudimentary nuclear capability can deter potential US and allied designs to attack Iran, whether to topple its regime or impair its nuclear capacity. It would not be wrong to conclude, therefore, that Iran’s attempt to acquire nuclear weapons capability received a boost from the US and allied invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Paradoxically, these invasions, while increasing Iran’s influence in its neighborhood, also created a sense of paranoia among Iran’s ruling circles that has found expression in their accelerated pursuit of nuclear weapons capability through the uranium enrichment route. According to a well-informed

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Iranian source, “Since the day the United States invaded Iraq, the Iranian officials began their planning for a potential confrontation.” The quest for nuclear capacity was a part of this overall planning, much of it devoted to asymmetrical warfare both in the region and around the globe.31 The aftermath of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq also demonstrated that Iran is indispensable to the construction of a stable and legitimate security structure in the Persian Gulf and beyond.32 This has become crystal clear with the departure of US forces from Iraq in December 2011. The Shia-dominated Iraqi government is led by figures friendly to or dependent on Iran. They may not be Iran’s stooges, but Iran’s influence in Baghdad is clearly greater than that of the United States despite the presence of thousands of US security contractors left behind to train Iraqi forces.33 Iran’s influence in Iraq is demonstrated by the fact that the Iraqi government refused to extend beyond 2011 the status of forces agreement with the United States originally signed in 2008 that provided immunity from prosecution to US troops. The Sadrists, who have close relations with Iran, principally opposed the extension, with Muqtada al-Sadr calling upon his followers to attack US forces left behind after the December 31, 2011, deadline. Consequently, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who was dependent upon the Sadrists to gain a second term as prime minister after the indecisive 2010 elections, refused to extend the status of forces agreement.34 This suited Tehran admirably. Iraq also turned down pleas by the United States to maintain a few military bases after December 2011. According to the Guardian, “The Iraqi decision is a boost to Iran, which has close ties with many members of the Iraqi government and which had been battling against the establishment of permanent American bases.”35 Finally, as stated earlier, the debilitation of the Iraqi state and the near-total decimation of Iraqi power following the US invasion reinforced Iran’s position as the preeminent, if not yet the predominant, power in the eastern half of the Middle East. According to James Dobbins, former US assistant secretary of state, “The United States has three main objectives with respect to Iran: restraining its external behavior, moderating its domestic politics, and reversing its nuclearweapons programme.”36 The war on terror and its corollaries the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have been counterproductive on all three counts.

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All this does not necessarily translate into a complete victory for Iran in its tussle with the United States for preeminence in the Persian Gulf. Domestic challenges to the legitimacy of its regime plus an economy in dire straits largely because of sanctions imposed by the West are major hurdles to the exercise of its soft power in the region. The presence of massive US forces, both offshore and onshore in the Persian Gulf, also means that the United States is likely to prevail in a direct military confrontation if it comes about, for example, on the Iranian nuclear issue. However, Iran does have the capacity to make the price of such a confrontation very high, maybe nearly prohibitive, in economic and political terms for the United States. On the other hand, short of a direct military confrontation, Iran is unlikely to concede regional supremacy to the United States and will continue to engage in a test of wills that is likely to entail a high diplomatic price for the United States. The war on terror has in fact made the situation worse for the United States in its continuing struggle with Iran in the energy-rich Persian Gulf.

The United States and Turkey Turkey had been a loyal ally of the United States since 1952 when it joined NATO. According to one scholar, the Turkish-American relationship started as a partnership among unequal powers and was heavily conditioned by security considerations [during the Cold War years]. . . . Turkey incurred two major opportunity costs because of the bilateral relationship . . . namely the limitations imposed by the alliance upon Turkey’s ability to take autonomous action, and setbacks to Turkey’s regional policies.37

But, there was a paradigmatic shift in the early 2000s in Turkey’s approach to the world, including toward its relationship with the United States. This became especially evident with the coming to power of the AKP government in 2002. A distinguishing feature of the new Turkish foreign policy has been Turkey’s deliberate effort to redefine its position in international relations, and the emphasis placed on regional dimension in such efforts. . . . [Consequently,] Turkey’s relationship with the United

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States is reduced to one of many items on its foreign policy agenda, and downgraded from the privileged place it traditionally enjoyed.38

Because the US occupation of Iraq coincided with increasing democratization of the Turkish polity and the ascent to power of the post-Islamist AKP, it made the tensions within the US-Turkish alliance, especially on issues relating to the Middle East, increasingly apparent. A primary reason behind Turkey’s disillusionment with the US venture into Iraq was that “Turkey, being a neighbor of Iraq and integral part of this already very volatile region, perceived the war to be a source of great risks, especially given the ambiguity of American plans concerning post-war conditions in Iraq.”39 In Turkey’s view such risks largely pertained to the disintegration of the Iraqi state and the consequent emergence of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq that could have a major negative demonstration effect on the already restive Kurdish population of Turkey as well as act as a center of Kurdish irredentism by recreating dreams of pan-Kurdish unity and challenging the existing frontiers of Turkey and several of its Middle Eastern neighbors. Moreover, the invasion of Iraq was extremely unpopular among the Turkish population that saw it as an attempt to occupy and devastate a fellow Muslim country. There was also the fear that another invasion would trigger a major inflow of refugees into Turkey from Iraq just as the Gulf War had done in 1991. The democratically elected government was, therefore, under pressure to at least distance itself from the US venture if not actively oppose it. The combination of all these factors led the Turkish parliament to refuse permission for US troops to transit through Turkey to open a northern front in Iraq despite the newly elected AKP government’s endorsement of the US proposal. The Turkish refusal resulted in a spate of anti-Turkish statements in the United States, including one by US deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, paradoxically the principal advocate in the Bush administration of democratization of the Middle East, who declared in an interview on the cable news channel CNN Turk on May 6, 2003, that it was disappointing that the Turkish military had not been more forceful in pushing the country’s parliament to cooperate with the US invasion of Iraq.40 This statement was interpreted in Turkey as indirect US encouragement to the Turkish military to stage a coup

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against the democratically elected government. It is not wrong to state that the period immediately following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 “marked the lowest point in [Turkish-American] relations since the U.S. arms embargo of 1975–78 [over the Turkish military intervention in northern Cyprus].”41 It is important to note that under the AKP government Turkey was able to turn the challenge of the war in Iraq into an opportunity. Ankara’s policy of reconciliation with the Iraqi Kurds, principally by accepting the autonomous status of Iraqi Kurdistan with good grace, and the latter’s economic dependence on Turkey, again actively encouraged by Ankara, have made Turkey a very influential player in northern Iraq.42 This was essentially a continuation but also a significant ratcheting up of the Turkish policy going back to the 1990s that had turned Turkey into the economic lifeline of landlocked Iraqi Kurdistan after the Gulf War. The Iraq War also began Turkey’s drift away from the United States in terms of strategies in the Middle East with the recognition that US and Turkish interests in the region do not necessarily coincide.43 This trend was reinforced by the increasingly evident failure of the United States to attain its goals in Iraq. Ankara also engaged in some deft diplomacy after 2003 that created room for Turkey to advance its own diplomatic goals in the Middle East, which are sometimes at odds with US objectives. It has also provided Ankara the opportunity to take on a leading role in matters relating to the Arab world and to increasingly fill the vacuum created by US failures and the consequent retrenchment of US power considered inevitable by regional actors. This has become progressively more apparent with the outbreak of democratic uprisings in the Arab world. Large segments of the Arab opinion have held up Turkey under the AKP as a model of democratic governance that has been able to successfully combine Islamic societal values with those of a secular state.44 At the same time, Arab perceptions of the United States continued to remain largely negative—in 2011 only 26 percent of those polled in a relatively reliable poll expressed a favorable opinion of the United States—despite mixed feelings in the Arab world about US policies toward the Arab Spring.45 Ankara has found it easier to adopt an independent line as the standing of the United States has dipped in the region and as it has become clear that the costs of defying the United States or at least substantially diverging from US policies have decreased consid-

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erably. The divergence of Turkish policies in the Middle East from US policies reached its climax in 2009, as was demonstrated most clearly in Ankara’s stance toward Israel and toward the Iranian nuclear program. Simultaneously with its drift away from the United States Turkey launched a policy of zero problems with neighbors, exemplified by its rapprochement with Syria, with whom relations had been antagonistic for quite some time, and improvement of relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Turkey also became more vocal in its support for the Palestinian cause in order to conform to Turkish public opinion. Part of these changes can be attributed to the coming to power of the AKP in 2002 and democratic consolidation in Turkey under a government not afraid to emphasize the Muslim identity of the country and its people. However, a considerable part can be attributed to the US invasion of Iraq in the face of Turkish apprehension—an invasion widely ascribed in the Middle East, including Turkey, to Washington’s interest in ensuring Israeli military dominance of the Middle East. US standing in public opinion polls in Turkey nosedived after the Iraqi invasion and has remained basically at the same low level. A recent Pew survey showed that in 2011 only 10 percent of Turks had favorable opinions of the United States compared to 77 percent who held unfavorable opinions of the United States.46 Turkey’s current rift with Israel has the potential to become a major source of friction with the United States given the political clout of the Israel lobby in Washington, both with Congress and with the White House.47 The immediate cause of Turkey’s problems with Israel is the latter’s blockade of Gaza and the subsequent killing of nine Turks by Israeli forces on the Mavi Marmara. However, a major underlying source for the tensions surrounding Turkish-Israeli relations can be traced to the US invasion of Iraq and, therefore, to the war on terror. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 facilitated an enhanced covert Israeli presence and espionage operations in the Kurdish region of Iraq that now began to function as a political entity independent of Baghdad in all but name.48 Turkey perceives Israel as stoking Kurdish aspirations for independence from Iraq, an outcome clearly deleterious to Turkish interests. The Israeli meddling with the Kurdish issue has probably contributed more significantly to the deterioration of Turkish-Israeli relations than either the coming to power of the post-Islamist AKP in

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Ankara in 2002 or the highly destructive Israeli raid on Gaza in December 2008 or the attack on the Mavi Marmara in May 2010.49 Israeli statements, such as those by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that Israel should do everything to support the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels against Turkey in retaliation for the latter’s expulsion of the Israeli ambassador in September 2011, can be cited as additional proof of Israel’s intention of using the Kurdish card against Turkey.50 Deteriorating relations between Turkey and Israel have posed a major challenge to US policymakers, as both are considered strategically important allies. Unless US policymakers learn to disentangle Turkish-US relations from Turkish-Israeli relations the former will continue to remain hostage to the latter, thus negatively impacting US relations with an independent-minded Turkey that is engaged in an intricate effort to preserve its old relationship with the West, especially the United States, while building new ties with its Muslim neighbors. Turkey is engaged in performing the same balancing act in its relations with its most important neighbor Iran, which has been embroiled in one confrontation after another with the United States since the Iranian revolution of 1979. The current crisis bedeviling US-Iran relations is centered on Iran’s bid to enrich uranium that it argues is essential for civilian purposes. The United States and its European allies, on the other hand, consider Iran’s plans for uranium enrichment a ploy to attain nuclear weapons capability denied to it as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States sees this not merely as a threat to the international nuclear proliferation order but also an existential threat to Israel, with the latter constantly egging on the United States to use the military option to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. On the other hand, “Turkey does not see Iran as an existential security threat, but as a rival in terms of impact and influence, a significant trade partner and natural gas supply source without which Turkey had to completely rely on Russia, and an operational ally against the PKK terrorism.”51 Its relationship with Iran is, therefore, very complex and cannot be described in black-and-white terms.52 The divergence in US and Turkish perceptions of Iran is clearly visible on the uranium enrichment issue. These differences became very obvious with Turkey’s attempt in May 2010 to mediate the en-

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richment dispute between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany, namely the United States, Russia, China, the UK, France, and Germany) by negotiating a uranium swap deal with Iran with the help of Brazil. The attempt failed because of US opposition to the deal, although Washington had given the green light to Turkey and Brazil to negotiate such a swap.53 Turkey’s vote in the UN Security Council on June 9, 2010, opposing the latest round of UN-imposed sanctions against Iran was at least in part a reaction to the P5+1’s rejection of the uranium swap deal.54 It also reflected Ankara’s desire not to alienate Iran, which it considers a very important neighbor and economic partner. While there are elements of rivalry built into the Iranian-Turkish relationship, and these have come to the fore particularly in the case of Syria where the two countries back rival protagonists, Turkey’s approach to Iran is fundamentally different from that of the United States. The United States is committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability at all cost, including by the threat and use of force. On the other hand, “Turkey [has argued] that if military instruments were employed to solve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, it could create another source of instability similar to the situation in Iraq. Instead, Turkey called for engaging Tehran in order to allay security concerns and build confidence on both sides of the dispute.”55 One can argue that the war on terror, especially the US invasion of Iraq and the consequences flowing from it, has brought US and Turkish policies in the Middle East frequently into conflict with each other. The disjuncture in the two countries’ approaches to Israel and the Palestinian issue, a subject too vast to be included in this analysis, has further complicated Turkey-US relations and led to rising anti-Americanism in Turkey, especially in the context of the Mavi Marmara episode.56

Conclusion The outcomes of the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have emboldened Iran in its confrontationist posture toward Washington as it knows that with the United States stuck in the Iraqi and Afghan quagmires and increasingly being drawn into the Pakistani mess it

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cannot afford to open a front against Iran. Turkey has realized that the United States is no longer the provider of public goods globally or in the region and that striking out on a course independent of the United States will not have as severe consequences as some had imagined in the 1990s, immediately after the end of the Cold War. In both these wars it became apparent that the United States suffered from lack of clarity regarding its goals and a lack of capacity to bring the two wars to successful conclusion despite tremendous displays of military might. The US withdrawal from Iraq at the end of 2011, rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, has shown the futile nature of the entire enterprise despite the cost of over 100,000 Iraqi lives and about 4,500 US fatalities. It has left Iraq mired in sectarian conflict, with large parts of the country extremely insecure. Paradoxically, the US invasion of Iraq has vastly increased Iran’s influence in that country. Recent events have demonstrated that there can be no viable government in Baghdad unless it is blessed by Iran.57 US failure in Iraq is likely to be repeated in Afghanistan when NATO forces withdraw in 2014. The country they leave behind is likely to be mired in ethnic strife and sliding into state failure and, much like Lebanon in the run-up to its civil war, the arena where rivalries and conflicts among its neighbors, Iran and Pakistan foremost among them, are played out at the expense of Afghan lives. The Taliban, the bête noire of the United States, are likely to be key players in postwithdrawal Afghanistan, a fact already recognized by the United States and its allies. Recent attempts by Washington to start negotiations with the Taliban denote that the United States is aware of the fact that there can be no endgame in Afghanistan without the participation of the Taliban. This recognition is by itself an indication that the United States has failed to achieve its major objective of defeating the Taliban by means of counterinsurgency operations.58 The bottom line is that in pursuing the war on terror through the medium of the twin invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States suffered simultaneously from goal confusion and imperial overstretch. The combination of these two traits that have defined both the Afghan and Iraq wars has provided the two preeminent powers in the region, Iran and Turkey, wider scope to promote their interests autonomously of US concerns and quite often against the US definition of its own interests. This is likely to be one of the lasting legacies of the war on terror as far as the broader Middle East is concerned.

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Notes 1. For example, see Isikoff and Corn, Hubris. 2. For example, see Constable, Playing with Fire. 3. Martin Chulov, “Iraq’s Sectarian Divide Threatens to Split the Country as Anger at Maliki Grows,” Guardian (London), December 20, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/20/iraq-sectarian-divide -threatens-split. 4. Ayoob, “The War Against Iraq.” 5. Gerges, The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda. 6. Bill Keller, “The Pakistanis Have a Point,” New York Times Magazine, December 18, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/magazine /bill-keller-pakistan.html?ref=magazine. 7. For details of this argument, see Ayoob, “Beyond the Democratic Wave.” 8. CIA World Factbook, “Country Comparison: GDP,” January 16, 2012, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder /2001rank.html; Steve Bryant and Selcuk Goko-luk, “Turkey Growth Outpaces China Piling Pressure on Central Bank,” Bloomberg, June 30, 2011, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-30/turkish-economic-growth -accelerated-to-11-in-first-quarter-1-.html. 9. World Bank data, January 16, 2012, http://data.worldbank.org /country/turkey?display=default. 10. WTO Trade Profiles, January 16, 2012. http://stat.wto.org/Country Profile/WSDBCountryPFView.aspx?Language=E&Country=TR. 11. Omer Taspinar, “Egypt and the Turkish Model,” Brookings Institute, February 7, 2011, http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2011/0207_egypt _turkey_taspinar.aspx. 12. Pelin Turgut, “A Model of Middle East Democracy, Turkey Calls for Change in Egypt,” Time, February 2, 2011, http://www.time.com/time /world/article/0,8599,2045723,00.html. 13. “Why Turkey’s Erdogan Is Greeted Like a Rock Star in Egypt.” September 13, 2011, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599 ,2093090,00.html. 14. CIA World Factbook, “Country Comparison, Natural Gas-Proved Reserves,” January 16, 2012, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the -world-factbook/geos/ir.html. 15. The concept of “praetorian corporatism” derives from my combination of two paradigms—praetorianism and corporatism—currently used to explain the rise of the Revolutionary Guard’s power in Iran. I believe both are at work simultaneously and one cannot understand the nature of power in Iran without combining both the paradigms. For the praetorian argument, see Hen-Tov and Gonzalez, “The Militarization of Post-Khomeini Iran:

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Praetorianism 2.0,” pp. 45–59. For the corporatist argument, see Ansari, “The Revolution Will Be Mercantilized.” 16. “WikiLeaks Exposé: Saudis Told U.S. ‘Cut Off the Head of the Snake’ on Iran,” Haaretz, November 29, 2010, http://www.haaretz.com /news/international/wikileaks-expose-saudis-told-u-s-cut-off-the-head-of -the-snake-on-iran-1.327502. 17. Milani, “Iran and Afghanistan.” 18. Brumberg, “End of a Brief Affair?” 19. Parsi, Single Roll of the Dice. 20. For example, see Nasr, The Shia Revival. The prestigious Council on Foreign Relations held a symposium in June 2006 in New York entitled “The Emergent Shia Crescent: Implications for U.S. Policy in the Middle East,” http://www.cfr.org/publication/10866/emerging_shia_crescent _symposium.html. 21. For a very insightful analysis of the vulnerabilities of the Saudi regime, see al-Rasheed, “Yes, It Could Happen Here.” 22. Martin Chulov, “Iran Backs Maliki for Second Term as PM,” Guardian, October 18, 2010. 23. “Iran Seeks to Raise Trade with Iraq to $10 bln This Year,” Reuters, July 6, 2011, http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/07/06/iraq-iran-investment -idUKLDE7651FY20110706. 24. Michael R. Gordon, Eric Schmitt, and Tim Arango, “Flow of Arms to Syria Through Iraq Persists, to U.S. Dismay,” New York Times, December 1, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/world/middleeast/us-is -stumbling-in-effort-to-cut-syria-arms-flow.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc =edit_th_20121202. 25. Ayoob, “Only Iran Can Save Iraq.” 26. Ayoob, “Can the World Live with a Near-Nuclear Iran?” 27. Entessar, “Iran’s Nuclear Decision-Making Calculus,” p. 29. 28. Ibid., p. 33. 29. Ehud Barak, “Interview,” Charlie Rose, November 15, 2011, http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11995. 30. Julian Borger, “Iran May Be Researching Nuclear Warhead, Claims Watchdog,” Guardian, November 8, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world /2011/nov/08/iran-reasearch-nuclear-warhead-watchdog?INTCMP=ILC NETTXT3487. 31. Mehrabi, “Iran Charts Complex Strategy for Potential War with U.S.” 32. For details of this argument, see Ayoob, “American Policy Toward the Persian Gulf.” 33. Tony Karon, “U.S. Iraq Withdrawal a Gift to Iran? No, the U.S. Iraq Invasion Was the Gift to Iran,” Time World: Global Spin, http:// globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/10/25/u-s-iraq-withdrawal-a-gift-to-iran

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-no-the-u-s-iraq-invasion-was-the-gift-to-iran/; and Ayoob, “Can the World Live with a Near-Nuclear Iran?” 34. “Status of Forces Agreement,” New York Times, January 16, 2012, http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesand territories/iraq/status-of-forces-agreement/index.html. 35. “Iraq Rejects US Request to Maintain Bases After Troop Withdrawal,” Guardian, October 21, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world /2011/oct/21/iraq-rejects-us-plea-bases. 36. Dobbins, “Coping with a Nuclearizing Iran,” pp. 37–38. 37. Kardas, “Turkish-American Relations in the 2000s,” p. 28. 38. Ibid., pp. 34, 35. 39. Onis and Yilmaz, “Between Europeanization and Euro-Asianism,” p. 12. 40. “Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz Interview with CNN Turk,” May 6, 2003, http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx ?transcriptid=2572. 41. Onis and Yilmaz, “Between Europeanization and Euro-Asianism,” p. 13. 42. “Resurgent Turkey Flexes Its Muscles Around Iraq,” New York Times, January 5, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/world /middleeast/05turkey.html?pagewanted=all. 43. Omer Taspinar, “Time to Rethink Turkish-American Relations (2),” Brookings Institute, November 8, 2010, http://www.brookings.edu /opinions/2010/1108_turkey_us_taspinar.aspx. 44. “Arab World Favors Turkey, Sees as Model, Study Reveals,” Today’s Zaman, May 18, 2010, http://www.todayszaman.com/news-210462 -arab-world-favors-turkey-sees-as-model-study-reveals.html. 45. “2011 Arab Public Opinion Poll,” Brookings Institute, November 21, 2011, http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2011/1121_arab_public _opinion _telhami.aspx. 46. “Opinion of the United States: Turkey,” Pew Global Attitudes Project, Spring 2012, http://www.pewglobal.org/database/?indicators =1&country=224&response=Favorable. 47. For the influence of the Israeli lobby in Washington, see Mearsheimer and Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. 48. For details of Israeli presence in Iraqi Kurdistan, see Seymour M. Hersh, “Plan B,” New Yorker, June 28, 2004, http://www.newyorker .com/archive/2004/06/28/040628fa_fact. Also, see the BBC Newsnight clip showing Israelis providing military training to Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =XTt84I3bxF4. 49. See Kibaroglu, “Clash of Interest over Northern Iraq Drives TurkishIsraeli Alliance to a Crossroads.” 50. Shimon Shiffer, “Israel to ‘Punish’ Turkey,” Ynetnews, September 9, 2011, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4119984,00.html.

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51. Kosebalaban, “Turkey and the New Middle East,” p. 103. 52. For a good account of the multifaceted nature of the Turkish-Iranian relationship, see Daphne McCurdy, “Turkish-Iranian Relations.” Also, see Ayoob, “Beyond the Democratic Wave.” 53. Julian Borger, “Cool Response to Iran’s Nuclear Swap with Turkey,” Guardian, May 17, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010 /may/17/iran-nuclear-fuel-swap-turkey?INTCMP=SRCH. 54. James Kanter, “Gates Criticizes Turkey Vote Against Sanctions,” New York Times, June 11, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12 /world/europe/12nato.html. 55. Kardas, “Turkish-American Relations in the 2000s,” p. 43. 56. Sabrina Tavernise and Michael Slackman, “Turkey Goes from Pliable Ally to Thorn for U.S.,” New York Times, June 8, 2010, http://www .nytimes.com/2010/06/09/world/middleeast/09turkey.html?emc=eta1. 57. Ayoob, “Only Iran Can Save Iraq.” 58. Ahmed Rashid, “How US Intends to End War with Taliban,” Financial Times, April 19, 2011.

8 Europe: Reinforcing Existing Trends Rik Coolsaet

When al-Qaeda struck on 9/11, a large majority of citizens in

Europe probably felt that the world would never be the same again. Although there are no reliable instant surveys to prove this claim, a quick glance at the newspaper headlines of the hours and days that followed the attacks lends credence to the argument that most Europeans saw 9/11 as a defining moment for a whole generation. In the midst of dramatic assertions that a third world war had begun and sweeping portrayals of the future as an existential struggle between the West and the rest (the latter soon came to be defined as some sort of global Islamic insurgency), only a few voices called for a more balanced judgment of the tragic events of that day. It should also be noted that some comments showed a discernible lack of empathy when claiming that the United States was partly to blame for the attacks. But on the whole the tragic images of the burning towers, the poignant accounts by survivors, and the burials of the victims in the following weeks unleashed a demonstration of spontaneous solidarity with the United States, articulated by an editorial in the French newspaper Le Monde on September 13, 2001: “Nous sommes tous Américains! [We’re all Americans!]” Looking back, it can now be stated that as far as Europe is concerned, 9/11 was neither the definer of an era nor the watershed moment many Europeans considered it to be at the time. Undoubtedly, 9/11 had an impact, even a significant one, in both foreign and domestic policies: it reinforced preexisting trends and tendencies, crys-

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tallized positions, and hardened points of view. A decade later, however, this impact has largely subsided and has again given way to the same forces profondes (deep forces) that were shaping the continent before the terrorist attacks and that far exceed 9/11 in lasting importance. Only in one, unanticipated respect did 9/11 have a lasting impact. It furthered political integration—in particular in the fields of justice and internal security—to a degree few would have imagined some years earlier. This illustrates an old truth concerning the construction of the continent: European integration moves forward through crises, each crisis pushing its member states closer together in an intricate web of interdependent relationships. Assessing the overall impact of 9/11 on European societies and politics, however, is not an easy undertaking. Europe’s complex mosaic defies easy generalizations. Different political and cultural traditions, diverse approaches in dealing with ethnic and religious minorities, dissimilar national experiences with terrorism, and lack of detailed cross-national research complicate generalizations.

The Fear Factor It has often been assumed that following 9/11 Europe too fell under the spell of an all-pervasive fear of terrorist attacks and European citizens began to live in a constant state of anxiety about “Muslim terrorists” plotting and planning imminent attacks in cities across the continent. Surveys, however, reveal a more nuanced account. It has long been overlooked, but fear of terrorist attacks has never been equally strong across Europe. In 2006, Edwin Bakker for the first time explored the striking differences in threat perception among the twenty-five member states of the European Union (EU), based upon the periodic Eurobarometer survey of public opinion across Europe.1 In the spring of 2003, the public was asked for the first time to identify the two most important issues their country was facing. Only in Spain did a majority mention terrorism, followed by the UK (28 percent) and Italy (24 percent). In Finland and Sweden a mere 3 percent mention terrorism, and hardly more Portuguese, Greeks, and Irish did so. In 2004 the new member states in Central and Eastern Europe were included and an additional east-west gap appeared, with extremely low percentages declaring terrorism an important issue in “New Europe” as compared to some of the original

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member states. No single explanation accounts for these discrepancies across Europe. Bakker identifies a set of factors that all played a part, such as recent and past experience with terrorism, involvement with the US war on terror, the way in which society and politics tend to react to insecurity, and the presence of sizable Muslim communities. Notwithstanding the alarming headlines in Europe’s newspapers immediately after the attacks, Europe never completely subscribed to the US paradigm that the attacks of 9/11 “revealed the outlines of a new world” and “provided a warning of future dangers of terror networks aided by outlaw regimes and ideologies that incite the murder of the innocent, and weapons of mass destruction that multiply destructive power,” as President George W. Bush portrayed it.2 It is true that official discourse (and media) often described terrorism in similar existential terms, with the Spanish prime minister José María Aznar as a typical example: “Terrorism changed the agenda of the world.”3 But, with the exception of the UK and Spain, terrorism never became a prime concern for European citizens (save in the immediate post-9/11 months).4 Moreover, in academia and think tanks a certain skepticism as to the saliency of the threat has always been present, and increasingly so after 2004—and in spite of major attacks in Madrid in 2004 and in London in 2005. The “state of the threat” was a regular agenda item in terrorism-related meetings, but it was often depicted in less dramatic terms than in US debates. By the mid-2000s, while mainstream opinion in the United States imagined jihadist terrorism to be a hydra-headed foe of global dimensions and local terrorist groups to be part of a worldwide Islamist insurgency, directed and influenced in one way or another by an omnipresent al-Qaeda, European observers and practitioners were engaged in alternative analyses. A view that circulated in that period in the European counterterrorism community was that of a “patchwork of self-radicalising cells with international contacts, without any central engine and without any central organisational design.” Such a patchwork closely resembled the radical left terrorist groups Europe had experienced in the 1970s and 1980s, or the anarchists in the late nineteenth century—or modern-day criminal networks, alternately cooperating and acting autonomously, depending upon circumstances.5 Such analyses mirrored a deeper trend in European public opinion in the decade following 9/11. Even in countries where anxiety

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over terrorism scored high at times in public perceptions, it nevertheless showed an inexorable decline after 2001, interrupted only by occasional spikes each time a significant terrorist incident occurred. In 2004 as many as 16 percent of European citizens identified terrorism as one of the two most important issues facing their countries. The percentage has since dropped steadily (with an unexpected rise to 7–13 percent in 2010–2011), to a historic low of 2 percent in May 2012. This in turn reflected the decreasing significance of terrorism in Europe, as is made clear by the Europol statistics. Even if (for methodological reasons) the absolute figures of the Europe-wide police agency should be approached with caution, the declining trend in terrorism-related arrests and plots in the 2000s is obvious. In 2009 the number of (failed, foiled, or successful) attacks was almost half the number of attacks in 2007, and this pattern of sustained decrease has persisted ever since.6 In 2011 not one single “religiously inspired” terrorist attack on EU territory was reported by member states. This stands in stark contrast to 110 separatist attacks for that year. Although mostly small-scale, in Europe the separatist strand of terrorism (Corsican groups in France, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna [Basque Homeland and Freedom] in Spain, or the Irish Republican Army in Great Britain) has always been many times larger than the jihadist strand, as the Europol statistics also make clear. But overall, since 2007 all forms of terrorism have been declining in Europe, as Figure 8.1 shows.

Figure 8.1 Number of Attacks and Arrested Suspects in the European Union, 2007–2011 1,200 1,000

Arrests

800 600 400 Attacks

200 0

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

Source: Terrorism Situation and Threat Report (TE-SAT). Europol, 2012.

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Despite the official European discourse routinely describing terrorism, and especially its jihadist strand, as a threat to the European way of life and its values, by and large Europeans showed greater skepticism than what this discourse might suggest. In the 2000s the issue of terrorism never became of overriding concern to most Europeans—especially when compared to more pressing issues such as the economic situation, unemployment, rising prices, and immigration.

Immigrant aka Muslim aka Terrorist Commenting upon the London attacks, Charles Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post: “Europe has incubated an enemy within, a threat that for decades Europe simply refused to face.”7 Ever since 9/11, right-wing pundits have been linking immigration with terrorism. In doing so, they were building on an anti-Islam tendency that had started to take shape prior to 9/11. This fact has been overlooked as a result of the maelstrom of vitriolic anti-Islamic rhetoric that followed the terrorist attacks, but prior to 9/11 Islamophobia was already considered such a growing global phenomenon that immediate action was considered necessary to combat its spread. As Christopher Allen has judiciously noted, just a few days before 9/11, the UNsponsored World Conference Against Racism in Durban formally recognized Islamophobia, “thereby establishing anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic prejudice, discrimination, and hatred and placing it alongside other equally discriminatory and exclusionary phenomena, such as anti-Semitism and anti-Roma.”8 September 11 thus did not create Islamophobia, but its fallout built upon preexisting attitudes and sentiments in the member states of the European Union, reinforcing them and broadening their audience from the radical right to mainstream politics and even forging a rare rapprochement between right-wing and left-wing criticism of Islam and Muslims. The beginnings of Islamophobia in Europe were visible two decades earlier. In the mid-1980s, the author and playwright Caryl Phillips traveled through Europe and wrote in his travel narrative The European Tribe (1987) how he felt racism and the radical right were increasing everywhere as a result of the disappearance of religious, political, and cultural frontiers.9 In October 1985, Le Figaro Maga-

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zine carried a cover story representing a bust of a veiled Marianne, accompanied by the distressing headline “Serons-nous toujours Français dans 30 ans? [Will we still be French in thirty years’ time?]”10 The journal articulated a growing concern over immigration in the 1980s in Europe, when Europeans began to realize that the “migrant workers” who had arrived en masse in the 1960s to compensate for domestic labor shortages were here to stay and were joined by their families in the following decades. Between 1981 and 1990, according to the European Values Systems Study, intolerance significantly grew, as did feelings of ethnic threat by cultural minorities, at least in some member states. However, throughout the 1990s, sentiments of intolerance toward ethnic minorities fluctuated and were never static. In that decade they first tended to stabilize,11 but increased again after 1997. Eurobarometer surveys similarly point to a general increase of resistance to multicultural society between 1997 and 2000 and a similar increase in respondents confirming that multicultural society had reached its limits.12 Radical right parties capitalized on these incipient but fluctuating apprehensions, exactly as had happened in the United States in the nineteenth century with the nativist movement or in the 1920s when mass arrivals of Italians, Poles, Jews, and Slavs sparked fears of the mongrelization of the white race. As always in the history of mass migration, particular cultural characteristics were now again singled out, because they offered the visual identifiers that set newcomers apart from native society. In the 1990s it became standard practice, in particular in the radical right, but not limited to this fringe, to equate “immigrant” with “Muslim.” In the Netherlands, maverick politician Pim Fortuyn (who was murdered by an environmental activist in 2002) warned against the “Islamicisation of our culture.” In France, the Front National campaigned on the platform of the return of Muslim immigrants to their countries of origin, claiming that Islam was incompatible with European culture. In Belgium, the comparable radical right party Vlaams Blok (Flemish Bloc, predecessor of the actual Flemish Interest) made the suppression of Muslim influences a central feature of its anti-immigration campaign. Communities who by visual identifiers were easily associated with Islam were thus particularly and increasingly at risk of becoming targets of ethnic xenophobia directed toward ethnic minority communities.13 But throughout the 1990s alternative narratives coexisted to explain the difficulties of the multicultural society. The culturalist

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finger-pointing of the radical right was met with warnings that the dramatic socioeconomic position of the immigrant “subclass” fueled a considerable amount of potential discontent waiting to erupt.14 The attacks of 9/11 anchored the European debate on immigration firmly around the culturalist paradigm. In mainstream thinking, too, their culture now came to be seen as the major obstacle to the immigrants’ integration.15 Topics such as discrimination, disadvantaged socioeconomic position, and unemployment in the immigrant communities faded away from the public discourse. A social question thus came to be seen through an essentially cultural lens, even narrowed down to a question of identity. In this perception, the significant diversity within Muslim communities and diasporic communities from Muslim-majority countries was compressed into a single monolithic category of “Muslims,” conflating ethnicity with religion. By coincidence, this attitude was met with (and fed) a simultaneous development among the second- and third- generation immigrants from communities originating from Muslim-majority countries. These European-born Muslims were often better educated than their parents and thus more sensitive to the feeling of being considered second-class citizens in their home countries. This tension is common among the children and grandchildren of immigrants regardless of era and ethnic origin. Some among the children and grandchildren of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries who had migrated to Europe in the 1960s started to identify themselves by emphasizing their religious affiliation—the perceived cause of their discrimination.16 Pew surveys in the mid-2000s found Islamic identity to be strong among Europe’s Muslims, with most self-identifying as Muslims, rather than by nationality.17 Muslims thus often became “stereotypically portrayed in media reports as a devoutly religious and undifferentiated group sharing a fundamentalist version of Islam.”18 Moreover, the once quintessential radical right anti-Islam stance was now joined by a rigorous anticlerical stance of the left in some kind of a joint anti-Islamic Kulturkampf, propelling a fierce debate on the compatibility of Islam with Western values. In most member states, this debate spiked between 2004 and 2006.19 The murder of the Dutch moviemaker Theo van Gogh in 2004 and the terrorist attacks the same year in Madrid and the next year in London played a crucial role in this polarization. The perpetrators of the attacks were not foreigners coming to Europe in order to carry out attacks but individuals mostly born and raised in

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Europe. But even in this “long-term low in community relations”20 in Europe, not all publics in the member states showed the same degree of hostility toward Muslim communities. Majorities in Great Britain and France, as well as pluralities in Spain and Poland, hold a somewhat or very favorable view of Muslims. Among the Dutch and Germans, however, a majority or plurality holds unfavorable views of Muslims (51 and 47 percent, respectively).21 This febrile atmosphere surrounding the debate on the place of Muslims in European society prevented bridge-building between communities and the restoration of some degree of social cohesion. Simultaneously, surveys pointed to the emergence of a specific European Islam, marrying modernity and Islamic values. The same surveys clearly highlighted (as did some national surveys) that European Muslims’ worries were essentially the same as those of their nonMuslim neighbors: they worried about their future, and they were more concerned about unemployment than cultural or religious issues.22 The most hopeful conclusion that these surveys produced was that Europe’s Muslims were part of the social mainstream: They side with Islamic moderates, not fundamentalists, and the overwhelming majority reject extreme tactics like suicide bombing as a way to win political objectives. These Muslims express more temperate views of Westerners than those in the Middle East or Asia. A majority also express favorable opinions of Christians and have less negative views of Jews. . . . While Europe’s Muslim minorities are about as likely as Muslims elsewhere to see relations between Westerners and Muslims as generally bad, they more often associate positive attributes to Westerners—including tolerance, generosity, and respect for women. And in a number of respects Muslims in Europe are less inclined to see a clash of civilizations than are some of the general publics surveyed in Europe. Notably, they are less likely than non-Muslims in Europe to believe that there is a conflict between modernity and being a devout Muslim.23

But feverish debates in the European public sphere precluded any meeting of minds. They reinforced preexisting sentiments of ethnic threat posed by minorities. Nevertheless, by 2006 these feelings started to decrease in some member states, and by 2007 even returned to 1991 levels in some countries. 24 In 2008 a Pew survey found that the views of each toward the other were far from uniformly negative. Even in the wake of the tumultuous events of 2005, solid majorities in France, Great Britain, and the United

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States retained overall favorable opinions of Muslims, but in Spain and, more modestly in the UK, positive opinions of Muslims declined.25 Since 2006, positive and negative developments have coexisted and fluctuated. This made the European mental map as diverse as it had always been before 9/11. On the positive side, it is worth mentioning that, compared to the backlash that followed the murder of van Gogh or the publication of anti-Muhammad cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005, no comparable reaction followed the release of an anti-Islam movie Fitna by the Dutch politician Geert Wilders in 2008. Similarly, when a Swiss referendum in the following year banned the construction of minarets and France and Belgium passed laws between 2010 and 2012 (in the Netherlands a similar ban is still under consideration) that prohibited the wearing of the burka in public, there was no significant Muslim reaction. In 2010 and 2011, according to the annual surveys by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, immigration continued to dominate headlines in Europe (and North America) as never before. But given the widespread worry about the economy and migration flows from North Africa, it should be noted that overall perceptions of immigrants remained stable. Moreover, majorities in all countries except the UK saw immigration as culturally enriching, and publics generally did not agree that immigrants take jobs away from native workers. It should be noted, however, that in a number of EU countries, albeit not in all, Muslim immigrants often are seen as posing higher integration challenges than other immigrants.26 In some countries, anti-Islamic and anti-immigration parties started to lose some of their steam, as was experienced by the Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) in Belgium, the Folkeparti in Denmark, and Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party in the Netherlands. On the negative side, mainstream politicians have joined German chancellor Angela Merkel (who already had done so in 2004) in reigniting the discussion on integration, with British prime minister David Cameron calling multiculturalism “dead” and Volker Kauder, president of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany/Christian Social Union of Bavaria parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, emphasizing that Islam did not belong in Germany since it was not part of German tradition and identity.27 None of them, however, detailed what this judgment implied for the everyday life of immigrants and natives alike. During the 2012 French presidential election campaign, outgoing president Nicolas Sarkozy tried wooing

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far-right voters by emphasizing nationalist themes, such as restoring border controls and limiting immigration, but also by trumpeting the threat of Islamist groups after an isolated lone wolf, Mohammed Merah, had killed seven people in a series of shootings in Montauban and Toulouse in March 2012. In some member states, anti-Islamic and anti-immigration parties have recently gained significant traction (such as the True Finns in 2011, Greece’s Golden Dawn, and France’s Marine Le Pen who obtained a high turnout in the first round of the French presidential elections in April 2012). Clearly more worrying has been the crystallization, especially since 2008, of the anti-Islam and anti-immigration phobia of the radical right into a new generation of populist extremist parties and movements in a number of member states of the European Union,28 some of them prone to terrorist violence. This new variety of European populism puts at the center of its platform the pre-9/11 ethnic threat that immigration is imagined to pose to European culture and identity. When Anders Behring Breivik killed seventy-seven people in Oslo in July 2011, he justified his terrorist attack with reference to a mixture of fear about the impact of Islam, globalization, and the EU on the national (and European) identity. The German security services for their part came under fire at the end of 2011 for failing to effectively gauge the growth and danger of radical right extremism in the country. According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, right-wing violence claimed forty-seven lives in Germany between 1990 and 2009. Other estimates calculate numbers as high as 137.29 The handling of the radical right extremism finally led to the resignation of the BfV’s head and several other intelligence officials. In other European countries, too, the emergence of radical right extremism has become of paramount concern. This trend is particularly worrying in Greece. Here, the economic crisis has clearly fueled the rise of organized, violent far-right activism directed against immigrants that is reminiscent of the 1930s. Europe has primarily been an emigration continent for most of its history. Now it matches North America as a region of immigration. Exactly as has been the case with the nativist movement in US history since the nineteenth century, the debate on immigration will undoubtedly go on, influenced by the changing composition of migration flows, with ups and downs and with diverging national char-

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acteristics, but largely dissociated from the security obsession generated by 9/11.

The Essence of Counterterrorism in Europe Following 9/11, governments throughout Europe devoted much energy to counterterrorism: intelligence services and law enforcement capabilities were enhanced; specific counterterrorism legislation was adopted.30 Europe did not react differently from the United States in doing so, but two distinct characteristics set European counterterrorism apart from the US approach. The latter equated the attacks with a declaration of war and responded with a global decapitation strategy and a domestic mobilization of the nation. The former mostly pursued its traditional law enforcement approach, whereby terrorism was considered a crime to be tackled primarily through criminal law. The second quintessential European characteristic in post-9/11 counterterrorism was its focus on prevention through the identification of the underlying factors that led to terrorism.31 For many years this socalled root cause approach was met with overt hostility in the US counterterrorism community, where it was seen as condoning terrorist acts.32 The divergence was one of the many reasons why transatlantic cooperation on counterterrorism proved so difficult in the years following 9/11. European counterterrorism, moreover, was not as constant an undertaking as in the United States. Its dynamics can be compared to successive shock waves propelled by major attacks, but gradually winding down once the sense of urgency had faded away. The 9/11 attacks themselves opened a window of opportunity to push forward earlier approved but stalled legislative proposals intended to harmonize national laws in the realm of internal security where national prerogatives had always been the bedrock of all arrangements. A comprehensive EU Action Plan on Combating Terrorism was adopted within two weeks of the attacks. This led in the following months to a number of significant decisions and measures. Foremost was the decision establishing a European arrest warrant through which extradition procedures between member states were greatly facilitated. Another major breakthrough was the adoption of the framework decision defining a common concept of terrorist of-

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fenses. This served as the necessary basis for intra-EU judicial and police cooperation by its inclusion into the member states’ legal systems. Another scheme previously proposed—creating an EU-wide coordination body among magistrates to enhance the effectiveness of the competent judicial authorities of the member states when dealing with the investigation and prosecution of serious cross-border and organized crime—was also rapidly put in place as “Eurojust.” Additionally, within Europol counterterrorism now became of paramount importance, in stark contrast to the early days of the organization when terrorism did not even figure among its priorities.33 By 2003, however, there seemed to be a diminished sense of urgency. The attacks at the Atocha railway station in Madrid put an end to this inertia. New operational arrangements were quickly decided on, including the appointment of an EU counterterrorism coordinator. However, as months passed, the drive to deepen cooperation once again lost momentum only to be revived by the London attacks. The EU adopted its overall EU counterterrorism strategy following the London attacks, thus effectively streamlining the patchwork of decisions and mechanisms that had been put in place often in great haste following terrorist incidents. This had resulted in a policy architecture so complex that even EU officials—let alone the public at large—lost sight of what had been decided, who was doing what when, and who was in charge of implementing the wide variety of decisions. The EU counterterrorism strategy was based upon four strategic objectives, called “pillars”: Prevent, Protect, Pursue, and Respond. Deliberately, “Prevent” was mentioned as the first of the four. It stood for stemming the radicalization process by tackling the root causes that can lead to radicalization and recruitment into terrorism. “Protect” covered by far the broadest area since it aimed at sheltering citizens and infrastructure from new attacks. “Pursue” related to the efforts to pursue and investigate terrorists and their networks across EU borders. “Respond” intended to put into practice a 2004 “solidarity clause” by enhancing consequence management mechanisms and capabilities to be used in case of an attack in one of the member states. Most EU-wide results have been obtained in “Protect,” where the European Commission is a leading actor, and in “Pursue,” where the member states’ vital interests are at stake and close cross-border cooperation is needed.

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In the first and foremost pillar of the EU’s counterterrorism strategy, “Prevent,” progress has long been most laggard. It’s the most complex and thus the most challenging of the four pillars, essentially because of competing analyses about the nature and scope of the radicalization challenge and the inherent difficulty of measuring success. At a very early stage in their efforts against jihadist terrorism and drawing on their own experiences of terrorism, the EU member states were acutely aware that victory would not be achieved as long as the circumstances by which individuals turn into terrorists were not addressed. September 11 caught most EU member states by surprise. With the exception of the French and Belgian police and security forces (who had had some experience with Iranian-backed and then Algerian Islamist terrorism in the 1980s and early 1990s), most European countries were unprepared when confronted with a seemingly new strand of terrorism made up of terrorists who used religious discourse to legitimize their acts. It thus took some time for a consensus view on “root causes” to emerge within the EU counterterrorism community. So the first references to “root causes” in this particular variety of terrorism were quite diverse and impressionistic, including as diverse causes as radicalization, regional conflicts and failed or failing states, globalization and socioeconomic factors, alienation, propagation of an extremist worldview, and systems of education. Gradually, however, radicalization emerged as the main focal point in combating terrorism. Originally, it was perceived as the result of foreign extremists attempting to influence vulnerable youngsters through radical mosques, prisons, schools, neglected city districts, and Internet chat rooms. But from 2004–2005 onward, the view of terrorism as an external threat lost its preeminence and was replaced by the analysis of terrorism as a bottom-up process by which individuals “self-radicalized” and “self-recruited” into terrorism. A number of parallel developments explain this evolution. The first was undoubtedly the Madrid bombings and its less than obvious links with al-Qaeda. The perpetrators did not conform to the implicit standard terrorist profile of a devout Middle Eastern Muslim, but originated from the important Spanish-Moroccan migration diaspora. Secondly, substantial research by the Dutch intelligence service Algemene Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst (AIVD) provided the first solid moorings for the notions of “self-radicalization” and “selfrecruitment” within EU thinking. The AIVD was among the first in-

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telligence services to emphasize publically that radicalization had become a major avenue by which individuals turned into terrorists, not so much as a result of active outside recruitment as by an autonomous, self-propelled process. The murders in 2002 of the libertarian Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn by a lone-wolf activist and, especially, some years later of Theo van Gogh by a young member of a loose grouping of radicals, all of Moroccan descent and born or raised in the Netherlands (with the exception of one or two converts to Islam), turned the spotlight on homegrown terrorism. The AIVD was the first agency to introduce within the EU the notion of “decentralization of Islamist terrorism.” The London bombings firmly anchored radicalization, intertwined with its homegrown nature, at the heart of EU counterterrorism endeavors. From then on the terror threat within the EU was thus increasingly seen as a homegrown challenge and threat. International events—and the Iraq War in particular—increasingly appeared to function both as a booster and a source of inspiration to radical individuals. Iraq was seen as a black hole that attracted individuals from all over the world. Without fully realizing it, the EU found itself in new and uncharted territory, since this issue clearly impinged upon national sovereignty by going to the heart of political, social, and cultural differences among member states. From the start, radicalization was indeed essentially intertwined with issues of integration, social policy, multiculturalism, and representation of minority groups. As a consequence, counterterrorism now had to involve actors that were largely unfamiliar with—and even hostile to—its sphere of operations: for example, integration officials and authorities, which were quite resistant to the idea that their longstanding endeavors should become entwined with security-related objectives, thus “securitizing” social policies. Since 2004–2005, a torrent of research on the issue of radicalization and deradicalization has been unleashed, funded both by the European Commission and by member states. But the more research was produced on the issue, the clearer it became that the very notion of radicalization was ill defined, complex, and controversial. Notwithstanding the numerous endeavors in academia, police, and policy circles, no metrics exist to gauge radicalization. Most analyses of the growth or the scale of radicalization lack conceptual clarity and scientific fundamentals and therefore are incapable of providing empir-

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ical validation. Radicalization and deradicalization have become catchall concepts. Religious and political radicalization were and still are often confounded, coupling issues of identity and social cohesion with national security concerns.34 Many different expressions of an individual’s ideas and behavior are thus being labeled as signs or indications of radicalization, and these range from the increased presence of girls and women wearing the hijab, men dressed in Salafi trousers, Salafi preachers, and the terrorists themselves. Putting these disparate signs together into a box labeled “symbols of radicalization” empties this word of all explanatory meaning, turning it into a container concept. No clear EU-wide consensus has thus emerged on what kind of radicalization is to be addressed, or on the degree to which radical, but nonviolent religious discourse is to be included in counterterrorism. Some, but not all member states recognize that there is an inherent tension between the fight against terrorism—a crime—and the fight against radicalization—aspects of which are constitutionally protected as free speech. Moreover, most European experts now agree that the relationship between terrorism and (radical) interpretations of ideologies and religion is more tenuous than was first assumed and that focusing on ideology (or religion) is clearly not the best departure point for grasping why an individual turns into a terrorist. Nevertheless, intelligence and police authorities in some European countries still persist in a rearguard view according to which signs of increased (Salafist) religiosity are precursors of an eventual process of radicalization into violence. They point to the persistence of a loosely connected European network of Islamic neoradical fringe groups, whose names can vary but typically begin with the label “Sharia4,” followed by the country in which they operate (e.g., Sharia4UK, Sharia4Belgium, etc.).35 By 2010—after a short-lived sense of urgency as a result of foiled plots in the UK, Germany, and Denmark—the drive for furthering EU-wide cooperation on counterterrorism had once again largely stalled. In November 2009, the EU counterterrorism coordinator, Gilles de Kerchove, pointed to a growing sense of “CT fatigue.”36 The major reasons for this relative decline in EU counterterrorism activity are obvious. No major attacks have occurred since the London bombings. More crucially, jihadist terrorism has lost much of the formidable and larger-than-life character it once had. It largely defeated itself, since it proved unable to realize any of the objectives

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that it pretended to advance. The once extremely dense network of personal interlinkages between individuals, groups, and networks has inexorably unraveled and has been replaced by small, informal groups of terrorist wannabes with poor skill and terrorist tradecraft. Foreign fighters (trained militants returning from jihadist theaters)— once a source of major concern in the European counterterrorism community—proved to be much less of a threat than first imagined, even if in the course of 2012 the Syrian civil war started to attract youngsters from some (but clearly not all) European countries, as happened earlier in 2003 with Iraq. Perhaps even more important, as the Dutch national coordinator for counterterrorism mentioned in his December 2012 Terrorist Threat Assessment Netherlands, the resilience against extremism and violence has grown substantially, both within the public at large and within Muslim communities, signaling an increased desire by the latter to publicly air their opposition to this kind of violent activism. Terrorism-related discussions have clearly receded in public discussions and concerns.37 This assessment is in line with similar UK assessments that since 2007 sympathy for violent extremism has been declining rather than increasing.38 Since 2009, many member states of the EU have thus officially lowered their threat levels. Taking into account this diminished threat, the EU (and UN) mechanisms in place are producing satisfying results, so that no new instruments appear needed for the time being. Moreover, the EU-wide emphasis on radicalization and deradicalization—the main focus of Europe’s counterterrorism in the decade following 9/11—has reached its limits and the impossibility of implementing a Europe-wide “one size fits all” deradicalization approach is now widely acknowledged. Since terrorism is primarily the outcome of individual or small group dynamics boosting political radicalization into violent action, the local level is the primary and most adequate level for counter-radicalization initiatives.39 Through a decade of counterterrorism legislation, EU member states have nevertheless gone far beyond what most observers and member states thought achievable—and desirable—in the field of justice and home affairs, where most of Europe’s counterterrorism endeavors are situated. This is without doubt the area where the role of the EU has grown most significantly in the first decade of the

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twenty-first century.40 Counterterrorism has acted as a booster for cooperative cross-border arrangements going far beyond terrorism. This in turn has led to mounting criticism that liberty has been sacrificed on the altar of security. The European Parliament—whose powers the Lisbon Treaty of 2009 significantly enhanced—increasingly made its mark on counterterrorism-related issues. The European Parliament proved to be a formidable stumbling block for the EU’s 2010 compliance with the US Terrorist Finance Tracking Program as well as for the agreements reached by the European Commission and the United States on personal data exchanges (PNRs). It will almost certainly be an influential voice in the elaboration and scope of a possible European PNR system in the year 2013. Leading members of the European Parliament have been calling for a thorough assessment of the impact of counterterrorism measures, in particular on civil liberties and fundamental rights.41 It is indeed beyond dispute that counterterrorism arrangements have been infringing upon civil liberties and individual privacy: these include extension of detention time, increased surveillance of individual movements and information gathering, and enhanced data recording and storage. Responding to such concerns over excessive state intrusion, the European Union is rethinking how it logs citizens’ telephone calls and Internet use data for law enforcement purposes. These mounting challenges to counterterrorism arrangements reflect by themselves the decreased willingness to accept the overriding priority of counterterrorism over other political concerns, the declining priority of counterterrorism in European governments’ policies and in EU institutions, and ultimately, the fading anxiety over terrorist attacks.

Europe’s Place in the World The 9/11 attacks led to a spontaneous expression of European solidarity with the United States. The ensuing global war on terror shattered this transatlantic unity. Moreover, it divided Europe along the pre-9/11 fault line between Europeanist and Atlanticist countries. After the end of the Cold War, a transatlantic debate had started on the commonality of US and European perspectives on world affairs. Especially in the original member states of the EU, a growing

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Europeanist point of view was stressing the need for the EU to speak with one voice in world affairs, commensurate with its enhanced economic might. Throughout the 1990s new arrangements were devised strengthening European decisionmaking in foreign and defense matters parallel to NATO. Strategic partnerships were envisaged with other great powers, such as Russia and China, allowing the EU to take an autonomous stance in international relations. However, with new member states in Central and Eastern Europe joining the EU in the 1990s, this Europeanist development was slowed down, since the new members considered the United States, and thus US leadership in NATO, as the ultimate guarantor of their newly acquired independence. The 9/11 attacks and the ensuing uncertainty about the new contours of the post-9/11 world order pushed this nascent European autonomy in world affairs to the back burner. This new spike in transatlantic rapprochement didn’t last long, however. When US diplomacy shifted from its original multilateral reaction into an increasingly unilateralist policy, influential European voices were again heard insisting upon a distinct European position in the post-9/11 world. Even pro-US figures such as Javier Solana (Europe’s first High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy) or Chris Patten (European Commissioner for External Relations from 1999 to 2004) called for a strong and united European challenge to US unilateralism: “The United States should not establish itself as the world hegemon, setting and imposing rules—but not itself being bound by them—in pursuit of its own national interest.”42 An influential essay by Robert Kagan, depicting the Europeans as naive Kantians and the Americans as realistic Hobbesians, was characteristic of this transatlantic divide.43 The US global war on terror pitted two groups of EU member states against one another, labeled “Old” and “New” Europe by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.44 Especially in Old Europe, US counterterrorism tactics were met with significant resistance: a string of CIA-run secret detention centers (so-called black sites in Poland, Romania, and Lithuania), Guantanamo Bay, and the rendition program (abducting terror suspects from European countries and transporting them for questioning to third countries) were almost universally criticized. The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the climax of European division, some member states participating in Operation

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Iraqi Freedom while others joined China and Russia and many other countries in strong condemnation of the invasion. This period represented a low in the European public’s confidence in transatlantic relations. Europe-wide surveys indicated how the EU desire for an “American leadership role in world affairs” plummeted from as high as 64 percent in 2002 to a historic low of 36 percent in 2007–2008.45 Other surveys showed large majorities in EU member states, even in reputedly Atlanticist countries, asking governments for a more independent approach from the United States on security and diplomatic affairs.46 In striking contrast to the United States, European countries never viewed the military as a prime player in counterterrorism— with the exception of the UN-authorized war in Afghanistan. Even if the European Council in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 stated as its expressed aim “to make the fight against terrorism part of all aspects of the EU’s external actions,” this never materialized. When in June 2004 the European Council asked the Political and Security Committee—the main decisionmaking body on foreign and defense policy within the EU—to elaborate upon the contribution the European Security and Defence Policy specifically could render in the fight against terrorism, a feeling of perplexity and bewilderment was palpable. The arrival of the Barack Obama administration relaxed the transatlantic relationship. However, even though he enjoyed an extraordinary personal popularity in European surveys, even Obama was unable to restore the status quo ante in Europeans’ confidence in the US leadership role. This never regained the high marks it had enjoyed until 2002. Years of transatlantic estrangement following 9/11 had left their mark. The Europeanist tendency within the EU has been strengthened by formerly Atlanticist member states, such as Poland, now adopting a more outspoken stance in favor of European defense structures and arrangements. The US attitude of benign neglect of Europe, now considered to be of less relevance in world affairs than the emerging powers in Asia, is increasingly met with European indifference toward US policies. The main effect of the US global war on terror on the foreign policy orientations of the EU and its member states has thus ultimately been the strengthening of the Europeanists’ tendency to claim a stronger European voice in world affairs. However, by 2012 the re-

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ality was a far cry from this Europeanist vision. Entangled in the eurozone crisis and disagreeing on how to move forward because of its cumbersome decisionmaking process, Europe was projecting an image of weakness. This crisis is likely to be of much greater significance as far as Europe’s place in the world is concerned than 9/11 ever was.

Conclusion A decade after 9/11, the impact of jihadist terrorism has now largely subsided in both the public and political realms. Law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and police will probably concur that radicalization into jihadist violence has passed its peak and is decreasing. It is probably fair to say that this strand of terrorism is now seen as any other form of terrorism in Europe: a minor but possible risk, but no longer the existential threat official European discourse routinely evoked. In the post-9/11 era, notwithstanding the pervasiveness of this discourse, by and large Europeans often showed sound skepticism as to the level of the threat. Terrorism indeed never became a prime concern for most European citizens—save in the immediate post-9/11 months and even then with wide discrepancies in threat perception across the continent. The main impact of 9/11 on European societies has been to crystallize the preexisting debate on immigration around the culturalist paradigm. In mainstream thinking, the culture of the immigrants came to be seen as the major obstacle to their integration. Issues such as discrimination, disadvantaged socioeconomic position, and unemployment in the immigrant communities and their impact upon radicalization receded in the public’s mind. While the febrile debate on the compatibility of Islam with Western values that had ensued has abated, a decade-long Islam-centered security obsession has left its mark. Anti-Muslim prejudice has gained traction in mainstream thinking—even if its most extremist expression has again become the hallmark of a new generation of radical right groups, who claim the anti-Islam and anti-immigration themes as their unique selling proposition. As was the case before 9/11, however, the situation differs among countries, with some countries displaying a more serene debate about the place of Muslims and Islam in society than others. One could argue that as apprehension among the public about Islam

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fluctuates, polity and media shoulder a crucial responsibility as to the way this issue is framed and discussed. Immigration and integration will indeed undoubtedly continue to be matters of intense policy discussion, sometimes (but not always) linked to Islam. Since Europe too has become an immigration continent, it experiences the same fluctuating apprehensions about the newcomers’ impact on society as the United States did with the nativist movement from the nineteenth century onward. Nativist anti-immigration sentiments indeed remain present in European countries as well as grievances resulting from the fragile socioeconomic position of immigrant communities. This mix remains a potent cocktail for polarization and a major challenge for society in general. But they are now by and large devoid of the national security concerns they were associated with in the years following 9/11.

Notes 1. Bakker, “Differences in Terrorist Threat Perceptions in Europe,” pp. 47–62. 2. President Bush’s March 2005 remarks at the National Defense University, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16780-2005Mar8 .html. 3. Interview with José María Aznar, Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2001. 4. Bures, EU Counterterrorism Policy, p. 43. 5. Coolsaet, Belgium and Counterterrorism Policy in the Jihadi Era, p. 9. 6. Europol, 2010, 2011, and 2012, available at https://www.europol .europa.eu/latest_publications/37. 7. “Europe’s Native-Born Enemy,” Washington Post, July 15, 2005. 8. Allen, “Justifying Islamophobia,” p. 2. 9. Interview with Caryl Phillips in Knack, December 24, 2003. 10. Le Figaro Magazine, October 26, 1985, www.mediapart.fr/files /media_56331/UNEFIGMAG1985.png. 11. Dobbelaere et al., Verloren Zekerheid, pp. 236–237. 12. EUMC, Majorities’ Attitudes Towards Minorities in European Union Member States, p. 43. 13. EUMC, Summary Report on Islamophobia, p. 35; Strabac and Listhaug, “Anti-Muslim Prejudice in Europe,” p. 279. 14. In 1992, John Kenneth Galbraith offered a similar predicament for the United States in his The Culture of Contentment, where he invoked the continuing inequity in the American inner cities.

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15. Zemni, “The Shaping of Islam and Islamophobia in Belgium,” pp. 28–44. 16. International Federation for Human Rights, Intolerance and Discrimination Against Muslims in the EU, p. 12. 17. Pew Global Attitudes Project, “Muslims in Europe: Economic Worries Top Concerns About Religious and Cultural Identity,” July 6, 2006; David Masci, “An Uncertain Road: Muslims and the Future of Europe,” Pew Research Center, October 2005; Walker, “Europe’s Mosque Hysteria,” 2006. 18. EUMC, “The Annual Report on the Situation Regarding Racism and Xenophobia in the Member States of the EU,” 2006, p. 32. 19. Pew Global Attitudes Project, “Ethnocentric Attitudes Are on the Rise in Europe,” September 17, 2008. 20. Burke, The 9/11 Wars, p. 235. 21. Pew Global Attitudes Project, “Islamic Extremism: Common Concern for Muslim and Western Publics,” July 14, 2005. 22. EUMC, “The Annual Report,” 2006; Silvestri, “Europe’s Muslim Women,” 2008; Fadil, “Muslim Girls in Belgium,” pp. 18–19. 23. Pew Global Attitudes Project, “The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other,” June 22, 2006. 24. Pew Global Attitudes Project, “Ethnocentric Attitudes Are on the Rise in Europe,” September 17, 2008; Billiet and Swyngedouw, Etnische minderheden en de Vlaamse kiezers, p. 2. 25. Pew Global Attitudes Project, “The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other,” June 22, 2006. 26. German Marshall Fund of the United States, Transatlantic Trends: Immigration 2010, p. 3, and Transatlantic Trends: Immigration 2011, passim. 27. Reuters, “Merkel Ally Says Islam Not Part of Germany,” April 19, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/19/us-germany-islam-idUS BRE83I0DN20120419. 28. Bartlett, Birdwill, and Littler, The New Face of Digital Populism. 29. “Blind to Extremism: How Germany Overlooked the Threat from the Right,” Der Spiegel, November 21, 2011, http://www.spiegel.de /international/germany/blind-to-extremism-how-germany-overlooked-the -threat-from-the-right-a-798935.html. 30. An extensive analysis of the evolution of EU counterterrorism policies can be found in Coolsaet, Jihadi Terrorism and the Radicalisation Challenge, pp. 227–246. 31. Presidency Conclusions, Brussels European Council, December 16/17, 2004 (Doc 16238/1/04 Rev 1). 32. Nowadays and for the same reason, official EU statements no longer use the expression “root causes.” Preference is now given to the expression “factors which can lead to radicalisation and recruitment” or “conditions conducive to terrorism” (UN compromise formula).

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33. House of Lords, Twenty-Ninth Report, October 28, 2008. 34. In 2008, an EC Expert Group had warned: “Today’s religious and political radicalisation should . . . not be confounded. The former is closely intertwined with identity dynamics, whereas the latter is boosted by the . . . feelings of inequity whether real or perceived. Both expressions of radicalisation processes are thus the result of very different individual and collective dynamics” (European Commission Expert Group on Violent Radicalisation, “Radicalisation Processes Leading to Acts of Terrorism,” May 15, 2008). 35. Shiraz Maher and Peter R. Neumann, “German Arrests: The Rise of the Megaphone Jihadists,” ICSR Insight, June 14, 2012, http://icsr.info /publications/newsletters/1339691206ICSRInsightGermanArrestsandthe RiseoftheMegaphoneJihadists.pdf. 36. Council Note by the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, 15359/09/REV 1, November 26, 2009. 37. “Dreigingsniveau blijft beperkt; aantrekkingskracht jihadstrijd neemt toe” [Threat Levels Remain Limited; Appeal to Jihad Increases], National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security, December 17, 2012, http://www.nctv.nl/actueel/persberichten/dreigingsniveau-blijft-beperkt -maar-aantrekkingskracht-jihadstrijd-neemt-toe.aspx. 38. House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, “Roots of Violent Radicalisation,” Nineteenth Report of 2010–2012, vol. I, http://www .publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmhaff/1446/1446.pdf. 39. European Commission, The EU Internal Security Strategy in Action, November 22, 2010. 40. De Vries, The Fight Against Terrorism. 41. “European Parliament Resolution of 14 December 2011 on the EU Counter-Terrorism Policy: Main Achievements and Future Challenges,” http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&language=EN& reference=P7-TA-2011-0577. 42. Chris Patten, Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, cited in “America and Europe: An Essential Partnership,” The Zeit Online, October 14, 2002, http://www.zeit.de/reden/welt politik/200242_patten_iraq. 43. Kagan, “Power and Weakness,” p. 3. 44. “Secretary Rumsfeld Briefs at the Foreign Press Center,” US Department of Defense, January 22, 2003, http://www.defense.gov/transcripts /transcript.aspx?transcriptid=1330. 45. German Marshall Fund of the United States, Transatlantic Trends 2010, p. 11. 46. Pew Global Attitudes Project, “American Character Gets Mixed Review,” June 23, 2005, http://www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id =23266.

9 The United States: Civil Society’s Defense of the Rule of Law David Cole

After September 11, 2001, it is often said, “everything

changed.” The shock of that day, on which nearly 3,000 civilians were murdered, still reverberates, affecting politics, law, and policy in the United States and abroad. But a dozen years later, it is worth asking what, precisely, did and did not change, particularly with respect to law, liberty, and security. One of the most important lessons of the first post-9/11 decade may be that the rule of law, seemingly so vulnerable in the attacks’ aftermath, proved far more resilient than many would have predicted. President George W. Bush’s administration initially rejected the constraints of law as inconvenient obstacles on the path to security. But the administration was eventually forced to adapt its response to legal demands. The US constitutional system ordinarily relies on courts and checks and balances to impose legal restrictions on government officials. But in this period, with one significant exception, restraint of government was brought about neither by direct judicial decree nor by legislative checks on executive power, but by civil society’s demands for adherence to basic principles of human rights. Twelve years and one administration later, the threats, both to our se-

The original version of this chapter appeared in The New York Review of Books, September 29, 2011, with the title “After September 11: What We Still Don’t Know,” © 2011 NYREV, Inc. It is reprinted here in a revised version with permission.

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curity and to our liberty, are far from over. But the experience of the last decade shows the importance of maintaining public pressure for fidelity to our core principles as we enter the second decade of the “war on terror.” Much has changed since September 11. The United States launched two wars, one against the country that harbored al-Qaeda, the other against a country that did not. The federal government undertook the largest bureaucratic reorganization since the New Deal, creating the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Counterterrorism Center. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shifted its focus from law enforcement to intelligence gathering and preventing terrorism, aggressively employing informants and provocateurs to “flush out” would-be terrorists before they acted. Congress expanded the government’s authority to gather intelligence on people in the United States and to prosecute even speech and association that allegedly gave “material support” to terrorist groups. How much are we spending on counterterrorism efforts? According to Admiral (Ret.) Dennis Blair, who served as director of national intelligence under both Bush and Barack Obama, the United States today spends about $80 billion a year, not including expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan (which of course dwarf that sum).1 Generous estimates of the strength of al-Qaeda and its affiliates, Blair reports, put them at between 3,000 and 5,000 adherents. That means we are spending between $16 million and $27 million per year on each potential terrorist. As several administration officials have told me, one consequence is that in government meetings, the people representing security interests vastly outnumber those who might speak for protecting individual liberties. As a result, civil liberties will continue to be at risk for a long time to come. The most radical responses to September 11 were undertaken unilaterally by the Bush administration in the first couple of years following the attacks. It imprisoned hundreds of people it called “enemy combatants” indefinitely, sought to keep them beyond the reach of courts or the law, and denied them even basic Geneva Conventions protections, such as humane treatment—protections the United States had afforded its foes in all previous armed conflicts. It “disappeared” suspects into secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prisons, or “black sites,” holding them incommunicado and refusing to acknowledge even the fact of their detention for years at a time.

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We still don’t know a good deal about the secret prisons or those who were detained there. The government held suspects without trial or even hearings, and subjected them to torture and cruelty, including waterboarding, slamming them into walls, and forcing them into painful stress positions for hours at a time.2 It “rendered” still other suspects to security services in countries, such as Syria, Egypt, and Morocco, that we had long condemned for using torture as a tool of interrogation, so that they could torture them for us. In addition, the Bush administration unilaterally created “military commissions” to try prisoners. As originally formulated, they would have permitted the execution of defendants on the basis of evidence gained from torture, without any independent judicial review. It authorized the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless wiretapping, including of US citizens, in direct violation of a federal law that made such surveillance a crime. And it subjected more than 5,000 Arab and Muslim foreign nationals within the United States to preventive detention—not one of whom stands convicted of a terrorist offense. Its rationale for many of these actions, formulated by a young Justice Department lawyer, now a Berkeley law professor, John Yoo, was that as commander in chief, the president was free to take any action he deemed necessary to “engage the enemy,” even if Congress or international law expressly forbade it. In short, the president was above the law. Times like these test the limits of the rule of law. The nation wanted security, and an administration none too sensitive to civil liberties in the best of times took that demand as a mandate to thrust legal restrictions aside. And who could stop it? The United States was the most powerful country in the world and, at least militarily, easily outmuscled any other nation. The group that had attacked us in such a brutal and cold-blooded manner had few friends beyond the Taliban. And the US population was unlikely to object to measures that sacrificed the rights of others—Arabs and Muslims, and especially Arab and Muslim foreigners—for US security. Had you asserted, on September 11, 2001, that the United States would not be able to do whatever it wanted in response to the attacks of that day, you would have been met with derision. Yet the Bush administration was forced to retreat on all of these fronts. When the memorandum authorizing the CIA to use waterboarding and other forms of torture and cruelty was leaked and pub-

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lished by the Washington Post, the administration retracted it. When conservative New York Times columnist William Safire, among others, condemned the military commissions for the absence of judicial review, then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales wrote an op-ed column claiming that the president never meant to deny judicial review—despite having said exactly that in his original order. And after the New York Times revealed the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) illegal warrantless wiretapping program, the administration was compelled to suspend it. In a series of extraordinary cases reviewing the administration’s asserted authority to hold “enemy combatants” beyond the reach of the law, the Supreme Court repeatedly rejected the administration’s position that judicial review was unavailable, even after Congress had expressly sought to insulate the detentions from habeas corpus review. The court overruled the administration’s position that the Geneva Conventions were inapplicable to al-Qaeda detainees, thereby confirming that they had a right to humane treatment. The court also refuted the administration’s position that it could hold even US citizens as “enemy combatants” without a hearing and an adequate opportunity to defend themselves. And it declared the president’s scheme for military commissions illegal. Despite his contention that the courts had no authority to intrude upon his power as commander in chief, President Bush had to comply. None of the administration’s retreats was voluntary. In each instance, it acted reluctantly, adhering to legal constraints only because it felt that it had no choice. In some instances, moreover, it sought to give the impression that it was complying with the law, while secretly continuing to act lawlessly. Thus, when the Justice Department retracted its August 1, 2002, “torture memo,” it wrote, in secret, a series of further memos that continued to give the CIA a green light to employ waterboarding and other inhumane and coercive interrogation tactics for six more years.3 And while it transferred detainees out of the CIA’s secret prisons in Romania, Poland, and elsewhere when it became clear that they were protected by the Geneva Conventions, it kept the prisons open for potential future use. Still, by the second term of the Bush administration, US counterterrorism policy had stepped substantially back from its post–September 11 origins. In his 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama vigorously attacked the Bush administration’s lawless ways and promised meaningful reform. Immediately upon taking office, he closed the CIA’s

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secret prisons, barred the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” and vowed to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within a year. He released the previously secret Justice Department memos that had authorized torture and cruel treatment, in the president’s own words, “to ensure that the actions described within them never take place again.” In May 2009, he delivered a major speech on the importance of fighting terrorism within the rule of law, insisting that “time and again, our values have been our best national security asset.” President Obama expressly renounced his predecessor’s theory that the commander in chief had unilateral power to violate the law, and maintained instead that his authority was limited by the scope of Congress’s Authorization to Use Military Force, issued shortly after September 11. And when, in 2010, a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that the president’s authority to detain was not bound by the laws of war, the Obama administration took the extraordinary step of arguing that the court had granted it too much power. It argued to the full court that the president’s authority is indeed constrained by the laws of war. The full appeals court then rejected the panel’s prior reasoning as “dicta” unnecessary to the result. These developments suggest three conclusions. First, the values of the rule of law are more tenacious than many cynics and “realists” thought, certainly than many in the Bush administration imagined. The most powerful nation in the world was forced to retreat substantially on each of its lawless ventures. Second, there is no evidence that the country was less safe once many of the lawless measures were rescinded. Bush administration defenders often assert that its initial responses were driven by necessity, but the fact that we remain reasonably secure under a more lawbounded regime refutes that claim. Indeed, even some of Bush’s own security experts now recognize that our success rests on resisting overreaction. Michael Leiter, head of the National Counterterrorism Center under Presidents Bush and Obama, maintained at the Aspen Security Forum in July 2011 that the way to defeat terrorism is “to maintain a cultural resilience,” and that if we do not overreact, “our basic principles that have held our country together . . . can continue to do so.” Third, the initial choice to jettison legal constraints has inflicted long-lasting costs. The principal reason that we have yet to bring any of the September 11 conspirators to justice, a dozen years after their abominable crimes, is that we chose to “disappear” and torture them, thereby greatly compromising our ability to try them. And the deci-

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sion to deny those at Guantanamo any of the most basic rights owed enemy detainees turned the prison there into a symbol of injustice and oppression, exactly the propaganda al-Qaeda needed to foster anti-Americanism and inspire new recruits and affiliates. The US Constitution created a divided government to limit overreaching by any one branch, and established judicial review to ensure that we would have a government “of laws, not men,” as Chief Justice John Marshall put it. In ordinary times, that structure functions reasonably well. But in times of crisis, it has proved inadequate. In World War I, Congress made it a crime to speak against the war, the executive prosecuted hundreds for doing so, and the Supreme Court upheld the sentences. In World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration interned more than 110,000 US residents simply because they were of Japanese descent, and neither Congress nor the Supreme Court tried to stop it. And in the Joseph McCarthy era, Congress and the Harry Truman administration imposed guilt by association on Communist “sympathizers,” and the Supreme Court did nothing to restrain them until the Senate had censured McCarthy and he and his allies had lost power and public influence. In each crisis, the political branches were more likely to goad each other on than to impose limits, and the Supreme Court either expressly affirmed what went on or looked the other way. This time was different. As before, the executive overreacted. As before, Congress imposed virtually no meaningful limits. But this time the Supreme Court, breaking from its past, stood up to the president. It insisted that it was responsible for reviewing detentions during wartime, rejected claims that it must defer to the executive, ruled that military detainees must be accorded Geneva Conventions protections, and, most extraordinarily, kept the courthouse door open for the Guantanamo detainees even after Congress and the president, acting together, had unequivocally sought to close it. Still, it would be wrong to say that the Supreme Court was the only, or even the principal, checking mechanism. The court’s decisions were in truth quite limited. Two decisions addressed only whether Guantanamo detainees could be heard in court, but said nothing about the law that would apply once their claims were adjudicated. Since then, many district courts have ruled that Guantanamo detainees should be released for lack of evidence, but those decisions can be appealed. In each case that the Obama administration has appealed, it has won in the DC Circuit; the Supreme Court,

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in turn, has declined to exercise further review. Thus, in more than ten years, not a single detainee has been released by order of a court. (The administration has forgone appeals in some cases and released the detainees, but given its record in the court of appeals, these releases are properly regarded as a matter of choice, not legally compelled.) The Supreme Court’s ruling that a US citizen was entitled to due process upon being held as an “enemy combatant” failed to specify the particular procedures due him, and the administration avoided further court review, releasing the detainee on condition that he resettle in Saudi Arabia. And the court’s decision declaring President Bush’s military commissions illegal rested only on statutory grounds, which Congress promptly overruled. Beyond these cases, the court has done nothing to halt the government from overreaching its legitimate constitutional powers. In a case I argued, it ruled that Congress could constitutionally make it a crime to advocate for peace and human rights as a form of “material support” to a disfavored group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey.4 It dismissed suits against Attorney General John Ashcroft for mistreatment of September 11 detainees and for abuse of the “material witness” statute to lock up a Muslim man without probable cause. And it has declined to review several cases challenging the executive’s aggressive uses of secrecy, torture, and rendition. Yet despite the fact that no detainee has been released by court order, more than 600 of the 775 people once held at Guantanamo Bay have been released. Torture and inhumane treatment are no longer official US policy. The NSA spying program now has a statutory footing and is subject to judicial approval and oversight. Widespread preventive detention of Muslim and Arab immigrants in the United States has not been repeated. There have been no reports of rendition to torture in years. And the CIA’s black sites are closed. If these changes cannot be attributed to judicial enforcement or congressional mandates, what was the moving force? Who was resisting such measures? The answer is not to be found in the institutions of government, nor in popular opinion at large, but in civil society—in the loosely coordinated political actions of concerned individuals and groups, here and abroad. Following September 11, many organizations took up the task of defending liberty—among them the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty

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International, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the American Arab AntiDiscrimination Committee. Most of these groups did not even exist in the McCarthy era, our nation’s last security crisis. Many individual defenders of liberties also spoke out, including Lord Johan Steyn, a former British Law Lord who labeled Guantanamo a “legal black hole.”5 Additionally, 175 members of the British Parliament signed an amicus brief on behalf of Guantanamo detainees in the first detainee case to reach the Supreme Court and several retired US generals and admirals insisted on the importance of adhering to the Geneva Conventions. Many members of the press not only disclosed some of the worst abuses but published countless editorials on the importance of adhering to constitutional and human rights. Several members of Congress, especially Senators Pat Leahy, Dick Durbin, and Bernie Sanders and Representatives John Conyers Jr., Jerrold Nadler, and Keith Ellison, issued statements, held hearings, and tirelessly insisted that the rule of law should not be abandoned in the pursuit of security. But of course it’s not only that US civil society mobilized in defense of liberty. Civil society mobilizes around a lot of issues, and as often as not it is unable to make much, if any, headway. That the public criticism of government repression was effective also attests to the residual power of the ideals they advanced—liberty, equality, fair process, and dignity. Those values were strong enough, when pressed by a wide range of voices, to restrain the highest officials of the most powerful country in the world. Margaret Mead famously warned that one should “never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world.” One might add that one should also never underestimate the power of appeals to the rule of law. Still, President Obama’s administration has fallen short in a number of critical ways. He has continued to rely on broad claims of secrecy, invoking the “state secrets privilege” to block lawsuits seeking redress for victims of torture and extraordinary rendition. He has dramatically expanded a program of targeted killings using unmanned drones, without setting forth the general procedures or criteria he is employing. Killing the enemy during wartime is not illegal, of course, but assassinating people outside of war is. As long as the contours of the targeted killing program remain secret, we cannot know whether it accords with basic principles of constitutional and international law.

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Obama has also defended a sweeping interpretation of the laws prohibiting “material support” to designated terrorist groups. His then solicitor general, Elena Kagan, told the Supreme Court in 2010 that the law makes it a crime even to file an amicus brief on a designated group’s behalf. By a divided vote, the court upheld the statute, but the dissenting justices—Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor—made it clear that a much narrower reading, limited to aid intended to further terrorism, was available had the administration chosen to adopt it.6 The Obama administration defended on appeal a conviction, under the same statute, of members of the board of the Holy Land Foundation, the nation’s largest Muslim charity. The defendants were sentenced to as much as sixty-five years in prison for providing humanitarian aid to hungry and indigent families in the West Bank— even though, according to the government’s own evidence, not a penny went to any group designated as terrorist, and not a penny was used for anything but humanitarian purposes. Lacking such evidence, the administration argued that the board members’ provision of aid to small West Bank charities violated the law because they should have known the charities were affiliated with Hamas—even though the government had never before said so. Obama has also failed to deliver on his promise to close Guantanamo, and backed down on his commitment to try terrorists in civilian court wherever possible. In both instances, he did so because of substantial opposition from members of Congress, many from his own party, so he is not solely or even primarily to blame. But on this subject, he has failed to lead. Most disturbing, from the standpoint of resurrecting the rule of law, the Obama administration has refused to confront honestly the nation’s past wrongs. As President Obama entered office, he sought to make a clean break with his predecessor. But at the same time, he has insisted that we look forward, not back. His administration has refused to conduct the criminal investigation that the Convention Against Torture requires wherever there are credible allegations that a person within our jurisdiction has committed torture. His Justice Department vetoed the recommendation of its own Office of Professional Responsibility that lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee be referred to their bar associations for disciplinary action in view of their having failed to provide candid legal advice in drafting the “torture memos.” The administration has sought to derail efforts in Spain to

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investigate US responsibility for torture of Spanish citizens held at Guantanamo. And President Obama continues to oppose even a high-level commission to investigate and report on the nation’s departure from the rule of law and descent into torture, abduction, and disappearances. Obama appears to believe that such an investigation would be divisive and might undermine his efforts to portray himself as above partisan wrangling. But division is a fact of life in Washington these days. And being above the fray is not an unmitigated good; some things are worth fighting for. A legal and moral accounting of the wrongs we have done should be high on the list. Because so much was done under the veil of secrecy, much remains unknown about the extent of the illegality. Mark Danner’s publication in the New York Review of Books of the Red Cross’s report on the abusive interrogations of “high-value” detainees provides a glimpse at the horrors US agents inflicted.7 But we do not even know how many people US officials have abducted, rendered, disappeared, tortured, or killed. We do not know the extent of the injuries suffered, and still being suffered, by those we abused. We still know relatively little about the mistreatment of most of the Guantanamo detainees. We have not apologized to even a single victim— not even to those, like Canadian citizen Maher Arar and German citizen Khaled al-Masri, who were targeted for renditions and torture based on misinformation, and have been cleared of any wrongdoing themselves. Meanwhile, our former president in his memoir has proudly proclaimed that he personally authorized waterboarding—a practice we prosecuted as torture in the past when it was used against our troops. Former vice president Richard Cheney recently replied affirmatively when asked whether waterboarding should “still be a tool” of interrogation. Failing to condemn such blatant wrongdoing in some official way leaves an open wound both for the victims and for the integrity of our system, and implies that the tactics were neither lawless nor immoral. The rule of law may be tenacious when it is supported, but violations of it that go unaccounted for corrode its very foundation. All of which only underscores the continuing need for an engaged civil society committed to the ideals of liberty and law. The past decade suggests that the rule of law may be stronger than cynics thought. It teaches that adherence to values of liberty, equality, and dignity is more likely to further than to obstruct our security inter-

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ests. But it also illustrates our collective reluctance to confront our past, a reluctance that threatens to erode our most important values. As one of America’s greatest judges, Learned Hand, once cautioned, “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.”8

Notes 1. See “Threat vs. Response with Adm. (Ret.) Dennis Blair,” a video from the Aspen Security Forum, July 2011, available at aspensecurity forum.org/2011-video. 2. See David Cole, “The Torture Memos: The Case Against the Lawyers,” New York Review of Books, October 8, 2009. 3. Ibid. 4. Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 130 S.Ct.2705 (2010). 5. Johan Steyn, “Guantanamo Bay: The Legal Balckhole,” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 53, no. 1 (January 2004), pp. 1–15. 6. David Cole, “The Roberts Court vs. Free Speech,” New York Review of Books, August 19, 2010. 7. “US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites,” New York Review of Books, April 9, 2009, and “The Red Cross Torture Report: What It Means,” New York Review of Books, April 30, 2009. 8. Judge Learned Hand, “The Spirit of Liberty” speech, 1944.

10 Trapped, or Not, in the Legacy of the War on Terror Ian S. Lustick

The attacks on 9/11 were a tremendous insult to our collective

psyche and to an American belief in our country’s absolute international security. Nearly 3,000 Americans lost their lives on that day, producing tens of billions of dollars of direct and indirect losses to our economy, and devastating effects on the families and friends of those killed by the al-Qaeda terrorists. But as heavy as those losses were, they were much less serious than the damage inflicted on our country by its own reaction to those attacks. In response to 9/11, the US government invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq was defined as the central front in the war on terror. Nearly 4,500 US soldiers have died in Iraq; another 33,000 have been mutilated. The deaths of another 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been documented, along with thousands of casualties of US allies. According to Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, the Iraq War alone cost the US economy nearly $3 trillion.1 The war deeply divided the country, distracted it from urgent economic and social problems, and inflicted incalculable damage to US credibility and prestige abroad. The war in Afghanistan has cost more than $570 billion, has inflicted more than 2,100 fatalities on US military personnel, and drags on with no satisfying end in sight. Millions of US families torn apart or bankrupted by prolonged and repeated deployments cast a pall of sadness and desperation in towns and cities across the

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country. Meanwhile, hundreds of billions of dollars have been wasted on a whirlwind of unnecessary, even hysterical, and certainly annoying “counterterrorism” measures. Added to all these insults delivered to the US body politic by the war on terror is the reduction in our privacy and restrictions on our civil liberties associated with the socalled Patriot Act’s techniques of blanket surveillance and incarceration of “suspects.” In many ways the war on terror resembles the Spanish flu. This great pandemic of 1918 killed 50 million human beings. Shockingly, young, healthy, and productive people died in larger numbers than the old, sick, or weak. Why? Scientists now know that what inflicted most of this damage was not the disease itself, but the disproportionate and overwhelming immune reaction it triggered in those it infected. Just as the Spanish flu turned its victims’ own strength against them, so did al-Qaeda use US planes to destroy the Twin Towers and then goaded the United States into a self-destructive, out-of-scale reaction. In the case of the war on terror, the robustness, indeed the overwhelming and consuming nature of that “immune response” (to follow the Spanish flu analogy) was due precisely to the terrorists’ exploitation of the vigor of Madisonian democracy in this country—the principle that every interested group should mobilize in its interest and aggressively pursue it. The system works well to prevent catastrophic decisions by dependably producing countervailing power, in the form of interests that would be damaged by the satisfaction of other interests. If US policy is often afflicted by gridlock, it is at least usually immune from prolonged and extreme policies. But wars are different. The country rallies and all interests translate their agendas into appeals for funds and public support based on their ability to contribute to the war effort. With existentially necessary wars, such as World War II, this helps the country mobilize its resources in truly amazing ways. But if the war itself is misguided, or generated for concealed political purposes, then this same dynamic can lead to a whirlwind of multiplying and escalating commitments that expand the war. This results from a drastic change in budgetary priorities, and from every interest group, corporation, and government agency attempting to find ways to protect and expand their budgets by promoting their products or activities as crucial contributions to the war effort.

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A Calculated Infection This analysis helps us understand the difference between the war on terror and the Spanish flu. No enemy of humanity planted the Spanish flu virus, or calculatedly designed it to exploit our own strengths against us. Evolution did that on its own. But in international politics we do have enemies, and there is evidence that al-Qaeda imagined just the sort of catastrophe, beyond 9/11, that they suckered us into. My argument here is that the overextension of US power, including wars in the Middle East and South Asia that have inflamed the hearts of millions of Muslims, was a part of Osama bin Laden’s plan. As one of his top lieutenants, Seif al-Adil, put it, “The Americans took the bait, and fell into our trap.”2 In late October 2004, Osama bin Laden released a video probably designed to help tilt the presidential election in the United States toward President George W. Bush and away from John Kerry. The video was not broadcast in full in the United States, but it contained an astonishingly vivid and precise analysis. Bin Laden explained how al-Qaeda was exploiting the political gullibility, economic power, and corporate interests of the United States for its own purposes and how unintentionally cooperative the Bush administration had been. It is easy, said bin Laden, for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin [jihadists] to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies. . . . So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. . . . That being said . . . when one scrutinises the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains. Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations—whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction—has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results. And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ. . . . For

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example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event [the 9/11 attacks], while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost—according to the lowest estimate—more than $500 billion. Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.3

Bin Laden’s analysis here was largely correct. But his plan did not have to work. US leaders could have used the unity that rose in our country in response to the attacks to build and burnish a US society whose commitments to freedom and a better life for all its people could have protected our security without serving the long-run interest of the jihadists in draining our resources and alienating the Muslim world. Instead, a powerful and well-positioned cabal of neoconservative politicians, ideologues, and bureaucrats seized the moment to capture the mind and imagination of a weak and ill-informed president. Determined since the mid-1990s to launch a war against Iraq and then other members of the “axis of evil,” this group sought, in their own words, to establish conservative rule in the United States for a century by replacing the socioeconomic agenda of the Bill Clinton years with what they called a “neo-Reaganite” foreign policy—a “heroic” campaign to “destroy monsters” around the world and establish “benevolent hegemony” of US power through the sustained and unilateral use of overwhelming military force.4 To initiate this campaign, they launched what they thought would be a quick, glorious, and profitable war in Iraq. But to mobilize support for this war they needed to mobilize the fury and fear Americans felt in reaction to 9/11. Since Iraq was not behind the attacks, they achieved their objective by declaring a worldwide and essentially permanent war on terror in which every country not actively “with us” would be considered “against us” and thus subject to preemptive attack. The war in Iraq quickly became politically toxic. But the war on terror promoted to make the war in Iraq possible took on a life of its own as businesses, politicians, the media, Hollywood, and even universities trumpeted the hair-raising slogans associated with it and found ways to feed in the vast trough of counterterrorism and homeland security expenditures. Fortunately, we are making progress. It has taken more than a decade, and a new president in power, for many Americans to learn the bitter truth of how overblown has been the “terrorist threat” and how wasteful and destructive was the war on terror, which is no

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longer officially prosecuted. We no longer hear government officials using the rhetoric of permanent war. Al-Qaeda is on the ropes. Osama is dead. Terrorists still threaten us, and always will. Therefore, we must remain vigilant, not by means of a “war,” but by using our legal institutions, our normal law enforcement mechanisms, and covert resources when absolutely necessary. We must learn that the only potential enemy powerful enough to seriously hurt us is ourselves. If we do not learn that lesson, another al-Qaeda–type attack could once again result in the kind of crippling, self-induced catastrophe we have known as the war on terror. In this chapter, I seek to persuade Americans that they have had and still have dangerously distorted ideas of the scale and nature of the terrorist threat. In my book Trapped in the War on Terror, and in other publications, I have exerted myself to analyze and document the intended and unintended ways that al-Qaeda’s attack combined with the zealous efforts of a small but extremely well positioned neoconservative cabal and produced the immense overreaction of the war on terror and the collectively disastrous but, for many US companies, universities, and politicians, massively profitable expenditures. I will document here the erroneous expectations these beliefs associated with the war on terror have produced and explain why they remain as prevalent and as potent as they are. Measured by official rhetoric, the size of the threat heralded by the 9/11 attack is as enormous and as dire as the most dangerous challenge our nation has ever faced, World War II. President Bush’s speech to the Air Force Academy Graduating Class in 2004 illustrates the categories used to teach Americans how to think about the war on terror. Like the Second World War, our present conflict began with a ruthless surprise attack on the United States. We will not forget that treachery, and we will accept nothing less than victory over the enemy. Like the murderous ideologies of the 20th century, the ideology of terrorism reaches across borders and seeks recruits in every country. So we’re fighting these enemies wherever they hide across the Earth. In all these threats, we hear the echoes of other enemies in other times—that same swagger and demented logic of the fanatic. Like their kind in the past, these murderers have left scars and suffering. And like their kind in the past, they will flame and fail and suffer defeat by free men and women. The enemies of freedom are

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opposed by a great and growing alliance. Nations that won the cold war, nations once behind an Iron Curtain, and nations on every continent see this threat clearly. We’re cooperating at every level of our military, law enforcement, and intelligence to meet the danger. The war on terror is civilization’s fight. And as in the struggles of the last century, civilized nations are waging this fight together.5

Leaving aside such hyperbolic rhetoric, we can all agree that terrorists threaten the Unites States. The question is, how serious was and is that threat? Let us consider the leading causes of death (apart from old age and the diseases of old age) as “serious threats” to Americans (see Figure 10.1). The leading such threat is traffic accidents—385,601 fatalities between 1999 and 2007. Unintentional poisonings comes in second with 177,973 fatalities in that same time period, followed by unintentional falls—156,906 fatalities. The leading cause of intentional violent death is suicide, with 273,162 fatalities between 1999 and 2007, including 152,056 firearm suicides. Next is homicide with 150,878 fatalities, including 106,125 firearm homicides. The total for deaths in the United States in this period caused by terrorism is exactly the number killed on 9/11 and no more: 2,973. If it is reasonable to consider traffic accidents, suicides, accidental poisonings, and homicides as “serious threats” to Americans, it becomes exceedingly difficult to so categorize terrorism. Indeed, the

Figure 10.1 Leading Causes of Death in the United States, 1999–2007 400,000 350,000 300,000 250,000 200,000 150,000 100,000 50,000 0

Traffic Accidents

Suicide

Poisonings

Falls

Homicide Work-Related Work-Related Terrorism Acccidents/ Accidents/ Disease Disease

Note: Does not include deaths due to natural causes, old age.

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evidence shows that these threats are on the order of 50 to 130 times more serious than terrorism. It is difficult to imagine that a threat that has a record of inflicting 50 to 130 times less damage than a “serious” threat should itself also be considered “serious.” The same point can be made in another way. If we do classify terrorism as a “serious threat,” then we have to come up with vastly different terms to describe traffic accidents, accidental poisonings, suicides, and homicides. For if terrorism is a “serious threat,” then threats 50 or 100 times greater would need to be considered as “cataclysmic” or perhaps “immensely cataclysmic.” In fact, we do not need to engage in such silliness. All we need do is recognize that terrorism is a threat that required (and requires) a response, but it simply was not, and is not, a particularly serious threat and does not call for an immense response. Once that is understood, we can proceed to the obvious question. If it is not a particularly serious threat, why do Americans believe it is? And why has the country spent hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and sacrificed values, lives, and the precious attention of its leaders, to “counter” this relatively nonserious threat? One important fact we can glean from data on hundreds of thousands of murders, suicides, acts of arson, and other violent crime in the United States is that despite the success our law enforcement agencies have in deterring criminals and incarcerating perpetrators, we are threatened by massive numbers of violent people. That means that if many terrorists were present in the United States, they would have little difficulty, despite the war on terror, in killing Americans. Again, this strongly suggests that the scale of the threat is much lower than is generally believed. For over the last twenty years, despite fatal shootings inspired by Islamism in Fort Hood and Arkansas, only three attacks classified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as terrorism have occurred in the United States— the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center by Ramzi Yousef, the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building by Timothy McVeigh, and the 9/11 attacks in 2001 by al-Qaeda. Based on these simple observations, it would appear that although terrorism may be a problem in the United States, Europe, and in other developed countries, and although there can be no guarantee against our worst fears being realized, both evidence and logic suggest that the threat is not so serious that it should distract us from a plenitude of larger problems and opportunities. Still, most of us feel

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impelled to imagine the possibility of “another 9/11” and yearn for an impossible guarantee that it cannot happen again. This yearning makes it difficult to appreciate the enormous distance between what “can possibly happen” and what “is likely to happen.” How are we to decide how seriously to consider a threat that may indeed materialize, which could not be definitely prevented no matter how many resources were devoted to the task? How can the likelihood of such implausible but not-impossible events be demonstrated to be high enough to outweigh certain and potent threats that we know will materialize and from which we may be distracted by the phantom of a conceivable threat that may be, in terms of expected probability, almost negligible? This is an exceedingly difficult question. Great care, professional assessment of evidence, and the exclusion of narrow political agendas are all required when seeking an answer. Above all, we must not respond from the “gut,” with visceral feelings of fear, panic, fury, or revenge. We literally cannot afford it. Yet, that is more or less how the United States did respond to 9/11, with a war on terror created to serve narrow political agendas, drawing its power from fear and fury rather than sober analysis, and fashioned by politicians, not professionals. In an extraordinarily revealing episode, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced at the beginning of the summer of 2007 that he had a “gut feeling” that over the near term there was an increased chance of an al-Qaeda terrorist attack in the United States.6 No such attack occurred. But we have learned from the first Homeland Security Department secretary, Tom Ridge, that political imperatives, including the desire to keep the US public distracted from other issues and focused on the politically useful topic of terrorism, lay behind a pattern of official government declarations to go into high states of alert against what were repeatedly declared to be a heightened threat of an imminent terrorist attack.7 This evidence alone should make it obvious that when it comes to terrorism, “gut instincts,” “common sense,” or political passions are not reliable bases for sound judgments. In any event, to move toward a more sensible assessment of the terrorism threat, we must first appreciate just how distorted are US public perceptions. For what is even more remarkable than the virtual absence of terrorism in the United States over the past decade is the stubborn belief most Americans have that the threat of terrorism is extremely serious.

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The Perception of Threat One reason for the public’s exaggerated impression of the terrorism threat is associated with how zealously and extensively the apparatus for discovering it has been funded, and how incentivized the news media, law enforcement officials, and politicians have been to inflate the image of its dangers. This tendency to see as much as possible as if it were terrorism, or a sign of the possibility of terrorism, is why a substantial majority of the terrorism cases developed by the police and the FBI are rejected by district attorneys as too weak to secure indictments. Law enforcement agents are so anxious to produce suspects for terrorism indictments that the vast majority of the cases they develop pertain to people guilty of no offense whatsoever. Indeed, federal prosecutors refused to seek indictments for 67 percent of all terrorism cases brought to them by investigative agencies from 2005 to 2009.8 My point is that the flood of suggestions for indictments coming from law enforcement agencies and the thousands of individuals detained and questioned did not reflect a rising tide of terrorism threats, but rather an enormously expanded budgetary base for those departments within state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies charged with finding terrorists. As CBS News put it in 2010, high-profile prosecutions result from “a carefully scripted routine the FBI has been perfecting since the September 2001 terror attacks. Sting operations, choreographed by FBI and Justice Department officials in Washington, have included plots against skyscrapers in Dallas, Texas, Washington subways, a Chicago nightclub and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.”9 Hence, in almost all terrorist prosecutions the defendants argue that they were entrapped by law enforcement authorities who, via paid informants, provided not only the plan for the attack, and the resources to carry it out, but also the encouragement necessary to overcome doubts or misgivings on the part of the targets of the investigation. The public assumes that an arrest reflects a judgment about a danger that existed to the public. The reality is that whether an individual is brought to trial for terrorism in the United States is not determined by the seriousness of the crime committed or the threat posed, but by prosecutors judging that their juries will reject the potent arguments they know the accused will make of having been en-

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trapped. Nor do development of cases or decisions to investigate “persons of interest” reflect specific concerns about possible threats. Rather, under the doctrine of “preemptive prosecution,” the FBI and other law enforcement agencies seek targets of opportunity—individuals who can be portrayed as threats with the help of paid informers and knowledge of private remarks indicating sympathy, association, or identification with extreme Islamist views.10 The operation of this system does not just waste the attention of our legal system and disrupt or even destroy the lives of innocent people. It also shapes public opinion. The resulting distortions and nearly hysterical fears of terrorism influence decisionmakers. This produces needless wars, dangerous suspensions of civil liberties, and the diversion of rivers of funding from social welfare and infrastructure to an effort that is better understood, not as a war on terror, but as a campaign to foster fears of terrorism. The overall approach to terrorism adopted by the Bush administration, and reflected and operationalized by the law enforcement and prosecutorial practices described above, is often referred to as the “one-percent doctrine.” That phrase is the title of a book by awardwinning journalist Ron Suskind, who reported the views of Vice President Richard Cheney that when it came to terrorism, that is, to the possibility of low-probability but high-impact events, the US government should act without respect to evidence of a threat, and only on the basis that it may be possible or even conceivable. Thus, even if there is only a 1 percent suspicion of a major terrorist threat, that one out of a hundred possibility should be treated, for purposes of action by the US government, as a certainty. As Suskind pointed out, the one-percent doctrine conferred on the Bush administration “vast, creative prerogatives”: “to do what they want, when they want to, for whatever reason they decide” and to “create whatever reality was convenient.”11 In 2003, this doctrine led Americans to massively support a catastrophic war in Iraq to destroy nonexistent weapons of mass destruction under the illusion that a “mushroom cloud” over Manhattan would thereby be prevented. That same doctrine guided counterterrorism efforts in the United States and produced sensationalist news coverage of plots largely manufactured by the government itself. Although that doctrine is no longer officially promulgated, its legacy continues to produce enormously exaggerated public perceptions of the terrorist threats faced by our society.

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Since 9/11, the expectations of Americans regarding the likelihood of terrorist attacks in the United States have been the subject of numerous polls. One survey posed the following question fifteen times between October 2001 and October 2010: “How worried are you that there will soon be another terrorist attack in the U.S.?”12 The average percentage of Americans answering that they were very worried or somewhat worried was 63 percent. The lowest reading was 57 percent, registered soon after the US-led invasion of Iraq, which the US government characterized (inaccurately) as a major victory in the war on terror. In other words, for ten years a significant majority of Americans—up to three-quarters in some periods—have been worried that an attack would occur “soon.” Another series of polls asked a question not about how worried Americans are about an attack that might take place “soon,” but how “likely” they believed an attack to be “over the next few weeks.” Given this short time horizon, we would of course expect the judgments of likelihood to be lower, and they are. This question was asked nine times between August 2006 and May 2010. On average, 40 percent of Americans indicated they believed that “further acts of terrorism in the United States over the next several weeks” were either “very likely” or “somewhat likely.” In May 2010, the figure was 55 percent, indicating that in the spring of 2010 a majority of Americans expected a terrorist attack within the next few weeks; in September 2011, 37 percent made that same incorrect judgment.13 In March 2012, Gallup reported that while measures of Americans’ fear of terrorism had been slowly decreasing, 65 percent of respondents described themselves as personally worried either “a great deal” or “a fair amount” about the possibility of future terrorist attacks in the United States. Thirty-six percent said they were very worried or somewhat worried that someone in their family would become the victim of terrorism.14

The Role of the Media What accounts for the fact that more than fifty million Americans have been wrong virtually every month or week since 2001 about the seriousness of the terrorism threat? One key factor is imbalance in media coverage. For example, the initial coverage of an arrest of a terrorist suspect has been almost invariably dominated by blood-

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curdling images of what could have occurred, along with questions of what might have been the intent of the terrorists, of how vulnerable our country is to such destruction, and of whether or not law enforcement acted soon enough to apprehend the suspects and prevent the disaster. As time goes on, the coverage diminishes rapidly, so that only a minuscule proportion of those citizens who were terrified to learn of the plot and its horrifying purposes come to understand that, in the vast majority of cases, those plots were fantasies that had no prospect of being carried out, or were actually concocted by the government as part of schemes to arrange for persons under surveillance to incriminate themselves. The contribution of media coverage to the exaggerated general belief in the extent of the terrorist threat springs as well from its sensationalism. As a typical example, consider the special news report “The Edge of Disaster.”15 Based on former Bush administration official Stephen Flynn’s book by that title, the segment dramatized the horrors of various imaginable terrorist attacks in the United States. The segment was updated and rebroadcast repeatedly on the cable news network CNN for at least five subsequent months. A version of the show, “We Were Warned: The Edge of Disaster,” was also advertised by CNN as available free of charge for schools to record and present in classes (seventh grade through college) with the following come-on: “America’s food supply, our ports, our power systems: Are they vulnerable to terror? Anderson Cooper investigates whether the government is ignoring vulnerabilities at home—and whether we’re prepared for the next natural or human-made disaster.”16 Truly terrifying dramatizations of some of the horrors terrorists might imaginably inflict on the United States drive home the point of the documentary. One portion of the script, describing a terrorist attack on a Philadelphia sports stadium, reads as follows: As the first pitch rockets towards home plate, none of the 45,000 inside has any idea of the terrible turn their lives are about to take. That’s because terrorists not far away are moving forward on a plot to turn this stadium into both a spectacular political statement and a mass grave. . . . Two trucks wind their way through the streets of South Philly, but strangely their destination isn’t the stadium. It’s the sprawling oil refinery just two miles away. . . . The first truck crashes into the refinery gates. The driver sets off a bomb, killing himself and anyone who might be nearby. The blast blows a hole in

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the gate big enough for the second truck to drive through. The second truck is a huge tanker filled with gasoline. When it crashes into a tank, the driver sets off another bomb. Louder than thunder, it brings a momentary hush to the Phillies game two miles away. Fans have no way of knowing a catastrophe is only beginning. That’s because inside this refinery there’s a dangerous chemical called hydrofluoric acid, and it’s the terrorists’ lethal weapon. When it spills, it creates a poisonous vapor, an invisible toxic cloud the wind will carry for miles. As the toxic plume engulfs nearby South Philly neighborhoods, windows broken by the explosions expose people inside their homes. They are the first outside the plant to die. . . . Fans rush for the exits. But even if they move quickly, many have nowhere to go. Instantly, the parking lot is gridlocked. Traffic on the surrounding streets crawls, and then just stops. Tens of thousands are trapped trying to get away. Next, immeasurable horror and agony as it reaches the stadium. Thousands begin to choke, convulse and die.17

A steady diet of this kind of reporting and dramatization has hugely inflated US estimates of the terrorism threat, not only in relation to the actual scale of the terrorism threat but also in comparison to media coverage of other, much more serious problems. For example, in early May 2010, Faisal Shahzad bungled an attempt to explode a small bomb in Times Square. Although in this case the perpetrator turned out to be an unrepentant and zealous supporter of violent jihad, the contraption discovered in the sport utility vehicle parked near Times Square was incapable of exploding. Nevertheless, despite the absence of an actual bomb, of casualties, or of significant disruption to the life of the city, media coverage of this incident was extensive and hysterical. In fact, the public’s exposure to news about this nondisaster greatly exceeded what it read or saw in the media about a series of other, real catastrophes that were simultaneously affecting the United States. Whereas the failed terrorist attempt was the focus of 25 percent of all news coverage in early May, the number two story—the disastrous state of the economy, including a scary one-day drop of 1,000 points in the Dow—received only 13 percent of the coverage. Massive flooding in the Southeast that killed thirtyone people and laid waste to the city of Nashville received a mere 4 percent.18 Remarkably, however, the public does not view the media as exaggerating the threat. Quite the opposite. In a September 2010 poll,

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Americans were asked whether news reports are “making the threat of terrorism in the US seem worse than it really is, seem better than it really is, or are reports showing the situation about the way it really is?” Although 44 percent said prevailing news reports were an accurate measure of the threat, 28 percent answered that the threat was really worse than reported, compared to only 17 percent who believed the press was exaggerating the threat.

The Politics of Threat Inflation Many factors beyond media coverage mold collective assessments of the seriousness of the terrorism threat to the United States. These include the calculated distortions offered by politicians to discredit opponents. Both Republicans and Democrats have used this technique, scoring points by accusing opponents of being “soft on terror” or having a “pre-9/11 mentality.” While the use of this argument by Republicans is well known, in particular in the use of the supposed threat of terror from Iraq to justify the invasion of that country, a vivid example of Democratic use of this technique was the wave of criticism of the Bush administration’s decision to allow a company based in the Arab principality of Dubai to handle port operations in some US cities (a task commonly assigned to companies based in foreign countries such as Singapore and China). Despite the absence of any professional evidence that this decision would pose security dangers, Democratic Party leaders unleashed a torrent of criticism against the president. In the face of attacks claiming that the administration’s policy showed its weakness and incapacity with respect to a terrorism threat much larger and more dangerous than it was prepared to imagine, the president reversed his decision.19 Thus do politicians help create distorted assessments of terrorism. Until well into the Barack Obama administration, the larger effect of these distortions was an environment such that any government agency, company, think tank, professional association, or university that has wanted more funding or more contracts was encouraged if not forced to exaggerate the scale of the terrorist threat and to exaggerate its capacity—if given the votes, enough funding, or fat enough contracts— to help counter that threat.20

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The Psychology of Threat Assessment Apart from the political, economic, cultural, and media-related sources of distortion in the estimates Americans make about the seriousness of the terrorism threat, there are deeper explanations. Fundamental aspects of human psychology make it almost inevitable that unless we take highly self-conscious and scientifically rigorous methods to restrain ourselves, we will inevitably exaggerate the scale of a threat such as terrorism. In 2002, Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics for work done with Amos Tversky on what is known as prospect theory—a vastly influential understanding of how human brains process information in distinctive ways that systematically distort judgments. One of the key patterns humans display, under the general heading of “negativity dominance,” is to very greatly exaggerate the importance of information that might signal a risk of loss or damage and to minimize information about possible gains or achievements. Another feature of some threats that makes them seem much more dangerous than they really are is the belief that someone is trying to do us harm. Social psychological research has shown that even though dangerous circumstances may pose much greater threats to humans than the malevolent actions of others, if malevolent intent is believed to be involved in a threat, estimates of the likely danger those threats pose are much more likely to be exaggerated.21 Another powerful psychological mechanism that has fueled our distorted image of the terrorism threat is associated with posttraumatic stress disorder. This syndrome appears quite commonly in soldiers, victims of crimes, or witnesses to atrocities or catastrophes traumatized by intimate or repeated exposure to threats of injury or death. The media has vividly displayed the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11. Tens of millions of Americans have repeatedly “witnessed” this grisly and terrifying spectacle. It is fair to expect that large numbers of Americans have suffered, and are still suffering, from the traumatizing effects of this repeated exposure to mass murder directed at them. Among the most prominent symptoms is a tendency to relive the event, to imagine it as much more likely or even certain to recur than it is, and to sense signs of its presence in situations that have no objective relationship to it.

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Conclusion For all these reasons—imbalanced and hysterical media coverage, political pandering, incentivization of terrorism discovery, huge economic opportunities associated with acting as if there is a serious terrorism threat, and fundamental psychological predispositions—we can be virtually certain that whatever our “natural” or uncritical assessment of the terrorism threat, it is exaggerated. And here, in fact, is the most serious threat associated with terrorism. Terrified as we have been, and powerful as we are, we must stand guard against tendencies to unleash our power against nonexistent or minimally dangerous terrorist threats, while cutting resources from more significant problems and opportunities. Without a disciplined individual and collective commitment to avoid distortions in our view of terrorism, it is probably inevitable that we would do much more harm to ourselves by chasing phantoms than we would suffer if we largely ignored the threats that cause us so much anxiety. In fact, that is exactly what has happened. Leaving aside the incalculable damage to American lives and values associated with war on terror–related shifts of expenditures away from social welfare and infrastructure, or restrictions on privacy and civil liberties, let us consider just the war in Iraq. In 2002 and early 2003, professionals within the US military, the State Department, academia, and the intelligence community agreed that Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein had played no role in the 9/11 attacks and did not pose a terrorism threat to the United States. Still, politically powerful individuals and groups within the Office of the Vice President, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, in Congress, and in the larger political community were able to exploit panic over terrorism using weapons of mass destruction to launch an invasion of Iraq. As documented by studies of a key organizer of the campaign for the war, the Project for a New American Century, that invasion was designed to serve extravagant ideological and political interests, including the entrenchment of conservative Republican control of the White House and Congress for generations.22 In the end, the invasion of Iraq neither destroyed nor even discovered weapons of mass destruction or the capacities to build them, and it undermined, rather than advanced, the fortunes of the neoconservative politicians who promoted it. What that war did accomplish,

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however, is the waste of nearly $3 trillion worth of US taxpayer money that could have been used to solve any number of urgent problems, including protection from the effects of the financial collapse suffered in 2008.23 More poignantly, the Iraq War, a war that could only have been launched because of the enormously exaggerated beliefs prevailing in our country about the imminent threat of terrorism, resulted in the death of well over 100,000 people, including US and allied soldiers and Iraqi civilians. The war also did incalculable damage to civil liberties in the United States, US prestige abroad, the effectiveness of our foreign policy, and our ability to focus resources and attention on the struggle in Afghanistan and against al-Qaeda.24 Nearly 3,000 Americans died on 9/11. The economic cost to the country of those attacks is calculated in the tens of billions of dollars. Yet, by any measure, the damage done to the United States on September 11, 2001, was minor compared to the harm we have done to ourselves by our response. Pogo was a bitingly funny, if low-key American comic strip created by Walt Kelly. It was syndicated in US newspapers from 1949 to 1973. The most famous line uttered by its main character, the “everyman” possum Pogo, is, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” When it comes to the war on terror, Pogo could hardly have been more right. But that should not be surprising. In 2009, the US military budget was more than $650 billion. China came in second, but its military expenditures were not even one-sixth of ours. Indeed, the United States spent more on security than the combined amounts spent by the eighteen countries with the next biggest military budgets.25 Overall, the United States is so powerful—economically, politically, and militarily—that the only thing in the world strong enough to really hurt us is . . . the United States. With these fundamental realities in mind, we must do everything we can to prevent the passions of our politics and the casual dispositions of public opinion to drive policies designed to protect us from the evils of terrorism. We can make professional and sober judgments about the threats that face us, and we can, based on the vast information acquisition and analysis capabilities we have, fashion reasonable, sustainable policies toward the relatively minor danger that international terrorism poses. The most important threats are from nuclear or radiological weapons. Most of our counterterrorism effort should be directed to those threats. But those threats are best combated through multilat-

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eral cooperation against the proliferation of materials used to make such weapons, along with foreign policies that reduce the possibility that states or nonstate actors would find support among their constituencies for such outrages. Indeed, our government is strongly involved in such efforts; but, properly, most of these activities are hidden from public view. Most other policies designed to interdict or discover would-be terrorists can be implemented as a regular part of the same law enforcement apparatus that protects us against organized crime. One measure that would help promote a proper perspective on the risk of terrorism would be a national insurance policy covering anyone or any family in the United States affected by an act of international terrorism. This kind of policy would also send a message to our adversaries that whatever damage might be done by terrorism, it can be and will be absorbed by a society much too large and strong to be seriously affected by acts of terrorism. It is imperative that the public be discouraged from viewing the terrorist threat as more serious than it is. We were told to think of counterterror policies as a “war.” But the scale of the problem is far from that, and the Obama administration is to be credited for quickly abandoning that term. Terrorism is in fact a minor problem, certainly compared to the challenge we faced in World War II against Nazi Germany, or to the nuclear annihilation stalemate we endured with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. To the extent that portions of the US public continue to imagine counterterror measures as a war, the potential remains to return to policies driven by nightmares rather than by analysis and reasoned risk assessment. In the end, if we refuse to distinguish between threats (including terrorism) and serious threats (which, excluding nuclear weapons, do not include terrorism), and if we define ourselves as “at war” with the terrorists, then the terrorists will have succeeded. They will not defeat us with their own strength. But they can devastate us by using our own strength against us. That is what happened. In the awful event of another successful attack, we must not permit it to happen again.

Notes 1. Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz, “The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More,” Washington Post, March 9, 2008, http://www .washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR200803070 2846.html.

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2. Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global, p. 271. 3. For the full transcript of bin Laden’s speech, broadcast on Al Jazeera on November 1, 2004, see http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres /79C6AF22–98FB-4A1C-B21F-2BC36E87F61F.htm. 4. Kristol and Kagan, “Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy.” 5. George W. Bush, “Commencement Address at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado,” June 2, 2004, in Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www .presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=72640#axzz1l4l0BDlQ. 6. “Chertoff Warns of Higher Risk of Terrorism,” New York Times, July 11, 2007. 7. MSNBC, “Ridge Says He Was Pressured to Raise Terror Alert,” August 20, 2009, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32501273/ns/us_news-security/; Chossudovsky, “Tom Ridge’s Mea Culpa.” 8. “Who Is a Terrorist? Government Failure to Define Terrorism Undermines Enforcement, Puts Civil Liberties at Risk,” Transactional Records Clearing House, September 28, 2009, http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports /terrorism/215/. 9. CBS News, “FBI Terror Stings: Entrapment or Prevention?” November 30, 2010, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/30/national /main7103284.shtml. 10. Fran Korotzer, “Pre-emptive Prosecution,” April 15, 2010, http://nextleftnotes.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/pre-emptive-prosecution-by -fran-korotzer/; Waldman, “Prophetic Justice,” The Atlantic Monthly (October 2006). 11. Michiko Kakutani, “Personality, Ideology, and Bush’s Terror Wars,” New York Times, June 20, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/books /20kaku.html. 12. Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, “Despite Years of Terror Scares, Public’s Concerns Remain Fairly Steady.” 13. CNN, “CNN Poll: Few Think Terrorist Attack Likely in Near Future,” September 30, 2011, http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/30 /cnn-poll-few-think-terrorist-attack-likely-in-near-future. 14. “Terrorism in the United States,” Gallup, updated April 25, 2013, http://www.gallup.com/poll/4909/terrorism-united-states.aspx. 15. Lustick, “Our Own Strength Against Us,” pp. 1–2. 16. CNN Special Investigations Unit Classroom Edition, June 12, 2007, http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/05/31/cnnpce.edge.of.disaster/index .html?iref=newssearch. 17. “CNN.com—Transcripts,” CNN.com, http://transcripts.cnn.com /TRANSCRIPTS/0702/20/acd.01.html. 18. Mark Jurkowitz, “Terrorism Tops Disasters,” Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, May 11, 2010, http://pew

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research.org/pubs/1589/media-coverage-times-square-bomb-faisal-shahzad -bp-oil-tennessee-flooding. 19. “Political Edge Eyed in Ports Fallout,” Washington Times, March 12, 2006, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/mar/12/20060312 -011926-9032r/?page=all. 20. Lustick, Trapped in the War on Terror; Mueller, Overblown. 21. Burns and Slovic, Predicting Public Response to a Terrorist Strike. 22. Daalder and Lindsay, America Unbound; Mann, Rise of the Vulcans; Kristol and Kagan, “Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy,” pp. 18–32; Jason Vest, “The Men from JINSA and CSP”; Lustick, Trapped in the War on Terror. 23. Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz, “The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More,” Washington Post, March 9, 2008, http://www .washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR200803 0702846.html. 24. “Operation Iraqi Freedom: US Fatalities by State,” Icasualties.org, http://icasualties.org/Iraq/ByState.aspx. 25. Wikipedia.org, “List of Countries by Military Expenditures,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures.

Acronyms

AFPAK AIVD AKP AQAP AQI AQIM BfV BJP CIA EU FATA FBI GIA HuA/HuM ISAF JI JM JUI LeJ LeT NATO NDS P5+1 PKK PML-N

Afghanistan-Pakistan Algemene Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst (Netherlands) Justice and Development Party (Turkey) al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula al-Qaeda in Iraq al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Germany) Bharatiya Janata Party (India) Central Intelligence Agency European Union Federally Administered Tribal Areas Federal Bureau of Investigation Armed Islamic Group (Algeria) Harkat-ul-Ansar/Harkat-ul-Mujahidin (Pakistan) International Security Assistance Force Jamaat-I-Islami (Pakistan) Jaish-I-Muhammad (Pakistan) Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (Pakistan) Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (Pakistan) Lashkar-e-Taiba (Pakistan) North Atlantic Treaty Organization National Department of Security (Afghanistan) five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany Kurdistan Workers’ Party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz

193

194

PNRs RAW SSP TNSM TTP UK UN UNDP USSR

Acronyms

personal data exchanges Research and Analysis Wing (India) Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (Pakistan) Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan United Kingdom United Nations UN Development Programme Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

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The Contributors

Mohammed Ayoob is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of international relations at Michigan State University and author of The Many Faces of Political Islam (2008) and Religion and Politics in Saudi Arabia (2009). He is currently working on a book Will the Middle East Implode? scheduled for publication in early 2014. David Cole is professor of constitutional and criminal law at Georgetown Law, and a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. He has litigated many cases involving terrorism and civil liberties as a cooperating attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights. Rik Coolsaet is professor of international relations at Ghent University (Belgium). He is chair of the Department of Political Science at Ghent University and senior associate fellow at Egmont–The Royal Institute for International Relations (Brussels). C. Christine Fair is assistant professor at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Previously, she served as a senior political scientist with RAND, a political affairs officer at the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, and a senior research associate at the US Institute of Peace.

209

210

The Contributors

Andrew Flibbert is associate professor of political science at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he teaches international and comparative politics. He writes primarily on security and foreign policy in the Middle East, and his current project addresses the ideational origins of the Iraq War and its aftermath. Fawaz A. Gerges is a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, where he directs the Middle East Centre. His most recent books are Obama and the Middle East: The End of America’s Moment? and The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda. Mark N. Katz is professor of government and politics at George Mason University. He writes on Russian foreign policy, the international relations of the Middle East, and transnational revolutionary movements. Ian S. Lustick is the Bess Heyman Professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Trapped in the War on Terror (2006). Michael Semple is a scholar and practitioner focused on conflict resolution in Afghanistan and South Asia. He is a senior fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, and has previously worked for the European Union and United Nations. Etga Ugur is assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington, Tacoma. He teaches international relations and comparative politics. His research interests include civil society, social capital, social movements, and religion and politics in the Middle East.

Index

Abdullah II (King of Jordan), 104 Abu Zubaidah, 82 al-Adil, Seif, 175 Advani, L. K., 73 Afghanistan: attempts at sharia in, 50; campaign by US against Taliban in, 47; charges of abuse against occupying forces, 64; concerns over post-NATO security, 59, 60; corruption in, 57, 58; defense of rights and freedoms through war on terror in, 62–64; Deobandi groups in, 79; deus ex machina effects in, 48, 53, 57, 60–62, 63, 65; economic stagnation under Taliban, 50, 58; elections in, 56, 58; enlarges scope of relations with neighboring countries, 65, 66; escalating conflicts reduce economic growth, 59; ethnic balance in, 56; excess centralization of power in presidency, 56; fundamental change caused by war on terror, 47–69; growth of Taliban strength in, 15; guns v. butter situation in, 54; health and education issues, 60, 61, 70n25; as initial theater of war on terror, 3; insurgency in, 53, 54, 59, 67; International Security Assistance Force in, 51, 52, 55; invasion by United States (See Afghanistan,

211

invasion/war in); involvement in regional competition, 65–67, 68; “Kabul Declaration on Good Neighborly Relations,” 65; local dynamics in war on terror in, 2; Loya Jirga in, 55; marginalization of parliament in, 56; media sector in, 63; military operations by US, 51–54; National Department of Security (NDS), 64, 70n30; national politics in, 54–58; opposition political fronts in, 56, 57; Pakistani endgame with, 86–88; patrimonialism in, 57, 58, 59, 60, 63; polarization in politics in, 54; postintervention economy in, 58–60; potential as land bridge for regional cooperation, 65, 66; predatory behavior of regime insiders in, 63; rampant corruption in, 3; reemergence of Taliban in, 114; regime change in, 47, 48; removal of Taliban from, 48, 51, 53; resistance to Soviet invasion in, 28; resistance to US occupation, 14; security agency adoption of abusive Taliban and communist practices, 64; Shanghai Cooperation Organization and, 65; social development in, 60–62; in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), 65; suspicions

212

Index

over Pakistan, 77; under Taliban rule, 48–50; transformation of regional relations in war on terror in, 65–67; troop withdrawal from, 1; United States association with malign actors in, 54; US Special Forces in, 52; warlordism in, 55, 56; weak commitment to human rights, 62, 63; welcomes India’s presence, 77; women’s issues in, 50, 62, 63 Afghanistan, invasion/war in: adds to Iranian insecurity, 5; antiAmericanism and, 115; costs and casualties in, 173, 174; impact on greater Middle East region, 1, 2; impact on Iran and Turkey, 5; lack of clarity in US goals, 131; negative impact of, 114; removal of al-Qaeda and, 3; reordering of regional relations and, 3; as source of radicalization, 36 Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, 62 Afghan National Army (ANA), 52 Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), 52, 53, 54 Ahl-e-Hadith, 79, 89n23 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 20, 23n17 al-Arab (newspaper), 45n24 Albright, Madeleine, 106 Algemene Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst (AIVD), 149, 150 Algeria: Arab Spring in, 107; opposition to extremists in, 37 Ali, Hazrat, 55 Allen, Christopher, 141 Allende, Salvador, 19 al-Qaeda: attacks on US embassies in Africa, 49; criticized by Muslim Brotherhood, 21; differing philosophy and tactics than other Islamist organizations, 30–34; efforts to claim Qutbian legacy by, 31; exploitation of US’ political gullibility by, 175, 176; failed to consult with umma prior to September 11 attacks, 28; falsely portrayed as potent global power, 27–30; fear of popular democratic movements in, 18; as fringe organization without mass appeal, 27–30; ideological competition with, 15, 17–18; inability to address

concerns of Muslim populations, 2, 3; inability to replenish skilled ranks, 27, 28; information on from friends/relatives, 37; irrelevance of, 2; lack of growth after September 11 attacks, 28; losing strategy to win hearts and minds of Muslims, 33; loss of appeal to local citizenry and Muslim populations, 15, 16–17; loss of state-sponsored haven in Afghanistan, 3, 28, 67; marginalized by popular movements, 2, 22; military setbacks for local branches, 37; misconceptions about, 2, 25–44; no reference to Taliban by, 49; opposition to, 17; as overblown threat, 2; popular disillusionment with, 15–17; possible collapse of, 15; regionalist/globalist policy on, 12; relative recency of movement, 25–27; reputational decline, 29; as security irritant rather than threat, 43; splinter group survival caused by US activities in Middle East, 42; strength of local branches of, 36–40; in Syria, 22; top-down militarized design, 31; transformed into independent franchises, 114; as vehicle for nationalist empowerment in Saudi Arabia, 33; violent ideology of, 3; weaknesses similar to Soviet Union, 15–18; weak societal ties in, 27 al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), 102; lack of mass following in, 39; local, contextualized agendas, 37 al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM): local, contextualized agendas, 37 al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers, 35 Al-Shabab, 16, 39 al-Sharq al-Awsat (newspaper), 29 al-Tanzim al-Sirri, 30 al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad, 35 American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, 168 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 167 Amnesty International, 167, 168 Anbar Awakening, 100 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, 74

Index

Arab League, 96 Arab Spring, 2; challenges for al-Qaeda in, 22; common themes in, 107; dilemma for United States, 20; effect on al-Qaeda, 3; indications as to errors in bin Laden’s strategies and, 33; playing out in distinctive circumstances of diverse national populations, 107, 108; possibility of democratization and, 12; slow US responses to, 106; war on terror and, 18–22 Arab world: alienation and reorientation of in war on terror, 98, 105–106; definitional/analytical challenges in addressing, 96–98; disappointment with leadership of US leading to alienation from, 105–106; distinctiveness of, 97–98; diversity and complexity of, 96–97; effects of war on terror on, 93–108; impact of US invasions on, 1, 2, 4; migrant and immigrant populations, 96; national variation in, 97; negative perception of war on terror in, 5; ordered effects of war on terror on, 98–108; outbursts of public opposition in, 17; positive feeling toward Turkish democratization, 127; possible culmination of war on terror in Arab Spring in, 5; pursuit of war on terror for own agendas, 104; skepticism of US in, 106; social connections in, 97–98; ties of identity and origin in, 98; Turkish activism in, 6; United States loses hearts and minds in through narrow strategic focus, 106, 112n45 Arar, Maher, 170 Arbenz, Jacobo, 19 Armed Islamic Group (GIA), 38 Ashcroft, John, 167 al-Asiri, Ibrahim, 39 Aspen Security Forum (2011), 165 al-Assad, Bashar, 107, 108 Atta, Ustad, 55 Authoritarianism: al-Qaeda appeal in regimes of, 16; concern for election of anti-American regimes and, 18, 19; leading to radicalism, 2, 3; proWestern, 17, 18; revolutionary opposition to pro-Western regimes of,

213

19; risk that loss of US support will not affect survival of, 21; shifts away from, 62 al-Awdah, Salman, 29 al-Awlaki, Anwar, 39 Ayoob, Mohammed, 1–9, 5, 113–131 Azhar, Masood, 85 Aznar, José María, 139 Azzam, Shaikh Abdullah, 26, 27, 44n3 Bahadur, Hafiz Gul, 80, 85, 89n27 Bahrain, 19; Arab Spring in, 107 Bakker, Edwin, 138, 139 al-Balawi, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal, 104 Baradar, Mullah Abdul Ghani, 84 Barak, Ehud, 122, 123 Basque Homeland and Freedom, 140 Belgium: ban on burkas in public, 145; Flemish Interest in, 142, 145; radical right in, 142 Ben Ali, Zine El Abidine, 106 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 72, 73, 74 Bienen, Henry, 11, 12 Blackwell, Robert, 75 Blair, Admiral Dennis, 162 Blok, Vlaams, 142 Bonn Accords (2001), 51, 55, 57, 62, 119 Breivik, Anders Behring, 146 Brennan, John, 41 Breyer, Stephen, 169 Bush, President George H.W., 110n20 Bush administration, 139, 175; actions diverting attention and resources away from defeating al-Qaeda, 12; assumptions about Arab identity by, 100; bimodal, Manichean approach to international relations by, 4, 5, 95; chooses war in Iraq, 4; decisionmakers in, 94; denial of Geneva Convention protections to prisoners, 162; denounces Taliban for oppressive treatment of Afghan people, 62; fear of “axis of evil,” 99, 120; forced to retreat from mandate to turn legal restrictions aside, 161–165; inability to understand local political dynamics in Iraq and Afghanistan, 14, 15; intervention beliefs of, 14; involuntary retreats from positions on torture and detention, 164; launching of war on terror by, 1; “1 percent

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Index

doctrine” in approach to terrorism, 182; preference for transformative actions by, 94; radical responses to 9/11 terrorist attack, 162; rejection of constraints of law in pursuit of security, 161; rendition programs by, 154, 155, 163; rhetoric on democracy in Middle East, 103; security-first view of Palestinian-Israeli relations, 102; treats al-Qaeda as potent adversary, 35; tries global reshaping for American good, 4; unformed views on international relations, 94; unilateralism of, 163; unintentional cooperation with al-Qaeda by, 175; weak domestic and international constraints on choices by, 94 Bybee, Jay, 169 Cameron, David, 145 Capitalism, crony, 59, 60 Center for Constitutional Rights, 167 Cheney, Richard, 14, 94, 170, 182 Chertoff, Michael, 180 Christian Democratic Union of Germany, 145 Civil liberties: Patriot Act and, 8; war on terror and, 7, 161–171 Civil society: demands for adherence to principles of human rights in US, 161; forces Bush administration to renounce illegitimate actions in war on terror, 7 Clinton, Bill, 72, 73, 74, 176 Cold War era: compared to war on terror, 2, 11–22; globalism during, 12–15; multiple conflicts in, 2; predominance of US-Soviet competition in, 13; provisions of contours of international relations by, 2; weakness in US foreign policy during, 13–18 Cole, David, 7, 161–171 Communism, collapse of, 15 Conyers, John, 168 Coolsaet, Rik, 6, 137–157 Cooper, Anderson, 184 Corruption: in Afghanistan, 57, 58; rampant, 3 Council on American-Islamic Relations, 168 Counterterrorism: decreased willingness to accept priority of over other

concerns, 153; in Europe, 147–153; financial costs of, 162; fuels antiAmerican sentiments, 40; identification of causative factors and, 147, 149; infringement on civil liberties and privacy, 152, 153; initiative in Afghanistan, 47–69; legislation, 151; radicalization as main focal point in, 149, 150; Terrorist Finance Tracking Program in, 153; transformation of Afghani regional relations and, 65, 66; US movement toward, 87; waste on unnecessary measures of, 174 Danner, Mark, 170 de Kerchove, Gilles, 151 Democracy/democratization: in Afghanistan, 57; attempts at leading to anti-American Islamic regimes, 20; discrediting of by war on terror, 5; electoral, 57; resistance to, 105; risks of promotion in Middle East, 20, 21, 22; successful transitions to in Reagan administration, 19–20; Turkish model, 5, 6, 177; and uprisings in Middle East, 2 Denmark: anti-Mohammed cartoons in, 145; Folkeparti in, 145 Deobandism, 79, 80, 82, 83, 85, 89n23 Department of Homeland Security, 162 Dobbins, James, 124 Dostum, Abdul Rashid, 55, 56 Drone strikes, 39, 40, 42, 43, 80, 101, 115 Durbin, Senator Dick, 168 Egypt: Arab Spring in, 107; Muslim Brotherhood electoral victory in, 21, 103; need for US to support Mubarak government, 103; problems of political transition in, 116; use of as detention/interrogation site by US, 103 Electronic Privacy Information Center, 168 Ellison, Keith, 168 EU Action Plan on Combating Terrorism, 147, 148 “Eurojust,” 148 Europe: alternative analysis of terrorism threat, 139; autonomous stance in

Index

international relations, 154; backlash against in war on terror, 6; calls for challenges to US unilateralism, 154; counterterrorism in, 147–153; decline in anxiety over terrorism in, 139, 140, 140fig; differences in threat perception in, 138–141; Eastern revolutions, 18; EU Action Plan on Combating Terrorism, 147, 148; favorable view of Muslim communities in, 144; fear of terrorist attack in, 138–141; increased intolerance for cultural minorities in, 142; initial empathy with US after attack, 137; mixed feelings on US war in Iraq, 154, 155; Muslim immigrants in, 6; new economic might of, 154; “old” v. “new,” 154; opposition to US rendition programs, 154, 155; preexisting sentiments of ethnic threat posed by minorities in, 144; presence of sizeable Muslim communities in, 139; Prevent, Protect, Pursue, Respond counterterrorism pillars, 148, 149; radical right in, 141, 142; sense of immigration as culturally enriching in, 145; switch from emigrant continent to immigrant region, 146, 147; war on terror and, 137–157; war on terror shatters transatlantic unity with, 153–156 Europe, Eastern: public opinion on terrorism, 138, 139 European Council, 155 European Parliament: counterterrorism issues before, 153 European Security and Defence Policy, 155 European Values Systems Study, 142 Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, 140 Fadlallah, Sayyid Muhammad Husayn, 28 Faheem, Qassim, 63 Fair, Christine, 3, 4, 71–88 Fatah al-Islam, 37 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI): few episodes of violence classified as terrorism by, 179; shifts focus to intelligence-gathering and prevention of terrorism, 162 Feith, Douglas, 94

215

Feldman, James, 14 Finland: anti-immigration parties in, 146; public opinion on terrorism, 138; True Finns in, 146 Fitna (anti-Islam film), 145 Flemish Interest, 142, 145 Flibbert, Andrew, 4, 93–108 Flynn, Stephen, 184 Foreign policy: failed military interventions in, 12; globalist, 11–15, 20–22; regionalist, 11, 12; underestimation of importance of local factors in, 12; weakness during Cold War era and war on terror, 13–18 Fortuyn, Pim, 142, 150 France: anti-immigrant agendas in, 6; anti-immigration parties in, 146; assimilation of Muslim immigrants in, 6; ban on burkas in public, 145; emphasis of nationalist themes in, 146; favorable view of Muslim communities in, 144; Front National in, 142; Islamophobia in, 142; radical right in, 145, 146 Front National, 142 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 157n14 Gates, Robert, 106 Gerges, Fawaz, 2, 25–44 Germany: anti-immigrant agendas in, 6, 146; anti-Islam views in, 145; Christian Democratic Union in, 145; Christian Social Union in, 145; radical right in, 146; unfavorable view of Muslim communities in, 144; views of multiculturalism in, 145 Ginsburg, Ruth Bader, 169 Glenn-Symington Amendment Sanctions, 75 Globalism, 11–15, 20–22; in Cold War era, 12 Golden Dawn party, 146 Gonzales, Alberto, 164 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 20 Greece: anti-immigration parties in, 146; Golden Dawn in, 146; public opinion on terrorism, 138; radical right in, 146 Green Movement, 20 Guantanamo Bay detention center, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170 Gulf Cooperation Council, 19

216

Index

Gunaratna, Rohan, 26, 27 Hamas, 30, 118, 169; electoral victory of, 20 Haqqani Network, 4, 71, 84, 87 Harkat-ul-Ansar, 79 Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, 79 Harkat-ul-Mujahidin, 79 Headley, David, 85 Hizbullah, 30, 118; condemnation of alQaeda by, 29 Hizbul Mujahidin, 79 Holy Land Foundation, 169 Human Rights First, 167 Human Rights Watch, 167 Immigrants: conflation of ethnicity with religion and, 143; diversity of in Europe, 6; in Europe, 141–147; lack of assimilation of, 6, 7; limitations on, 146; linked to issue of terrorism, 7, 141–147; rising concern in Europe over, 142; socioeconomic issues with, 143; tension in second and third generations of, 143 India: annoyance at US policy in Pakistan, 78; backing for Northern Alliance from, 66, 76; conflict with Pakistan, 3, 4, 13; considered important rising power, 72; GlennSymington Amendment Sanctions imposed on, 75; greater role in Afghanistan, 66, 67; moves away from non-aligned status, 74; need to improve security issues more seriously, 87; nuclear capabilities, 72, 73; support for Bush administration views on withdrawal from nuclear treaties, 74 “India-US Relations: A vision for the 21st Century,” 74 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 123 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), 51, 52, 55 Intervention: Cold War era, 11, 12; external, 13; foreign, 13, 14; leading to suicide terrorist campaigns, 14; military, 12; success/failure and government legitimacy, 13, 14 Iran: aid to Iraq, 121; anti-Americanism in, 117; backing for Northern Alliance

from, 66, 76; conciliatory approach rebuffed by US, 120; condemnation of NATO troop presence by, 66; described by Bush as part of “axis of evil,” 99, 120; domestic challenges to legitimacy of regime, 125; effect of war on terror on, 5, 118–125; expansion of influence in Afghanistan, 119; image tarnished by crackdown on popular protests in, 117; impact of US invasions on, 2; Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in, 121; Islamic revolution in, 28; nuclear capability in, 23n17, 117, 122, 123, 124, 129; oil and gas reserves, 117; perceives US naval presence in Persian Gulf as security threat, 123; as pivotal regional power, 113–131; planning for potential confrontation with US, 124; praetorian corporatism in, 117, 132n15; problems of domestic legitimacy, 117; pursuit of nuclear capability, 5; regional balance of power tilts toward, 120; regional security environment in, 5; relations with Turkey, 128; relations with US, 118–125; revolution of 1979 in, 20; rise of radical Islam in, 23n17; “strategic loneliness” of, 122; support for Syrian regime, 118, 121; US and NATO presence on two flanks of, 122; US objectives in, 124; war against Iraq, 120, 121; war on terror allows defiance of US, 118; Western sanctions on, 117, 125 Iraq: adds to Iranian insecurity, 5; aid from Iran, 121; degradation of power by years of inspections and sanctions, 110n20; invasion by United States (See Iraq, invasion/war in); lack of weapons of mass destruction in, 110n20; local dynamics in war on terror in, 2, 12; refusal to renew status of forces agreement with US, 124; resistance to US occupation, 14; sectarian violence in, 5, 15, 35; state failure in, 4, 5, 106, 114; troop withdrawal from, 1; US misreading of capabilities of, 110n20; war against Iran, 120, 121 Iraq, invasion/war in: allowed al-Qaeda to regroup, 34; anti-Americanism and,

Index

114; becomes recruitment bonanza for bin Laden, 35; as cause of emergence of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), 100; costs and casualties in, 173, 174; counterproductivity of, 114; damage to US credibility and, 7, 8; engenders anti-Americanism in Middle East, 34; impact on Arab world, 1, 2, 99–100; increase in influence of Iran in region from, 131; lack of clarity in US goals, 131; negative impact of, 114; opens opportunities for Turkey to increase influence in Middle East, 5, 6; policies leading to, 99–100; seen as colonialist by Muslims, 34, 43 Ireland: Irish Republican Army in, 140; public opinion on terrorism, 138 Islam: compatibility with Western values debate, 142, 143; fundamentalist, 143; radical, 23n17, 27; Shia, 80, 81, 82, 97, 114, 121, 122; Sunni, 79, 80, 89n23, 97, 100, 114, 121, 122 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, 49 Islamic National Front, 28 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, 121 Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, 121 Islamophobia, 141–147 Israel: attempt at regional hegemony, 117; conflict with Palestine, 13; inability of US to constrain settlement in occupied territories, 106; makes use of antipathy toward Islamism in relations with Palestine, 4, 5, 102; nuclear capability, 122; peace treaty with Jordan, 103 Italy: public opinion on terrorism, 138 Jaish-I-Muhammad, 79 Jamaat-I-Islami, 79 Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI), 80 al-Jazairi, Abu Turab, 38, 45n24 Jihad(ism): Afghan, 27; domestic, 30; internationalization of, 26; no constituency within calling for confrontation with West, 30–34; obsession with quranic states governed by sharia, 30; Pakistani, 49; against pro-Western Muslim autocrats, 30, 31; public denunciation of bin Laden by groups in, 29; transnational, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32 Joint India-US Statement (2000), 74

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Jordan: Arab Spring in, 107; intelligence cooperation with US, 104; peace treaty with Israel, 103, 111n35; security cooperation with US, 103, 104; strategic significance to US, 1–4, 103 Justice and Development Party (AKP), 5, 116, 117, 125, 126, 127, 128 Jyllands-Posten (newspaper), 145 “Kabul Declaration on Good Neighborly Relations,” 65 Kagan, Elena, 169 Karzai, Hamid, 1, 54, 55, 56, 58, 82, 84, 87, 119 Kashmir, 77, 78, 79 Katz, Mark, 2, 11–22 Kauder, Volker, 145 Kerry, John, 175 Khalid, Asadullan, 54 Khalili, Karim, 55 Khan, Ahmad Wali, 54 Khan, Ismail, 55 Khatami, Mohammad, 120 Krauthammer, Charles, 141 Kurds, 122, 126, 127, 129 Kuwait: Arab Spring in, 107 bin Laden, Osama: accused of “catastrophic leadership,” 29; actions viewed unfavorably by ideologically diverse group of Islamists, 28, 29; death of, 27, 83, 88n2; endorsement of Zarqawi by, 35; expulsion from Afghanistan, 26; finds refuge in Pakistan, 3; as “great Islamic investor,” 26; as part of US-led alliance against communism, 32; in Sudan, 26; tricks US into unnecessary expenditures, 175, 176 Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, 80 Lashkar-e Taiba, 4, 71, 79 Leahy, Senator Pat, 168 Leiter, Michael, 165 Le Pen, Marine, 146 LeT, 79, 84 Libya: Arab Spring in, 107; lack of effect of radical Islamism in, 21 Lieberman, Avigdor, 129 Lisbon Treaty (2009), 153 Lomperis, Timothy, 13 Lustick, Ian, 7, 8, 173–190

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MacFarland, Colonel Sean, 110n24 Malik, Rahman, 82 al-Maliki, Nouri, 121, 124 Marshall, Chief Justice John, 166 al-Masri, Abu al-Walid, 29 al-Masri, Khaled, 170 McCarthy, Senator Joseph, 166 McCrystal, General Stanley, 52 McKiernan, General David, 52 McVeigh, Timothy, 179 Mead, Margaret, 168 Media: assessment of threat, 183–186; imbalance coverage of war on terror, 8 Mehsud, Baitullah, 80, 89n27 Mehsud, Hakimullah, 81, 85 Merah, Mohammed, 146 Merkel, Angela, 145 Middle East: anti-Americanism, 127; democratic uprisings in, 2; fear of anti-American Islamic fundamentalist regimes in, 20; regional rivalries in, 3; regional security environment in, 5. See also individual countries Missile Technology Control Regime, 75 Mohammad, Din, 55 Mohammed, Khalid Shaikh, 82 Mohammed VI (King of Morocco), 104 Mohaqiq, Ustad, 56 Mossadeq, Mohammad, 19 Movement(s): authoritarian revolutionary, 19; “color revolution,” 17; democratically inclined, 17; democratic revolutionary, 18; Green, 20; Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, 49; Islamist, 33; militant, 30–34; popular, 17, 22; radical, 21; social, 25, 37; transnational revolutionary, 15, 17 Mubarak, Hosni, 21, 103, 106, 116 Multiculturalism: general increase in resistance to, 142, 145 Musharraf, Pervez, 75, 83, 114 Muslim Brotherhood, 30; electoral victory, 21 Muslim(s): criticism of US for declaration of war on Taliban and alQaeda, 28; diversity within, 143; European, 141–147; greater concern for economic than religious issues, 144; Islamic identity among, 143; stereotypical portrayal of, 143; views

of Christians and Jews, 144. See also Immigrants Nadler, Jerrold, 168 National Counterterrorism Center, 162 National Department of Security (NDS), 64, 70n30 National Intelligence Estimate, 36 National Security Agency, 163, 164, 167 National Security Strategy, 41 Nazir, Maulvi, 89n27, 8085 Neoconservatism, 176 Netherlands: Algemene Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst (AIVD) in, 149, 150; anti-immigrant agendas in, 6; Freedom Party in, 145; Islamophobia in, 142; unfavorable view of Muslim communities in, 144 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 77; takes responsibility for International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), 51; violation of Pakistani territory by, 42; withdrawal from Afghanistan, 52, 53, 59, 60 Northern Alliance, 51, 57, 66, 76, 87, 119, 120 Obama administration: fails to close Guantanamo, 169; inability to restore status quo with Europe, 155; lessening of war on terror by, 1; mounts troop surge in Afghanistan, 52; reform of lawlessness of Bush administration, 164, 165; renunciation of unlimited authority for military force, 165; short fall in counterterrorism policies, 168, 169; support for stability over democratization in Middle East, 20 Occupation(s): campaigns aimed at undermining public support for continuance of, 14; foreign military, 14; insurgencies against, 14; largescale, 14; leading to retaliatory terrorist campaigns, 14; resented by population, 14; resistance to, 14 Oman: Arab Spring in, 107 Omar, Mullah Mohammed, 29, 49, 84, 87 Operation Enduring Freedom, 51, 53, 67, 76 Operation Iraqi Freedom, 154, 155

Index

Pakistan: Afghan suspicion of, 77; Ahl-eHadith in, 79, 89n23; ambivalent approach to war on terror, 4; antecedents of current crisis in terms of Islamist militancy, 78–86; antiAmericanism in, 71, 88n2, 115; apprehension of al-Qaeda operatives by, 4; backing for Taliban from, 66; as central focus in war on terror, 3; chaos in, 115; complexity of relationship with war on terror, 4; concern for Indian influence in Afghanistan, 86; conflict with India, 3, 4, 13; contributions to US-led war efforts, 4, 71; Deobandi groups in, 79, 80, 82, 83, 85, 89n23; descent into violence and chaos, 4, 78–86; endgame with Afghanistan, 86–88; evolution of militant networks in, 79–83; exploitation of socioeconomic grievances by militant groups in, 81; Frontier Corps/Frontier Constabulary, 81; Glenn-Symington Amendment Sanctions on, 75; Haqqani Network in, 71, 84, 87; Harkat-ul-Ansar in, 79; Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami in, 79; Harkatul-Mujahidin in, 79; Hizbul Mujahidin, 79; impact of US invasions on, 1, 2; intelligence service involvement in anti-Americanism, 84, 85; Jaish-I-Muhammad in, 79; Jamaat-I-Islami in, 79; Jamiat-eUlema Islam (JUI) in, 80; Lashkar-eJhangvi in, 80; Lashkar-e Taiba in, 71, 79; local dynamics in war on terror in, 2, 12; nuclear capabilities, 73; at odds with international community, 4; Pakistani Taliban Movement in, 80; Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in, 82; Pressler Amendment Sanctions on, 75; Quetta Shura in, 84, 87; recognition of Taliban by, 65; relations with militant Islamist groups, 4; relations with Taliban, 49, 50, 71; relations with United States, 42; resistance to Indian claims of hegemony in South Asia, 87; revisionism in, 87; Shura Ittehad-ulMujahidin in, 80; Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) in, 80; strategic interests eroded by war on terror, 77;

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support for militant groups in, 83–86; Tahreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP) in, 80, 81, 89n27; Taliban in, 76, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86; Tehreek-e-Nafaz-eShariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) in, 81; unreliability as ally in war on terror, 71–88; use of Islamist militancy by, 78, 79; US missteps affecting regional stability for, 76–78; varying levels of control over militants by intelligence service in, 83–86; view of Northern Alliance as proxy for India, 76; violations of Missile Technology Control Regime by, 75 Pakistani Taliban Movement, 80 Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN), 82 Palestine: conflict with Israel, 4, 5, 13 Pan-Arabism, 97 Panetta, Leon, 29 Pape, Robert, 14 Patrimonialism, 57, 58, 59, 60, 63 Patriot Act: reduction in privacy and, 8; restrictions on civil liberties and, 8, 174 Patten, Chris, 154 People’s Congress in Sudan, 28 Phillips, Caryl, 141 Poland: favorable view of Muslim communities in, 144; rendition sites in, 164 Politics: extreme right, 6; identity, 42, 98; in post-Taliban Afghanistan, 54–58; regional, 116 Portugal: public opinion on terrorism, 138 Powell, Colin, 77, 94 Pressler Amendment Sanctions, 75 Prevent, Protect, Pursue, Respond counterterrorism pillars, 148, 149 Qaddafi, Muammar, 21, 107, 108 al-Qaradawi, Yusuf, 29 Quetta Shura, 84, 87 Qutb, Sayyid, 30, 31, 44n3 Rabbani, Burhanuddin, 65, 87 Radicalism, 158n32; authoritarianism and, 2, 3; bottom-up, 40, 42; as catchall concept, 151; caused by wars in

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Index

Iraq and Afghanistan, 42; declining sympathy for, 151; drone strikes and, 42; EU counterterrorism efforts and, 150; homegrown, 40, 41; issues of integration, 150; as main focal point in terrorism, 149, 150; religious v. political, 159n34; social conditions leading to, 2, 3; triggered by presence of Western troops in Muslim lands, 40–42; Western, 40 al-Raymi, Qassim, 39 Reagan, Ronald, 19 Regionalism, 11, 12 Rice, Condoleezza, 94 Richardson, Bill, 72, 73 Ridge, Tom, 180 Roosevelt, President Franklin, 166 Rumsfeld, Donald, 94, 154 Russia: backing for Northern Alliance from, 66, 76; trade with Turkey, 116 Saddam Hussein, 5, 14, 110n20, 120 al-Sadr, Muqtada, 124 Safire, William, 163–164 Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, 37–38 Saleh, Ali Abdullah, 21 Sanders, Senator Bernie, 168 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 145, 146 Saudi Arabia: breaks relations with Taliban, 49; concerns about connections to political Islam, 101; domestic changes in, 100, 101; effect of war on terror on, 100–102; Iranian nuclear capability and, 117; recognition of Taliban by, 65; US need for regional stabilization by, 101 Secret Apparatus, 30, 31 Security: bureaucracy restructuring, 95; furthered by adherence to values, 7; liberty sacrificed for, 152, 153, 161–171 Semple, Michael, 3, 47–69 Shahzad, Faisal, 185 Shanghai Cooperation Organization, 65 Sharia, 30, 80, 83 Sharif, Shahbaz, 82 al-Sharif, Sayyed Imam (Dr. Fadl), 26, 27, 29 Sherzai, Gul Agha, 55 Shura Ittehad-ul-Mujahidin, 80 Singh, Jaswant, 73

Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), 80 Social: cohesion, 144; development, 60–62; investment, 62; values, 62 Solana, Javier, 154 Somalia, 2; Al-Shabab in, 16, 39, 40; warlordism in, 39 Somali Transitional Federal Government, 16 Sotomayor, Sonia, 169 South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), 65 Soviet Union: collapse of, 15; competition with US in Cold War era, 13; weaknesses similar to al-Qaeda, 15–18 Spain: Basque Homeland and Freedom in, 140; favorable view of Muslim communities in, 144; local terrorist attack in, 143, 144, 148; public opinion on terrorism, 138 Steyn, Lord Johan, 168 Stiglitz, Joseph, 173 Sudan: bin Laden in, 26; People’s Congress in Sudan, 28 Suskind, Ron, 182 Sweden: public opinion on terrorism, 138 Switzerland: ban on construction of minarets in, 145 Syria: al-Qaeda in, 22; Arab Spring in, 107; Turkish rapprochement with, 128 Tahreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP), 80, 81, 89n27 Tajikistan: backing for Northern Alliance from, 66 Talbott, Strobe, 73 Taliban: base in Pakistani Tribal Areas, 3, 80; campaign by US against, 47; diplomatic isolation of, 50; enforcement on trivial bans by, 62; failure of West to crush, 3; forced removal from Afghanistan, 48, 51, 53; growth of in Afghanistan, 15; initial response to Soviet invasion, 48; interest in establishing sharia state, 50; land seizures by, 81; opposition to, 17; Pakistani backing for, 15; pressed to end protection of bin Laden, 49; “Punjabi,” 82; recognition of in Middle East, 65; redistributive justice practiced by, 81; resurgence of, 3, 114; rule in Afghanistan, 48–50 Tanzim al-Jihad, 26, 33

Index

Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), 81 Tellis, Ashley, 74, 75 Tenet, George, 94 Terrorism: analysis of as bottom-up process, 149; assessing threats of, 8; conflated with Islamic terrorism, 32; cultural reverberations from, 41; deaths from compared to other leading causes of, 178, 178fig, 179; decline in Europe, 140; distorted ideas of scale and nature of threat of, 177–190; economic opportunities in using threats of, 8; fear of, 6; heightens concerns over lack of assimilation of Muslim immigrants, 6; homegrown, 36, 41; ideologizing use of, 32; immigrants linked to, 141–147; incentivization of discovery of, 8; jihadist, 114, 151, 156; linked to issue of immigration, 7; narrative, 41, 43; notion of decentralization in, 150; “one percent doctrine” in approach to, 182; perceptions of threat and, 181–183; psychology of threat assessment of, 187; role of media in assessing threat of, 183–186; “selfradicalization” and “self-recruitment” in, 149; sensationalist depictions, 184; separatist, 140; suicide, 36, 104; transnational, 114 Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, 153 Terrorist organizations: agendas for local branches, 37, 38, 39; al-Qaeda (See al-Qaeda); al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), 36–40; al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), 37; Armed Islamic Group (GIA), 38; evolution of in Pakistan, 79–83; Hamas, 118; Haqqani Network, 71; Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, 79; Harkat-ulMujahidin, 79; Hizbullah, 118; Hizbul-Mujahidin, 79; Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, 49; in Kashmir, 79; Lashkar-e Taiba, 71, 79; military setbacks for, 37; paramilitary, 79, 80; Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, 37–38; seen as defenders of umma, 41; seen solely as Muslim organizations, 141–147; Taliban (See Taliban) Transparency International, 57 True Finns party, 146

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Tunisia, 21; Arab Spring in, 107 al-Turabi, Hassan, 26, 28 Turkey: anti-Americanism, 128, 129; assimilation of Muslim immigrants in, 6; changes in domestic power balance in, 5; concern for effect of war on terror on Kurds, 126; disapproval of invasion of Iraq, 126; divergence of policies from those of US, 127, 128; economic growth in, 116; effect of war on terror on, 125–130; expulsion of Israeli ambassador, 129; fear of major inflow of refugees from Iraq, 126; implication of war on terror on, 2, 5; improvement in relations with Iran, 128; Justice and Development Party (AKP) in, 5, 116, 117, 125, 126, 127, 128; in NATO, 117, 125; opportunities for increase in influence in Middle East through invasion of Iraq, 5, 6; as pivotal regional power, 113–131; pressure to distance itself from US venture in Iraq, 126; rapprochement with Syria, 128; redefines position in international relations, 125; refuses permission for US troops to transit through, 126; relations with US, 125–130; rift with Israel, 128, 129; seen as example of successful democratization, 117; stance toward Israel, 128, 177; support for Palestinian cause, 128; trade with Russia, 116; views Iran as rival for influence rather than security threat, 129; war on terror allows defiance of US, 118 United Arab Emirates: recognition of Taliban by, 65 United Kingdom: anti-immigrant agendas in, 6; favorable view of Muslim communities in, 6, 144; public opinion on terrorism, 138; terrorist attack in, 148, 150; views of multiculturalism in, 145 United Nations: International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), 51; World Conference Against Racism (2001), 141 United Nations Development Programme: Human Development Index, 60, 70n25 United Nations Rapporteur, 63

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Index

United States: absence of peer competition for, 94; association with malign actors in Afghanistan, 54; bureaucratic reorganization in, 162; Cold War era competition with Soviet Union, 13; conduct in war on terror and impact on relations with Arab countries, 4, 5; creation of antiAmericanism by, 36; decline of credibility in Middle East, 8, 116; decoupling of India/Pakistan policies, 75, 76; defense of rule of law in, 161–171; Department of Homeland Security in, 162, 180; divergence of policies from those of Turkey, 127, 128; effect of war on terror by on Afghanistan, 47–69; encourages overthrow of democratically elected governments, 19; expansion of military bases in Middle East, 43; failure to establish democracy in Iraq, 115; foreign policy approaches in war on terror, 11–22; goal confusion of, 6; imperative of dominance in global affairs, 6, 94–95; importance of rule of law in, 161–171; inability to meet goals in war on terror, 2; inability to positively shape local political dynamics, 14; intelligence cooperation with Jordan, 104; lack of belief in leadership ability after 9/11, 106; lack of credibility in Middle East, 115; major security expenditures in contrast to rising powers retooling for global competition, 95; military interventions during Cold War era, 11, 12; military operations in Afghanistan, 51–54; misreading of Iraqi capabilities, 110n20; movement from counterinsurgency operations to counterterrorism, 112n45, 114; National Security Agency in, 163, 164; nativist movement in, 146; need to support Egypt in war on terror, 103; objectives in Iran, 124; policy decisions on India and Pakistan pre9/11 and early war on terror, 72–76; policy of support for pro-Western authoritarian regimes, 19; rebuffs conciliatory approach by Iran, 120; relations with India, 4, 72–76; relations with Iran, 118–125; relations

with Turkey, 125–130; reneges on promises made to Pakistan after 9/11 attack, 76–78; support for Northern Alliance, 57; takes responsibility for International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), 51; Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, 153; unilateralist policies of, 154; unstable relations with Pakistan in war on terror, 71–88; use of security challenges in narrow ways, 104; view that local terrorist organizations are part of worldwide Islamist insurgency, 139; violations of Pakistani sovereignty by, 115; weakness in foreign policy during Cold War era and war on terror, 13–18 United States Supreme Court: limited decisions in post-9/11, 166, 167; rejects Bush administration position on habeas corpus, 164 Vajpayee, Atal Bihari, 72, 73, 74 van Gogh, Theo, 143, 145, 150 Vietnam: US intervention undermines legitimacy of government, 14; withdrawal of US and fall of government in, 14, 15 al-Wahishi, Nasser, 39 Warlordism, 3, 55, 56 War on terror: in Afghanistan, 3, 47–69; amorphous effort to confront Islamist adversaries worldwide, 95; Arab Spring and, 18–22; comparisons to Cold War era, 11–22; counterproductivity of, 124; damage to US credibility in, 7, 8; decrease by Obama administration, 1; defense of rights and freedoms in, 62–64; differing impacts in Arab world, 93–108; direct US actions and indirect allied actions, 47; discrediting of democratic transition by, 5; diverse conflicts and distinctive causes of in, 13; doctrine of preemptive prosecution in, 182; economic effects on Afghanistan, 58–60; effect of India-Pakistan relations on, 76–78; effect on Afghanistan, 47–69; effect on regional relations of Afghanistan, 65–67; effects of neoconservatism on,

Index

176; exercise of civil rights and, 7; failure of, 176; failure to address social/economic/political issues, 3; first-order effects in Arab world, 98–105; focus on emotional issues privileges military approach to solutions, 104; foreign policy approaches in, 11–22; fueled by misconceptions about al-Qaeda, 25–44; furthers political integration in Europe, 138; imbalanced media coverage in, 8; immediate invasion of Afghanistan, 95; impact of Iraq war on, 99–100; impact on US society, 7; inability of United States to meet goals of, 2; incarceration of suspects in, 8; inclusion of political and assistance actions, 47; increases in military/intelligence budgets, 95; inflaming of anti-American sentiment by, 40–42; infliction of serious damage to US credibility, 173; launching by Bush administration, 1; legacy of, 173–190; limitations on political liberalization in name of, 104; military campaign/security in Afghanistan and, 51–54; missteps in South Asia affecting regional stability, 76–78; morphing into major military campaigns aimed at regime overthrow, 113; multiple conflicts in, 2; myth that this has made US safer/decreased likelihood of attacks, 40–42; national Afghan politics and, 54–58; ordered effects on Arab countries, 98–108; origins and nature of, 93–96; Pakistan as central focus in, 3; Palestinian-Israeli relations and, 102; possibility of transformation as unintended consequence of, 106–108; primary US concern despite domestic economic downturn, 95; priority on

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military actions, 47; protraction of, 47, 48; restructuring of security bureaucracy for, 95; second-order effects of, 105–106; as selfdestructive, out-of-proportion reaction to 9/11 attack, 174; social development in Afghanistan and, 60–62; terrorists’ use of US strength against United States, 8; third-order effects, 106–108; US-Pakistan alliance and, 71–88; as war of choice for Bush administration, 4, 94; weakness in US foreign policy during, 13–18; winding down of, 1 Waterboarding, 163, 164, 170 Wazir, Nek Mohammad, 81 Wilders, Geert, 145 Wolfowitz, Paul, 94, 126 Women’s issues: archaic social practices, 63; detention, 63; education, 50, 62; employment, 50; mobility, 50, 60; “moral crimes,” 63 World Conference Against Racism (2001), 141 World Islamic Front, 26 Yemen, 2; al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in, 102; Arab Spring in, 107; attacks on USS Cole from, 101, 102; effect of war on terror on, 100–102; little benefit for from US counterterror efforts, 101; opposition to regime in, 21; use of drones in, 101 Yoo, John, 169 Yousef, Ramzi, 179 Yusufzai, Rahimullah, 80 Zahab, Mariam Abou, 89n27 al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab, 35, 36, 37, 104 al-Zawahiri, Ayman, 26, 27, 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 83

About the Book

Was the US-led war on terror, especially the invasions of

Afghanistan and Iraq, a necessary response to the September 11 terrorist attacks? What did the two invasions accomplish? How have the fortunes of al-Qaeda and like-minded organizations been affected? The authors of this important contribution to ongoing debates address these questions as they assess the impact and implications of the war on terror for the Middle East, for Europe, and for the United States itself. Mohammed Ayoob is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of international relations at Michigan State University. His most recent publications include The Many Faces of Political Islam and Religion and Politics in Saudi Arabia. Etga Ugur is assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington, Tacoma.

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