Tag Archives: Osama Bin Laden

What If…?

(Washington, D.C.): A recent book by prominent military historians has mainstreamed “alternative history” — a field that has heretofore been principally a passion for war-reenactors and others fascinated by what might have happened if, at critical moments, things had worked out differently. The New York Times best-selling “What If” features essays by the likes of John Keegan, Stephen Ambrose, David McCullough and Arthur Waldron that consider, for example, how differently the course of human history might have been had Alexander the Great not died prematurely, had the Spanish Armada gotten past the English fireships, had the D-Day invasion failed and the Soviet Union invaded Japan as World War II wound down.

In Our Own Time

This sort of analysis makes for interesting musing about more contemporary events, as well. It is illuminating to muse about some “what if’s” in current affairs that might have influenced profoundly our present circumstances — if only because it may shed light on decisions still to be made.

  • What if the first President Bush had not allowed Saddam Hussein’s regime to remain in power after Operation Desert Storm? The failure to do so is now widely acknowledged by practically everyone involved to have been a strategic mistake. Just how serious a mistake it was can be seen in: the countless Iraqi lives that have been destroyed by Saddam since the Gulf War in his odious effort to build support for the ruling clique by making the United States appear responsible for post-war sanctions and his people’s widespread suffering; the continuing, and growing, threat Iraq poses to its neighbors; Iraqi cooperation with and enabling of international terrorism; and the prospect that Baghdad may once again use weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

    The case can be made that, if the U.S. had ensured eleven years ago that the people of Iraq were liberated from the murderous tyranny of Saddam’s Takriti clan, Iraq would today again be among the most prosperous and civilized nations in the Middle East. International sanctions would never have been imposed and the international community may have helped a democratic, representative government accomplish vis a vis Iraq’s WMD programs what South Africa did when it eliminated its nuclear arsenal. At a minimum, it seems most unlikely we would be facing today an Iraqi oil embargo and the imminent prospect of resumed hostilities with Baghdad.

  • What if the Taliban — instead of defying the second President Bush and harboring Osama bin Laden — had agreed to start what might have been called a “peace process” involving protracted negotiations with the United States or, more likely, the United Nations? Instead of being portrayed as state sponsors of terrorism, the Taliban would have been cast as “partners for peace.” Instead of being driven from power by force of American and Northern Alliance arms, the Taliban would still be brutally suppressing Afghanistan’s women and oppressing the rest of its long-suffering populace.

    Terror would almost certainly continue, much of it covertly aided and abetted by Mullah Omar and his friends when they were not play-acting, for Western consumption, at being part of the “grand” anti-terror coalition. State Department specialists would, of course, insist that the United States had no choice but to stick with the peace process, however. Secretary Powell and the CIA would insist that the U.S. keep talking to and dealing with the Taliban and adamantly oppose any Defense Department initiatives aimed at dealing with the Northern Alliance, to say nothing of taking out the Taliban, in the interest of actually waging war on Afghanistan-based terrorists.

    Does this nightmare scenario sound familiar? It should. It is approximately what has been happening to Israel ever since it began an no-less-benighted “peace process” with Yasser Arafat and his equivalent of the Taliban, the Palestine Liberation Organization/Palestinian Authority.

  • What if Arafat had accepted the deal offered to him by Ehud Barak at Camp David in the twilight of the Clinton presidency? Given what we now know about Arafat’s involvement in gun-running, terror-sponsoring and incitement of his people to violence, it seems ever clearer that Arafat would simply have used the 95-plus percent of the so-called “occupied territories” the then- Israeli government was prepared to relinquish to him to pursue his abiding objective: the elimination of the Jewish State from the rest of territory he and most Arabs consider to be occupied — namely, all of pre-1967 Israel.

    If so, what, it might be asked, will happen if Arafat were now to get the Palestinian state President Bush has ill-advisedly committed the United States to help create? Under present and foreseeable circumstances — that is, absent a wholesale change of heart by the Arab world — the creation of “Palestine” will simply bring into existence yet another Islamist, terrorist-sponsoring, corruptly and despotically misruled nation committed to the destruction of Israel. The difference is that this nation would exist on territory without which Israel is essentially indefensible, giving rise for the first time since 1973 to the distinct possibility that the very existence of America’s only regional democratic, and most reliable, ally could be imperilled.

The Bottom Line

That is a “what if” President Bush surely doesn’t want to contemplate — let alone see eventuate. If so, he would be well advised to recall Colin Powell before the Secretary of State makes matters worse by pressing for a “solution” to the present Mideast crisis that shreds the coherence of the Bush doctrine in combating terrorism and further impedes the needed corrective action on Iraq.

NEW T.V. AD SHOWS ARAFAT IS AGAINST US, NOT WITH US

(Washington, D.C.): The Center for Security Policy announced today that, starting on Tuesday, 9 April, it will launch an advertising campaign establishing that Palestinians under Yasser Arafat are on the wrong side in the war on terrorism.

In a 30-second “spot” that will air this week, the Center calls attention to the following facts: Palestinians publicly demonstrated in support of Osama bin Laden after the September 11th attacks on the United States; they have repeatedly burned the American as well as Israeli flags; they are incited to further violence by Arafat; and, as at the time of Operation Desert Storm, they are supporting the murderous Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein.

Script:

    On September 11th, America lost thousands of innocent lives at the hands of extremists.

    As America mourned, Palestinians carried pictures of Osama bin Laden, chanting death to America & Israel.

    Official Palestinian television showed calls for “death to America”
    And Arafat calls for Jihad, Jihad, Jihad.

    Now the Palestinians are showing support for Saddam Hussein — a dictator who hates America and all it stands for.

    In the war against terrorism, can those who support terrorism be on our side in the war against it?

    Paid for by the Center for Security Policy, www.PeaceThroughStrength.com

In a previous spot aired during the week of the Arab League Summit in Beirut, the Center used a map of “Palestine” employed widely by Arafat’s Palestinian Authority and affiliated organizations to demonstrate a related point: Arafat continues to share with the radical Islamists and others in the Arab world the goal of liberating all of what they consider to be occupied “Palestine” — an area comprising the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as all of pre-1967 Israel. Senator John McCain took note of this outrage in his appearance on ABC News “This Week” program on Sunday.

In unveiling the latest Center advertisement, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., CSP’s President said:

“President Bush was correct when he declared that in the war on terrorism, you are either with us or against us. Clearly, Yasser Arafat is no more with us in that war than are the terrorists he calls ‘martyrs.’ Under his misrule, the Palestinian people continue to be incited to violence and denied the opportunity to reach a just and durable peace with a secure Israel.

“The Bush Administration should, accordingly, forgo further interactions with Arafat that would, inevitably, have the effect of rehabilitating and re-legitimating him and his terrorist-sponsoring regime.”

The Center for Security Policy is a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization specializing in U.S. foreign and defense policy matters. Founded in 1988, the Center promotes at home and abroad security policies consistent with President Reagan’s philosophy of peace through strength.

Lawyer for al Qaeda-linked bomber sues US to open secret court hearings

A legal group that supports international terrorist groups while masquerading as a civil rights organization is suing the Justice Department to force open the secret court hearings of suspected 9/11 terrorists.

The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a plaintiff in the suit, is a longtime litigator on behalf of terrorists in the US. Other plaintiffs include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a New Jersey media group.

CCR attorney and board member Abdeen Jabara, an activist against the secret detentions of terrorist suspects and involved in the lawsuit, represents Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric convicted of plotting to blow up the United Nations and other New York targets, and who inspired the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Jabara calls US treatment of Rahman “inhumane” and “cruel.” Two of Rahman’s sons are members of al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden has threatened to use al Qaeda to force Rahman’s release.

The Saudi Charm Offensive

(Washington, D.C.): Apparently, it all started with a column by the New York Times‘ Thomas Friedman in early February urging the Arab League to mount a new diplomatic initiative for Middle East peace. He proposed that the Arabs offer to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for the Jewish State surrendering the territory it seized after the Six Day War in 1967. Shortly thereafter, to Friedman’s delighted surprise, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, told the columnist that he had a similar plan “in his drawer.”

For encouraging a gullible journalist to drink his own bathwater, Abdullah has suddenly become the toast of diplomats, statesmen and peace activists around the world. Like swooning schoolgirls, many who should know better are fawning over the Crown Prince for suddenly offering to play a constructive role in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Some — presumably including President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon — are responding positively to the so-called “Abdullah Plan” on atmospheric, rather than substantive grounds. It can only be assumed that neither are under any illusion that this “new peace initiative” is, as Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. notes in today’s Los Angeles Times, either “new,” conducive to “peace” or an “initiative” in any meaningful sense of the word.

The grave danger is that — in the unreal world of Mideast peace-making — this “initiative” will nonetheless take on a life of its own. Already, the inveterate peace- processors are pretending that a deal that would entail even greater concessions on Israel’s part than the last Barak proposal offered at Camp David in September 2000 would not be a reward to Yasser Arafat for turning down that offer and inciting the latest round of violence. Already, they are glossing over the improbability that the Saudis, let alone the Syrians, Libyans, Iranians or Iraqis, will actually normalize relations with Israel just because the latter has given back roughly half of the land the Arabs think the Jews are “occupying” (the other half being the Jewish State’s pre-1967 boundaries).

If the long, sorry history of Mideast peace-making teaches anything, it is that unsound proposals based on the principle of Israeli territorial concessions in exchange for the promise of peace with the Arabs become more problematic, not less, as the political capital and personal prestige of American and other leaders become invested in them. Consequently, it behooves both President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon to establish at the earliest possible moment that they would, of course, welcome Saudi Arabia playing at long last a constructive role in the Arab-Israeli conflict — but that they are still waiting for the Kingdom to do so.

Land for Peace Is a Losing Trade

By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
Los Angeles Times, 27 February 2002

In the past week, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, has received kudos in Washington, Arab capitals and diplomatic circles around the world for what is characterized as a “new peace initiative” to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unfortunately, this characterization is so wildly inaccurate as to appear a deliberate fraud.

The so-called Abdullah plan–Arabs would normalize relations with Israel in exchange for the Jewish state surrendering the territory seized after 1967’s Six-Day War–is not “new” in any meaningful sense.

The idea of Israel giving up the land it conquered in the course of successive wars waged against it in exchange for a genuine peace with the Arabs has been around at least since the last of those wars ended in 1973. Various U.N. resolutions, numerous shuttle diplomacy missions and the Oslo process have all been predicated on the land-for-peace proposition. Time after time, Israel has agreed to territorial concessions. The resulting dismal experience with each of these ventures has, however, made most Israelis reluctant to buy into such a shopworn idea yet again. Even if the Abdullah plan were a genuinely new concept, it would not be conducive to a lasting peace. Over the past 30 years, Israeli governments of the right and left have recognized that areas of the West Bank have been essential to persuading the Arabs that the “war option” is foreclosed. Should strategic Israeli positions on the high ground above the Jordan Valley, many of which are secured by settlements and military outposts, be surrendered, the Arabs’ calculus surely would change.

And despite the interest expressed by President Bush this week, the Abdullah plan cannot accurately be called an “initiative” either. The Saudi king-in-waiting apparently has not decided to formally introduce his plan at an upcoming Arab League summit. There also have been differing reports of the plan’s particulars.

The real impetus behind the Abdullah plan seems to be a cynical bid to divert increasingly critical American attention from the Saudi kingdom’s double game. The Saudis have been portrayed as one of the United States’ most reliable allies in the region. At the same time, the royal family has patronized Wahhabism, the virulently radical strain of Islam that has brought the world Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist cells, most of the Sept. 11 hijackers and a worldwide network of madrasas, or religious schools, busily indoctrinating young Muslims to hate and attack Western infidels. It also has become clear that Saudi Arabia is perfectly willing from time to time to increase oil prices at the expense of world economies and to impose restrictions on U.S. use of Saudi bases.

In the months since Sept. 11, a growing chorus on Capitol Hill, in the press and even in some quarters of the Bush administration, has shown that American patience with the Saudis is wearing thin. One suspects that Abdullah saw the need for a “charm offensive” in the form of a new peace initiative for the Middle East.

To be sure, Israel has no good options at the moment. The same applies to the U.S., as one of Israel’s few friends and its principal ally. Among the worst of the available options, though, would be for either Israel or the U.S. to embrace a warmed-over–and thoroughly discredited–effort to strip the Jewish state of land it requires for its own defense.

There can be no guarantees that despotically governed Arab states–especially Saudi Arabia–would live up to their part of the bargain any more than they have in the past. Even if today’s rulers promise to do so, their successors cannot be relied upon to follow suit.

There is much that Saudi Arabia can and should do, from opening up its bases to a needed U.S.-led effort to end Saddam Hussein’s misrule, to shutting down its madrasas, to providing humanitarian relief and job opportunities to Palestinians whom their Arab brothers see fit to keep rotting in refugee centers.

As far as the Abdullah plan goes, though, the American and Israeli response should be the same: “Thanks, but no, thanks.”

Post-Mortem on ‘Pearl Harbor II’

(Washington, D.C.): Within the next few days, leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees will set the date for the start of a congressional inquiry whose likes have probably not been seen in sixty years. This is fitting since legislators will soon be conducting a post-mortem on an intelligence failure that preceded the deadliest foreign attack on American soil since the subject of those earlier hearings: Pearl Harbor.

The Tenet Factor

The first problem the investigation of September 11th — or Pearl Harbor II — will face arises because the man in charge of U.S. intelligence in the years leading up to that second Day of Infamy, CIA Director George Tenet, remains in place. He continues to enjoy the confidence of President Bush and, by most accounts, has done a commendable job in the months following the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks in employing CIA assets to carry the fight to the enemy.

Yet, Mr. Tenet refuses to acknowledge that there was any failure of intelligence in the run-up to 9/11. He insisted in testimony before the Senate last week that “failure” meant that no effort had been made to prevent such attacks or to penetrate the cells of those who might carry them out — a state of affairs that clearly did not pertain.

This is, of course, nonsense. Failure does not mean nothing was done, merely that what was done was inadequate. September 11th was every bit as much a failure in that sense as was the mighty Seventh Fleet’s unpreparedness for a Japanese attack on its bases in Hawaii six decades ago. And the Congress and the American people need to know why.

Let’s be clear: We need to understand what went wrong on that beautiful day last Fall not only because those responsible for past, defective intelligence policies and practices — as with any costly failure — should be held accountable. More important by far, we need to ensure that such mistakes are not repeated in the future, a particular concern given that Mr. Tenet and some of his subordinates remain in office today and in denial about what went wrong on their watch.

Inquiring Minds Need to Know

These are among the issues the congressional investigators should critically review as they consider what amounts to the Clinton intelligence legacy:

  • Politicized intelligence: During the Clinton years, George Tenet — in his capacity as Deputy CIA Director and then as Director of Central Intelligence — presided over an intelligence community that was kept on a short leash by its political masters. It is a matter of record that intelligence estimates on emerging missile threats were massaged and their release timed to support the President’s determination not to deploy missile defenses. Reports on corruption in the Yeltsin-Chernomyrdin Kremlin were dumbed- down after complaints from Vice President Gore. Evidence of Chinese proliferation activities was withheld from Congress, lest it complicate administration efforts to romance Beijing.

    We need to know in what ways did President Clinton’s desire not to offend Saudi Arabian sensibilities, to improve relations with Iran, to end sanctions on Libya, to make Nobel Peace Prize- winning diplomatic breakthroughs with North Korea and/or to stymie congressional efforts to help the Iraqi opposition contribute to a similar dumbing-down, or hamstringing, of intelligence on the international terrorist scourge and its state-sponsors? How can the Bush administration assure the integrity and perspicacity of U.S. intelligence in the face of today’s foreign policy considerations — like the purported need to preserve the anti-terrorist coalition?

  • Deficient “humint”: Political correctness also caused the Clinton administration to deprecate the value of human intelligence (or humint) as opposed to that antiseptically collected by electronic means or photo satellites. This was particularly true to the extent that the humans who might have access to information about operations being mounted by the likes of Osama bin Laden generally are unsavory types. Like Mafia informants, they often have blood on their hands and dirty money in their bank accounts.

    We need to know to what extent such hamstringing of U.S. intelligence contributed to its inability to penetrate bin Laden’s compartmented information “loops” and to intercept his Islamist hijackers before they commandeered three American passenger jets. Has the Bush administration taken corrective action to ensure that humint is being given the priority it requires in the war on terrorism? What can be done to retard the loss to retirements of experienced handlers and field agents and accelerate the process of their augmentation and replacement with a new generation of spies?

  • Limits on domestic surveillance: The Clinton team empowered individuals like Anthony Lake and Morton Halperin with long histories as critics of FBI and other agencies’ monitoring of the activities of potential subversives on U.S. soil. According to Mr. Tenet’s testimony last week, we now have in this country some 70,000 individuals who match the demographic profiles (age, sex, countries of origin) of the 9/11 hijackers.

    We need to know whether constraints on domestic surveillance — some of which date back to the 1970s — contributed to the failure to discern the September 11th plot. Does the Bush Admini stration believe that additional authority in this area, beyond that granted in legislation last year, is needed? To what extent does political correctness (e.g., concerns about the sensibilities of Arab- Americans about “ethnic profiling”) continue to constrain justifiable surveillance and investigative activities?

The Bottom Line

Unfortunately, Pearl Harbor II is not likely to be the end of the acts of terror against the United States, its interests and people. Their impact may be alleviated, and possibly even their occurrence prevented, however, if we properly understand the intelligence failures of the past — and are able to apply their lessons rigorously.

China: The Not-So-Hidden Dragon in the War on Terror

(Washington, D.C.): If Pakistan and India go to nuclear war in the coming days, each country will be blamed for precipitating that calamity. The real responsibility, however, will lie elsewhere — with Communist China.

China’s Contribution to Terror

After all, it was the People’s Republic that put Pakistan in the atomic weapons business. Had it not been for Chinese know-how, personnel and technology, Islamabad would almost certainly not have "the Bomb" today.

Beijing and its North Korean proxy have also been instrumental in Pakistan’s ballistic missile delivery systems for such weapons. According to the Washington Times’ Bill Gertz, Chinese-supplied M-11 missiles — which the Pakistanis have renamed the Shaheen and armed with atomic if not crude thermonuclear weapons — have been readied for use against India.

To be sure, even if China had not decided years ago to play the Pakistani "card" against the PRC’s democratic enemy, India, by arming the Paks to the teeth, the present circumstances in Kashmir may still have produced yet another war between the two countries. But it would almost certainly have remained conventional in character, and the casualties on both sides relatively small.

Unfortunately, China’s rampant proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has not only brought democratic India to the brink of nuclear war with her neighbor. According to the Associated Press, the Pakistani government recently detained two individuals, Sultan Bashir-ud-Din Mahmood and Abdul Majid, "on suspicion of sharing technical information with [Osama] bin Laden. They worked for Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission until retiring in 1999."

Evidence accumulating from liberated enemy compounds, bunkers and hard drives attests to the keen interest bin Laden and Company have had in acquiring weapons of mass destruction [WMD]. It is hard to believe that Chinese-trained and -empowered Pakistanis, who were clearly sympathetic to his cause, were not forthcoming. If so, Americans may have even more direct reason to fear the effects of the PRC’s nuclear trade than deadly Indo- Pakistani missile duels.

Matters are made even worse by the prospect that Pakistan has acted upon its longstanding desire to be the source of the "the Islamic Bomb." Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Algeria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are among the countries of the Muslim world who would love to get their hands on the technology and materials needed to put themselves into the atomic or nuclear weapons business. Islamabad may well have served as a willing cut-out for Chinese help to some or all of these nations, and perhaps others as well.

Iraq’s Friend, Not Ours

Of these, Iraq is probably the most dangerous in the near-term. Baghdad’s ever-increasing WMD inventory — and Saddam Hussein’s willingness to use them — is the subject of a compelling new study by Dr. Kathleen Bailey entitled "Iraq’s Asymmetric Threat to the United States and U.S. Allies," (published by the National Institute for Public Policy.)

The threat posed by Iraq is compelling the Bush Administration, finally, to bring about the end to Saddam’s reign of terror against his own people and others around the world. The increasingly compelling, if circumstantial, evidence of Iraqi involvement in recent terrorist acts against the United States — the subject of a newly released book, The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks, by Dr. Laurie Mylroie — makes clear that we defer such action any longer at our extreme peril.

When the Administration does move against Iraq, it — and the American people — will be confronted once again with an unhappy reality temporarily obscured by the war on terrorism and the strange (and often unsavory) bedfellows coalition cobbled together by Secretary of State Colin Powell to prosecute it: Communist China is no friend of the United States.

To the contrary, the PRC is a growing problem. Its burgeoning demand for energy has translated into troubling partnerships with unsavory regimes not only in Iraq but in Iran, Sudan and even Venezuela in our own hemisphere and into imperialistic aggression in the Spratly Islands. Beijing is buying an array of advanced weapons designed by the Soviets/Russians to destroy American military hardware and personnel. And, to add insult to injury, it is seeking to underwrite such activities either directly or (given the fungibility of money) indirectly on our own capital markets, unbeknownst to most American investors.

Add into the mix China’s systematic dissemination of WMD technologies and delivery systems to countries we call "rogue states" and they call "clients" and you have a disaster waiting to happen. It would be reckless for America to ignore these developments — or their longer-term implications.

Still worse would be for our leaders to succumb to the siren’s song emanating from "Friends of China" like former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke who recently urged President Bush (a man whose leadership Holbrooke has assiduously worked to undermine around the world) to negotiate a fourth "communique" with Beijing, based on a putative "common strategic concern [with] terrorism."

The Bottom Line

Unfortunately, our strategic concern should be with a China that has been abetting terrorism in Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere for years. Beijing may want us, in the name of the war on terror, to legitimate its repression of long-suffering minorities like Muslim Uighurs, Tibetans, Falun Gong or Christians. But we must not ignore the not-so-hidden dragon role China is playing in greatly exacerbating the costs and dangers associated with that war.

The Way Ahead: Former D.C.I. Woolsey Offers Blueprint for Successfully Prosecuting the War on Terror

(Washington, D.C.): President Bush is getting a lot of advice — much of it as unsolicited as it unsound — from people who believe the war on terror should be considered to be over the moment Osama bin Laden and the Taliban have been vanquished, if not before. Generally, such kibbitzers argue that doing otherwise (for example, by pursuing terrorists and their sponsors elsewhere, as President Bush has repeatedly promised to do) would jeopardize the “coalition.”

A most timely and helpful corrective by former Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey appears in today’s Washington Post. It underscores the absurdity, not to say self-defeating nature, of a policy that would have the effect of legitimating and preserving terrorist-sponsoring governments (e.g., those of Iran, Syria and Sudan) on the grounds that they are members in good standing of the anti-terror coalition.

Mr. Woolsey recommends instead a systemic approach to the threat posed by terrorism, using the model now in evidence in Afghanistan: Make the war’s objective effecting regime change in nations that sponsor, harbor, train, finance or otherwise abet terrorist organizations. As the former DCI points out, by acting in a manner consistent with our national values and interests, we can help liberate and empower people long enslaved by despots — and reduce the danger posed to us (in the form of terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, espionage and/or other forms) by such hostile governments.

Objective: Democracy

By R. James Woolsey

The Washington Post, 27 November 2001

As the Taliban crumbles, our decisions about the next phase of the war against terrorism have become more informed. It turns out that we have had a powerful ally in this fight, one that the skeptics heavily discounted as recently as two weeks ago: the Afghan people. As they shake off the harsh Taliban rule, we see clearly that we have not just been fighting for our own security and to avenge Sept. 11 but, as in both the hot and cold world wars of the 20th century, for the freedom of the people living under regimes that have threatened and attacked us.

It also turns out that in Afghanistan in a mere six weeks, American air power and special forces — working with a loosely organized opposition ethnically representing only a portion of the population — have proven awesomely effective.

This ought to be enough to make us call into question some of the European-generated “truths” about another region, the Mideast, that have generally guided our conduct there for the past 80 years: that Arabs and Muslims have no aptitude for democracy, that we are well-advised to stay in bed with corrupt rulers — occasionally changing them if they seem to threaten, especially, our access to oil — and that the general rule should be: better the devil we know than the devil we don’t.

We have, on the whole, followed this European conceptual lead, and it has brought us Sept. 11, disdain and hatred. Only in Afghanistan, and in Iran, where we are perceived to be at odds with the repressive regime, do the demonstrating crowds chant “U-S-A.”

One of these days we’re going to get the picture. It has been the received wisdom at various times in the 20th century that Germans, Japanese, Koreans, Russians and Chinese would never be able to manage democracy. Yet from Berlin to Taipei, people seem to have figured out how to make it work. And no democracy threatens us, for the very good reason that, unlike dictators, democracies turn to war last, not first. And no democracy consciously harbors terrorists or encourages them to attack us.

The Mideast does present a special problem. Outside Israel and secular Turkey, the governments of the region comprise no democracies but rather vulnerable autocracies and pathological predators. Some of the autocracies have launched reforms and may evolve toward constitutional monarchies with parliaments and the rule of law — Jordan and Bahrain, for example — if a predator doesn’t get them first. Other autocracies, such as Saudi Arabia, seem mired in self-destructive behavior: spending vast sums to promote a whole set of domestic and foreign institutions, such as Saudi and Pakistani schools, that build hatred against both us and the modern world and that will, in time, undermine their own rule.

Many in the West see hatred and conclude that the people of the Muslim and Arab worlds are our enemies. They could not be more wrong. If we continue to follow the European paradigm — as, tragically, the first Bush administration did in the spring of 1991, when it failed to back the Iraqi resistance’s rebellion against Saddam — we will continue to be hated both by predator governments and by a vocal minority in the streets of the autocracies. Our only sound strategy is to take the side of the people against the predators and, albeit less urgently, the autocrats as well.

Of the Mideast’s predator governments — Iraq, Iran, Syria and Sudan — Iraq presents the most urgent problem. Its work on weapons of mass destruction, untrammeled now for three years by U.N. inspections, creates a serious risk for its neighbors and for us. We have plenty of evidence of Iraq’s support of terrorists, such as its training of other Arabs at Salman Pak in how to hijack aircraft with knives. We know of many meetings between Iraqi intelligence and various terrorists. And we know for a fact that Saddam tried to assassinate former president George H. W. Bush in the spring of 1993.

This seems quite sufficient for putting Saddam’s regime next in the cross-hairs. Those who would argue that we cannot move against Iraq without hundreds of thousands of American troops and dozens of allies must now deal with the reality of what has happened in Afghanistan. They should also take a good look at the Iraqi armed forces, which are a shadow of what we confronted in 1991. We do need help, but only one government is critical — Turkey. The Turkish government fears a split-up of Iraq and worries that a separate Kurdistan in what is now northern Iraq would exert a gravitational pull on Turkey’s Kurds. This problem should be manageable by working with the Iraqi opposition to guarantee Iraq’s future borders and to give Turkey a role in guaranteeing stability in the north and in obtaining access to the oil fields there.

This will not be easy, but it should be well within our power if we are determined. Operating from Turkey and from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, we should have less difficulty generating enough sorties to make quick and devastating use of air power than we had against landlocked Afghanistan. We will have to take out Iraqi air defenses and hit Iraqi ground units from the air when they concentrate to fight. We need to arm the Iraqi opposition in the north and south and provide advisers and other assistance, as in Afghanistan. We should not do this just to destroy specific sites (Saddam has hidden much of his work on weapons of mass destruction in and under hospitals, schools, etc.) nor to stage a coup to replace Saddam with another dictator. There should be no doubt about our objective: We need to bring democracy to Iraq.

While we are so engaged, we can hope that the recent demonstrations in Iran against the mullahs multiply. If the mullahs want to help provide intelligence and other support against Saddam, fine. We can be cordial — we can’t fight everyone at once. But we should pay them no respect of the kind that would lose us the growing admiration among the youth and the women of Iran, almost universally hostile to the mullahs’ rule. And the Mideast’s other predators and autocrats? The Alawite regime in Syria, the Saudi royal family? Let them tremble. And let them have no doubt that America is again on the march, and on the side of those they most fear: their own people.

The writer, an attorney, was director of Central Intelligence from 1993 to 1995.

Time of Testing

(Washington, D.C.): Testing, testing. That word may be the leitmotif of the next three days — and not only for technicians checking out microphones used at summit photo ops. featuring President Bush and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

In fact, these two men are likely to be testing each other throughout their meetings beginning tomorrow in Washington and continuing on Wednesday and Thursday at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. Testing will also feature prominently in what they will be discussing — and the consistency of whatever understandings they reach with U.S. national security requirements.

Testing Each Other

Certainly, Mr. Bush will be testing his first impression that, having looked into Putin’s “soul” a few months back, he can “trust” the Russian president. In particular, “W.” will be exploring whether the former KGB agent has, in fact, morphed into a reliable partner, willing and able permanently to transform the earlier Cold War rivalry between their two nations into a new “strategic framework” compatible with the pursuit of common interests in Afghanistan and far beyond.

Putin will, for his part, be testing his host as well. He wants to see what he can get from a President Bush grateful for Russia’s early, if conditional, endorsement of the war on terrorism and the Kremlin’s willingness not to object to U.S. use of former Soviet republics for the war against bin Laden and the Taliban. (It is, of course, unclear on precisely what grounds Putin could have objected; these “Stans” are now independent states and Washington should discourage, not encourage, Russian claims that they form a “near abroad” over which Moscow is entitled to exercise influence.)

Specifically, Mr. Bush’s guest will be pushing for a laundry list of American concessions. These will involve: trade (repeal of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment that helped win the Cold War by limiting the economic life-support the Soviets could obtain while maintaining repression at home); energy (Moscow wants the United States to follow Europe’s lead in treating Russia as a reliable supplier, a step that could give the Kremlin undesirable economic/strategic leverage down the road); Chechnya (legitimating Russia’s brutal campaign there on the grounds that it is just part of the war on terrorism); and proliferation (Moscow wants to continue selling what we call “rogue states” but they call “clients” a laundry list of advanced conventional arms and weapons of mass destruction- related technologies).

Testing at Issue

Testing will also feature prominently with respect to an issue expected to dominate the summit: missile defense. Fortunately, Mr. Bush has lately poured cold water on rising speculation that he was going to make a terrible strategic mistake — agreeing to preserve the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty he has correctly called “out-dated,” “obsolete” and “dangerous” in exchange for Russian acquiescence to U.S. experimentation with anti-missile systems not permissible under that accord. Still, the President will be sorely tested by a tag-team of Russians, State Department diplomats and the media elite who hope such a deal will foreclose the deployment of U.S. missile defenses they oppose.

Nuclear Testing

Last, but hardly least, another kind of testing — of the nuclear sort — should be part of the summit agenda. President Bush is expected to announce that he is unilaterally ordering deep cuts in the numbers of strategic nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal. By some accounts he will direct that these forces be reduced to a level somewhere between 1750 and 2200 warheads.

To Mr. Bush’s credit, in so doing, he is explicitly rejecting the practices and follies of traditional arms control. American force levels will be set on the basis of what is deemed by our government to be necessary for U.S. deterrence and security requirements, not determined by the often arbitrary results of protracted negotiations with Moscow. In principle, since no treaty will be involved, should changes occur in the strategic considerations that made such low levels appear acceptable at the moment, the United States will have the latitude to adjust its arsenal accordingly.

In practice, however, it is very likely that this country will find itself hereafter retaining no more nuclear weapons than the level announced by President Bush. He has, therefore, an obligation to ensure that the resulting arsenal is safe, reliable and credible as a deterrent — not only for the duration of his presidency but for the foreseeable future.

For that reason, Mr. Bush should make clear as part of his announcement of deep reductions in American nuclear forces that he is committed to ensuring the future effectiveness, as well as the safety and reliability, of the weapons that remain in the U.S. arsenal. To do so, he will authorize both the most rigorous imaginable maintenance of the strategic “stockpile” and its routine modernization. Both of these activities will require periodic underground nuclear testing.

The Bottom Line

While the decision to resume nuclear testing will provoke criticism, there will be no better time than the present to take such a step. If Mr. Bush combines it with the announcement of deep cuts, his critics will be seen for what they are — irresponsible devotees of complete nuclear disarmament. (The President’s courageous willingness to defy them was on display last weekend when his Administration refused to attend a conference of nations supporting a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing.)

In fact, in the absence of such a commitment to assure the future viability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent, it is not clear that the Nation can live with the very low levels of nuclear forces Mr. Bush prefers. It will certainly lack the ability to exercise the option to increase its arsenal should that prove necessary in the future.

The American people have come, rightly, to have great confidence in President Bush’s judgment. We must all hope that he will exercise it to good effect in the time of testing ahead.

Just Do It’: Wall Street Journal Urges President to Jettison A.B.M. Treaty, Not Breathe New Life Into It

(Washington, D.C.): As George W. Bush nears an historic decision on his missile defense legacy, one of the most influential editorial pages in the world has weighed in. The Wall Street Journal today urged the President to stay the course and free the United States, once and for all, from the tyranny of an arms control treaty that requires it to remain vulnerable to ballistic missile attack.

The Journal editorial says all that needs to be said about the folly of thinking it will be easier to get out from under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty’s prohibition on deployment of missile defenses later on, rather than doing it now. In fact, as a practical matter, if President Bush passes up the opportunity to take this step now — when he is at the peak of his personal popularity, with strong public support for his missile defense program and at a moment when Russian opposition, if any, can be safely discounted — he runs a serious risk that he may not be able to deploy such defenses at all during his term in office.

The Journal makes a particularly trenchant and practical point: If President Bush winds up, in effect, “buying” relief from the ABM Treaty’s constraints on development and testing of anti-missile systems with a commitment to cut U.S. nuclear forces to very low (possibly even problematically low) levels — “What does Mr. Bush offer next time?” (i.e., when he needs relief from the Treaty’s prohibition on deployment, which would reportedly be left intact under the deal now in the works).

It would be a travesty if a president committed to defending America were to wind up getting even less than his predecessor, who had no such commitment, but nonetheless sought a “Grand Bargain” with the Kremlin — a compromise that envisioned exchanging deep cuts in strategic nuclear arms for Russian agreement to a limited deployment of anti-missile systems in Alaska.

A Better Missile Deal

The Wall Street Journal, 6 November 2001

It looks like a deal to revise the ABM Treaty may be in the offing, to be announced when Presidents Bush and Putin meet at Mr. Bush’s ranch next week. In the strongest hint yet, Russian Defense Secretary Sergei Ivanov said yesterday that the two sides have made “clear progress” in their Treaty discussions.

It’s not over yet — Mr. Bush is said to be making a decision this week — but the basic thrust is as follows: The U.S. would agree to delay withdrawing from the Treaty in return for Russia allowing the U.S. to proceed with anti-missile tests the Treaty now bans. In addition, both countries would agree to cut their nuclear arsenals to fewer than 2,000 warheads.

While we wait for the details, mark us down as preferring a complete, final break from the 1972 accord, as permitted under Article 15. Compromises are sometimes necessary, but this is one of those moments in history when a clean break from the “arms control process” would be better for both countries. And the moment may not easily come again.

The ABM Treaty was written when Russia and the U.S. were historical rivals. Today both countries want a closer relationship with each other, and both share the same common threat, which is Islamic fundamentalism armed with weapons of mass destruction. More than two dozen nations either already possess long-range ballistic missiles or will soon have them. If anthrax and Osama bin Laden have taught us anything, it is that arms control and defense are not the same things.

We agree that it would be no small thing if post-Cold War Russia aligns itself more closely with the West. This has been a goal of Russian reformers since Peter the Great, and it’s worth it for America to pay some price to help it occur. But we disagree with the State Department view that Mr. Putin won’t budge unless Mr. Bush gives in on missile defenses.

Debt over defenses

Mr. Putin has his own reasons for pursuing better U.S. ties, most of them well beyond the old Cold War military issues. Some of them are economic, such as the renegotiation or forgiveness of Soviet-era debt, as well as faster entry into the World Trade Organization. The latter requires the repeal of Jackson-Vanik, the 1974 law that links Soviet emigration to trade, and which Mr. Bush has already agreed to push through Congress. The U.S. has already toned down its criticism of Russia’s war in Chechnya.

With his own approval rating at more than 75%, Mr. Putin ought to be able to explain a U.S. Treaty withdrawal to the satisfaction of most Russians. All the more so if he can return to Moscow with significant cuts in offensive weapons. Russia retains thousands of missiles, but the cost of maintaining them is high and he’d like to spend the money elsewhere.

U.S. strategists say our arsenal can safely fall to below 2,000 warheads, down from 7,000 or so today, but Mr. Bush can only cut that arsenal once. It would be a mistake to offer those cuts merely in return for a deal that allows some missile testing today, with more negotiation to come in six months or a year. What does Mr. Bush offer next time?

For his part, Mr. Bush is being told he needs the political cover of Russian agreement to help push missile defense through Congress. But that was before September 11. Domestic political support for missile defense has since soared, especially among women, so Mr. Bush doesn’t really need the Russian’s imprimatur. In a recent Pew Research survey, support has climbed to 64%, and 49% now believe it should be developed immediately. Seventy-three percent of mothers now support missile defense, up from 53% before September 11.

It’s true that the U.S. isn’t yet ready to deploy a missile defense, so waiting wouldn’t have to cripple future efforts. And unlike some of our friends on the right, we don’t doubt Mr. Bush’s sincerity on the subject. At every juncture when he might have wavered, Mr. Bush has pressed for missile defenses without apology. Even last month, amid cries that defenses weren’t needed when terrorists could use a suitcase bomb, Mr. Bush called the ABM Treaty “dangerous.”

But these same circumstances won’t always hold. Mr. Bush’s own political stature might not be as high a year from now, and Mr. Putin might have problems of his own. Far better to strike a deal now, when both sides have the political capital to spare. And far better to set the U.S.-Russian relationship on a path away from the “arms control process” that has dominated it for so long. Arms control is something that exists between adversaries, not friends. The U.S. doesn’t negotiate missile treaties with Germany, or Turkey. If this really is going to be an historic Russia realignment toward the West, then who needs arms control?

By remaining inside the ABM Treaty, even with a wink and a nod, the U.S. would also be living a lie. Mr. Bush would be insisting he can build a national missile defense at the same time that he agreed to abide by a Treaty that pledges us not to build one. That’s no way to defend a nation.

Getting History — and the Future — Right

(Washington, D.C.): Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recently infuriated President Bush by drawing a parallel between the sell-out of Czechoslovakia by Britain and France before World War II and the demands for dangerous concessions being made of his country by the U.S. government today. While there are certain similarities, on reflection, a more accurate analogy would be between what Britain did to her principal ally, France, rather than what they both did to the Czechoslovaks.

Israel as Czechoslovakia

Israel today, like France in the early-to-mid-1930s, is the mightiest military power in its region. As was also true in France before World War II, Israel has been led for years by weak governments under the sway of leftists convinced that unilateral disarmament and appeasement constitute a reliable alternative to conflict with increasingly dangerous neighbors.

In addition, for much of the past decade, American administrations have been encouraging — and, from time to time, extorting — concessions from Israel, much as the Baldwin and Chamberlain governments in pre-war Britain endorsed and occasionally induced declining French defense spending and military preparedness. In 1934, Winston Churchill famously declared that “I cannot imagine a more dangerous policy” than one of deliberately weakening an important ally, upon whose strength one’s own security may significantly rely.

Which Side are We On?

The question the government and people of the United States must address immediately is: Should we regard Israel as a vital strategic ally in the war on terrorism and refrain from repeating the mistakes made by Britain towards France six decades ago? Or can we safely indulge in a deceit similar to that earlier time’s — that concessions that weaken, perhaps mortally, one of our most important bulwarks against a common enemy can be made at no peril to our security?

The American people appear to have few illusions on this score. A survey conducted on 12-13 October by pollster John McLaughlin suggests that they continue overwhelmingly (72.9%) and strongly to support Israel. The Congress has been at least as supportive. In fact, in recent hearings before the House International Relations Committee, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs William [Burns] was bitterly assailed by legislators from both parties for his department’s recent denunciations of Israeli efforts to defend themselves — efforts identical in purpose, if not method or success (to date), to our own against Osama bin Laden and Company.

For his part, President Bush has made clear that he is committed to the security and well-being of Israel. His refusal to meet with Yasser Arafat so long as the Palestinian Authority remains a sponsor of terror against the Jewish State — a tangible sign of Mr. Bush’s determination not to coerce Israel into making compromises with which it cannot live — has been commendable and one of the most dramatic departures from the failed foreign policies and practices of his predecessor.

The Post–September 11 Agenda

Yet, in the wake of the September 11 attacks and the war on terror they unleashed, the Bush Administration has come under intense pressure not only to pick up where Bill Clinton left off in squeezing dangerous concessions from Israel, but going where even he dared not go. According to the Boston Globe of October 10, “The Bush Administration is prepared in the next few weeks to publicly increase pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to accept not only a Palestinian state but a viable Palestinian homeland that includes a shared Jerusalem as its capital.'” Forcing Israel to “share” not just suburbs of Jerusalem but the city itself would surpass any “vision” previously embraced by the U.S. government.

The pressure to take such steps comes from a number of quarters. First, there are influential figures with close ties to the Arab world like Mr. Bush’s father and his National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, who was recently given an official advisory function as chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Then, there are the Arabists in the State Department, who have as clients more than two-dozen Arab/Islamic countries while there is, of course, only one Jewish State — and its desk is manned by foreign service officers whose future advancement will depend on good postings elsewhere in the region.

Next, there are the so-called “moderate” leaders in the Arab world. Thus far, their diplomatic stroke has been undiminished, if not actually enhanced, by the war on terror. This is all the more extraordinary insofar as many Americans have recently learned to their horror about such “friends'” thoroughly immoderate, but longstanding, practice of using virulent anti-Israeli and anti-American propaganda as a sort of social safety valve. This device may allow the anger of these countries’ burgeoning populations of poor young males to be diverted away from their generally repressive governments — but only at our expense.

Finally, there are the Islamic organizations in this country that the President has been encouraged to cultivate — despite the solidarity some of their leaders have long expressed with terrorist groups responsible for the murder not only of Israeli women and children, but of American citizens, as well.

At the moment, the foregoing appear to be advancing a common agenda with considerable sympathetic treatment from the international press: Israel’s occupation of Arab lands helps legitimate Islamist terror against her ally, the United States. If only the Jewish State ended that occupation, we are assured, Israel could live in peace and much of the anger felt towards us around the world would dissipate. Create a Palestinian state, these influential forces insist, and we will be assured of Arab support, bases, oil and solidarity in the war on terror.

The Bottom Line

The problem is that the Arab “street” — and particularly the Palestinian Arabs — to which we are supposedly appealing have been thoroughly indoctrinated to believe that Israel’s presence on any territory amounts to its occupation. Arafat has repeatedly assured his constituents that the peace process is not a basis for legitimating a permanent Jewish State in the Arabs’ midst. It is, instead, the instrument for realizing a twenty-seven-year-old “phased plan” for the destruction of Israel and the liberation of all “Palestine.”

As with Hitler before the war, further weakening of an important Western power in the face of intimidation — and a growing ability to act on it — will be an invitation for aggression, not a formula for real peace. Rewarding terror by forcing more territorial and other concessions on Israel risks repeating Britain’s mistake with respect to France, turning a valuable ally into a strategic liability and gravely weakening our shared ability to contend with a common — and ever more lethal — danger.