Mount Obama belched forth a mousy counterterrorism strategy, which you can read here in its inglorious entirety. Like most of the pronouncements of this crowd, it reads rather like an undergraduate seminar paper, full of useless “definitions” that don’t define, and generalizations that beg the real questions. It’s a very lazy approach to a very serious subject.
First and foremost, it’s not very much about counterterrorism, but about how to fight a single organization: al-Qaeda (pompously written “al Qa’ida”). After some introductory self-congratulation, the document comes to what should be the central issue: the nature of the enemy.
The Threat We Face
The preeminent security threat to the United States continues to be from al-Qa‘ida and its affiliates1 and adherents….A decade after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the United States remains at war with al-Qa‘ida. Although the United States did not seek this conflict, we remain committed, in conjunction with our partners worldwide, to disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al-Qa‘ida and its affiliates and adherents to ensure the security of our citizens and interests.
The death of Usama bin Laden marked the most important strategic milestone in our effort to defeat al-Qa‘ida.
Do you really think that AQ is the most serious “security threat” to the United States? Even the unlamented Richard Armitage knew that the most dangerous terrorist organization is Hezbollah (you know, the guys that have just been indicted for assassinating Rafiq Hariri in Lebanon) and that was back when al-Qaeda was riding high in a triumphant gallop down the Arab Street. So, even if you wanted to restrict your discussion of terrorism to individual organizations, the elevation of AQ to top status would be wrong. And it’s wronger today than it was some years ago; the jihad has not been very glorious for them.
Worse yet, the Strategy seems to be based on the assumption that terrorism is our greatest national security threat, which is unworthy of serious people. And even if you give the authors a pass on that one, and say, well, it’s about counterterrorism, not the whole strategic universe, the claim that AQ should be the preeminent focus of our strategy would still be wrong. At the moment, the most serious terrorist threat is the global network led by Iran, and involves Syria, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, along with Hezbollah (cf. “Iran and Syria”), Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and various allied drug mafias and Latin American terrorist groups (FARC, for example).
I think it was President W who once said — in the early days after 9/11, before his vision was clouded by too many deep-thinking court philosophers — that we were at war with various terrorist organizations and the states that sponsor and assist them. Hence my short list above. But you will look in vain in the National Strategy for Counterterrorism for any discussion of state sponsors. Sometimes you need some real knowledge of terrorism to recognize the missing subject, but on other occasions the National Strategy just grabs you by the throat and makes you see it, as when we’re told that it’s imperative to prevent AQ and its allies from developing nukes and other WMDs, without ever mentioning the Iranian nuclear program.
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