Our So-Called Foreign Policy: How Trump Can Pass His Afghanistan Test

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Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, America First, border security, globalism, Immigration, Iraq, ISIS, jihadism, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, September 11, Syria, Taliban, terrorism, Trump, Tucker Carlson

So it seems we’re soon going to see another major test of how much of an America First-er on foreign policy President Trump really is: Will he or won’t he withdraw the U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan if he can strike an acceptable deal with that country’s Taliban insurgents?

Globalists across the political spectrum – that is, supporters of America’s pre-Trump decades of seeking to address foreign policy challenges through various forms of active engagement in foreign affairs around the world – and especially conservative globalists, are awfully skeptical, to say the least, and they have numerous understandable and specific reasons. One that stands out: Why should anyone trust the Taliban to keep the promise that the President is seeking – a pledge to ensure that no part of Afghanistan left under its effective control by any agreement to end or even suspend the conflict between it and the Afghan government becomes a terrorist base once again.

After all, the Taliban was the group that permitted Al Qaeda to use such territories as safe havens from which to plan and train for the September 11 terrorist attacks. A U.S. invasion and nearly twenty years of ongoing military operations have clearly played a major role in ensuring that no September 11 repeats have taken place, or at least strikes emanating from Afghanistan. And there’s no sign of any ebbing in the Taliban’s violent, anti-American nature. In addition, similar American-led and assisted operations against ISIS have prevented that group from creating safe havens in Iraq and Syria large enough to possess September 11-like potential.

All in all, therefore, such interventions look like a resounding success for the idea that defeating terrorists “over there” is the best guarantee that they won’t do any harm “over here.” And there’s compelling evidence that the President has bought into this argument.

As he told Fox News talk show host Tucker Carlson in an early July interview:

“…I would like to just get out [of Afghanistan].  The problem is, it just seems to be a lab for terrorists.  It seems — I call it the Harvard of terrorists. 

“When you look at the World Trade Center, they were trained.  They didn’t — by the way, they attacked the wrong country.  They didn’t come from Iraq, all right.  They came from various other countries.

“But they all formed in Afghanistan, and it’s probably because it’s at the base of so many countries, but they all formed and it’s rough mountains and you get a lot of — you know, you get a lot of good hiding places.

“But I would leave very strong intelligence there.  You have to watch because they do — you know, okay, I’ll give you a tough one.  If you were in my position and a great looking central casting and we have great generals, a great central casting general walks up to your office, I say, ‘We’re getting out.’  ‘Yes, sir.  We’ll get out.  Yes, sir.’

“I’ll say, ‘What do you think of that?’  ‘Sir, I’d rather attack them over there, then attack them in our land.’  In other words, them coming here.  That’s always a very tough decision, you know, with what happened with the World Trade Center, et cetera et cetera.

“When they say that, you know, no matter how you feel, and you and I feel pretty much very similar.  But when you’re standing there, and you have some really talented military people saying, ‘I’d rather attack them over there than have them hit us over here and fight them on our land.’  It’s something you always have to think about.”

But what the President surprisingly seems to forget is that the September 11 terrorists were able to come “over here” not only because they were able to organize in Afghanistan, but because American border security was so unforgivably lax. This description of that situation comes from a group strongly on the restrictionist side of the immigration debate (as am I). But the evidence presented of visa overstays and examples of other hijackers being in the country illegally when they launched the attacks is highly specific and comparably convincing.

Further, then-U.S. Representative Candice S. Miller, a Republican from Michigan and former chair of the House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, stated at hearings in 2012 that “more than 36 visa overstayers have been convicted of terrorism- related charges since 2001.”

As I’ve written previously, tightening border security enough to quell the terrorist threat completely is no small task. At the same time, it should also be clear that stepped up border security measures, along with intensified domestic counter-terrorism activities, have played some role in not only preventing more September 11 attacks but in greatly reducing the number of attacks from jihadist-inspired homegrown lone wolves.

Just as important, whenever making policy seriously, and therefore determining priorities and thus allocation of resources, the question always needs to be asked which of any competing approaches is more promising. In the case of anti-terrorism approaches, this challenge boils down to whether the nation is best advised to focus on further improving border security (a situation over which it has relatively great control) or on continuing to police the terminally dysfunctional Middle East (a situation over which is has relatively little control).

Given that the Taliban is still a force to be reckoned with in Afghanistan after eighteen years of fighting the U.S. military and forces from allied countries plus those of Afghan governments in Kabul; and given new Pentagon claims that ISIS is already “solidifying” its “insurgent capabilities in Iraq” and “resurging in Syria,” the case for a domestic, i.e., America First-type focus instead of continuing to play whackamole in the Middle East looks stronger than ever. And that’s the case whether America’s generals look like they come from central casting or not.

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Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why the Khashoggi Incident Really Matters

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Al Qaeda, America First, arms sales, Cold War, energy, globalism, globalists, Iran, ISIS, Islam, Israel, Jamal Khashoggi, jihadism, Middle East, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, September 11, terrorism, Trump

Important though it is, the most important question surrounding the possibility that Saudi Arabia’s monarchy has killed Jamal Khashoggi is not whether the United States responds or how it responds if the kingdom did murder the dissident journalist – who happens to be a legal resident of the United States.

Instead, the most important question is really two-fold. First, do the many U.S. foreign policy traditionalists calling for severe punishment understand how such a move could undercut the decades-long approach toward the Saudis that they themselves have strongly supported? Second, and even more intriguing, do these globalists understand that the Khashoggi affair is simply the latest in a long string of signs that it’s well past time for the United States to adopt a genuine America First approach and leave the hot, dysfunctional mess that is the entire Muslim Middle East?

Given the prominence of maintaining good relations with the Saudis in the strategies of American globalists across the the board, it’s nothing less than jaw-dropping to see how many of them – liberal and conservative alike – are calling for strong counter-measures if Khashoggi is in fact dead at Saudi hands. Here’s a representative example from no less than former CIA chief John Brennan – who’s gone on Never Trump rampage in part because he views Trump’s foreign policy views as anathema. My astonishment, however, is justified even if much of the outrage is no more than outrage-signaling – posturing assumed to be safe because the Trump administration will eventually not upset the felafel cart.

After all, since World War II, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Persian Gulf region has been valued as a prime source of the oil desperately needed for the world economy to function acceptably in peacetime, and crucial to prevailing over ruthless global enemies in hot and cold wars alike. Once the Soviet threat disappeared, the region’s oil retained all of its perceived importance, and the critical mass of the foreign policy establishment gravitated toward seeing first Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and then Iran’s theocracy as the prime threat to the world’s unimpeded access. Crucially, not even evidence of (unofficial?) Saudi support for the Islamic extremists of Al Qaeda who launched the September 11 attacks ever truly threatened the U.S.-Saudi connection. 

Indeed, in recent years, even far left-of-center American politicians joined widespread calls for Washington to create a Middle Eastern-dominated coalition to handle most of the fight against ISIS (a successor group to Al Qaeda). And one of the anchors of this arrangement was expected to be none other than Saudi Arabia.

As I’ve argued for years now, none of the arguments for a close, if informal, U.S.-Saudi alliance holds any more water. North America possesses all the fossil fuels needed by the United States, and thanks to the shale/fracking-led energy technology revolution, the Persian Gulf’s role as key global oil supplier is greatly diminished as well. The terrorist threats likely to keep emanating from the region are best dealt with through much stronger U.S. border controls, not repeated American military interventions or fantasies about the Muslim Middle East’s decrepit (and highly compromised) regimes becoming a strong, reliable bulwark against jihadism.

And those claiming that Israel’s security warrants continuing America’s Middle East policy status quo need to remember that Israel and Saudi Arabia (and most other Sunni monarchies) have now created a tacit alliance to counter Shi’ite Iran. Moreover, Washington can always keep selling or simply giving the Israelis all the weapons they need.

The situation has changed so much that the most compelling argument against steps like cutting off or suspending U.S. arms sales to the Saudis has been advanced by President Trump: a boatload of revenue and jobs would be lost by the American economy, and the Saudis could always turn to alternate suppliers (like the Chinese and, more credibly – because their military equipment is still better – the Russians). In addition, don’t forget this irony: Consistent with its anti-Iran goals, Israel and its own impressive defense-related technologies could also partly fill the vacuum left by a U.S. withdrawal from the Saudi market.

At the same time, there’s no shortage of countries living in dangerous neighborhoods that would remain or could become massive buyers of American weapons. And as pointed out here, the Saudi military has relied on so much U.S. equipment for so long that changing its complexion would be as complicated as it would be expensive. Not to mention the years it would take for a regime that faces imminent threats to complete this task.

As a result, even if Khashoggi miraculously reappears one day, or even if he doesn’t but the Saudis are innocent, here’s hoping that the uproar over his disappearance triggers some major rethinking of America’s Middle East policy. After all, to paraphrase a famous recent remark about governing, a policy firestorm is a terrible thing to waste.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Afghanistan Opportunity Trump Has Missed

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Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Barry Posen, border security, George W. Bush, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Middle East, nation-building, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, refugees, Russia, September 11, Syria, Taliban, terrorism, The Atlantic, travel ban, Trump

Although I usually oppose U.S. overseas military interventions, I can understand President Trump’s decision this week to keep significant numbers of American troops in Afghanistan and even expand the presence (to some unannounced extent). What I do find disappointing is Mr. Trump’s apparent neglect of more promising alternatives that couldn’t possibly be called “defeat” or “retreat,” and his failure to describe realistically what may be the biggest fundamental choice the nation still faces in Afghanistan.

I shouldn’t have to remind anyone that Afghanistan under Taliban rule provided the base for the Al Qaeda terrorists responsible for the September 11 attack and so many other atrocities (on top of those that they have inspired by supportive groups and individuals). So clearly conditions inside that country (a problematic term, to be sure, as will be explained below) matter for U.S. national security. And it’s hard to imagine that even most Americans who are terribly – and understandably – frustrated with the sixteen-year U.S.-dominated military operation that has followed would disagree. The main question has always been how best to defend American interests.

After the Taliban were overthrown by a (highly successful) U.S.-led military campaign in the fall of 2001, Presidents Bush and Obama tragically opted for a standard American counter-insurgency effort to keep the Taliban out of power that combined continued military pressure on their remaining forces and strongholds with programs to promote Afghan economic, social, and political reform.

As critics (including me) predicted, this strategy of “nation-building” failed mainly because Afghanistan lacked the crucial prerequisites for nation-hood to begin with. So several years ago, as the Taliban began mounting a comeback largely as a result, I began supporting a fundamentally different approach: abandoning reform efforts and focusing on securing the United States’ essential aim in Afghanistan – preventing the Taliban or similar groups from consolidating control in enough territory to reestablish a safe haven capable of generating more terrorism.

This strategy would still involve U.S. military forces. But their top priority by far would not be supporting whatever Afghan government military exists, or training such forces (unless some especially promising units can be identified). Instead, the main American mission would be harassing the Taliban and its allies sufficiently to prevent that territorial consolidation, and the main instruments would be special forces and air strikes. And I argued that such operations could prevent ISIS in Iraq and Syria from posing a similar threat. Finally, I recommended that this approach be supplemented – and eventually superseded – by strengthening the security of America’s borders, to reduce greatly the likelihood that terrorists that still might originate from Afghanistan or anywhere else could actually reach the U.S. homeland.

The main advantages of this approach were, initially, concentrating American efforts on overseas goals that seemed both vital and attainable, as opposed to desirable for non-essential; and recognizing that the U.S. government ultimately is much likelier to succeed in controlling access to the United States than in comprehensively manipulating events in far-off lands.

In his speech this week, President Trump did a good job in describing the urgency of continuing to deny terrorists a safe haven in Afghanistan. But although he (once again) disparaged nation-building, he also paid it enough lip service to make clear that the basic goal remains in place. For example, he argued that “Military power alone will not bring peace to Afghanistan or stop the terrorist threat arising in that country” and asked India (and possibly America’s European allies) to “help us more with Afghanistan, especially in the area of economic assistance and development.” Surprisingly, moreover, he never connected his Afghanistan strategy with his so-far successful efforts to control American borders more effectively. Indeed, Mr. Trump didn’t even mention his proposed suspension of travel from terrorist-wracked countries (a list that, oddly, never included Afghanistan itself).

And the picture drawn by the President of his ultimate objective(s) was confusing, at best. Notably, on the one hand, he insisted that “From now on, victory will have a clear definition:  attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing al Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass terror attacks against America before they emerge.” On the other, he stated that the “strategically applied force” his administration will apply in Afghanistan “aims to create the conditions for a political process to achieve a lasting peace.” Still more puzzlingly, he allowed that a political settlement could include “elements of the Taliban.” To be sure, in a technical sense, these objectives aren’t mutually exclusive. But they sure don’t coexist easily, at least not at this point.

One especially worrisome consequence of this Presidential rhetoric is its suggestion, however cautious, that there’s an ultimate, satisfactory solution in Afghanistan that results from continuing U.S. involvement, at least in the foreseeable future. Much skepticism is warranted, mainly because the chances of Afghanistan becoming something politically cohesive enough to “take ownership of their future, to govern their society,” in Mr. Trump’s words, flies in the face of so much of this area’s history.

But that doesn’t mean that the United States should simply pull up stakes, either now, or somewhere down the road – because of that safe haven threat. My own preferred strategy would have resulted in America’s leaders acknowledging that Afghanistan is not a problem to be solved but, as if often true in world affairs, a condition that requires continual management – and then explaining that some forms of management are vastly more realistic, and cheaper, than others.

Nonetheless, an even more appealing alternative has emerged over the last week. In an August 18 article in The Atlantic, MIT political scientist Barry Posen made the case for a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan based on the intriguing observation that the countries neighbors, Russia and Iran, both have compelling interests in ensuring that the Taliban and similar groups don’t return to power. In the words of the piece’s title, the aim would be “to make Afghanistan someone else’s problem.”

Of course, I couldn’t help but notice that this proposal strongly resembles my recommendation for handling the challenge of increasingly powerful North Korean nuclear weapons. I’m also impressed, though, by Posen’s observation that both Russia (which is vulnerable to Islamic extremism infecting its own sizable Muslim population) and Iran (a Shia Muslim-dominated country theologically opposed to Sunni groups like the Taliban and Al Qaeda) have compelling reasons to frustrate America’s enemies in Afghanistan.

Posen also intriguingly responds to fears that a combined Russian-Iranian success would strengthen those anti-American countries’ efforts to dominate the entire Middle East. As he points out, Pakistan and China both would find this prospect alarming, too, and would seek to check Russian and Iranian influence.

Is Posen’s scheme fool-proof? Of course not. But it looks at least as promising as Mr. Trump’s plan, and it’s discouraging that this supremely, if Machiavellian, America-First strategy apparently wasn’t even considered by the Trump administration in its efforts to fix a badly broken U.S. Afghanistan policy.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: New Year, New President…New Anti-Terrorism Policy?

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border security, Center for a New American Security, chattering classes, Daniel Benjamin, Daniel Henninger, foreign policy establishment, geopolitics, internationalism, ISIS, Middle East, neoconservatism, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Politico, terrorism, The Wall Street Journal, Trump

For me, one of the biggest reasons for optimism for 2017 is the election of a president ready and willing to kick over the obsolete crockery of American foreign policy and grand strategy. President-elect Trump still has to come up with his own comprehensive answers to the question, “What would come next?” His signature foreign policy speech of the campaign made that clear enough. It contained elements both of the genuine, nationalist, down-to-earth “America First” approach that I believe is urgently needed, and of the grandiose internationalist, even neoconservative blueprint that I believe must urgently be scrapped.

It’s entirely possible that this tension will complicate the new administration’s foreign policy for years to come. One reason is a simple as personnel. Because the nationalist bench is so thin, finding enough bodies to staff all the senior jobs that need to be filled will require Mr. Trump to rely on many conventional thinkers. Another has to do with the inherent difficulty of big transitions. Barring a catastrophe, they rarely happen overnight – and in many cases shouldn’t.

But because the challenge is so formidable, the overhaul effort can’t start too soon, and Americans have just received several reminders that the place to start is with fundamental geopolitics – and specifically, with my own observation that America’s immensely favorable location on the globe is an almost completely neglected diplomatic asset that Washington should try to capitalize and maximize, not seemingly intentionally squander. Put simply, those two oceans matter decisively, and coupled with the nation’s staggering treasure trove of resources and continental scale, argue compellingly for seeking progressively less, not more, global engagement. And as I’ve written, nowhere is this truer than regarding the fight against global terrorism.

In my view, little could be clearer or more promising for a geographically isolated country like the United States than the need to focus anti-ISIS etc efforts on keeping terrorists out of the country. Will a border enforcement-centric anti-terrorism policy work perfectly? Of course not. Is it a better bet for American security than pretending that even defeating ISIS will rid the dysfunctional Middle East of extremism forever, or even a few years? Or imagining that in any foreseeable future, that sad region can be turned into something other than a swamp for breeding more jihadism? That’s a total no-brainer.

But as indicated in a recent column by The Wall Street Journal‘s Daniel Henninger, America’s chattering classes have a long way to go in learning this lesson. According to Henninger, the terrorist attacks that have hit the United States lately show that “This is what it means to live as a target. What are we going to do about it? Wrap ourselves in two protective oceans?”

Moreover, a Google search quickly turned up a May report by the Center for a New American Security that reminds how deeply ingrained in the bipartisan American foreign policy establishment this belief is. According to the authors – described as “an extraordinary [and thoroughly bipartisan] group of scholars, practitioners, and journalists”:

“The best way to ensure the longevity of a rules-based international system [itself kind of a dicey notion that desperately needs rethinking] favorable to U.S. interests is not to retreat behind two oceans, lower American standards, or raise the tolerance level for risk. The proper course is to extend American power and U.S. leadership in Asia, Europe, and the Greater Middle East….”

Nonetheless, some reasons for optimism appeared last year as well. One of the most notable: An essay in Politico by Daniel Benjamin – a former Obama administration counter-terrorism official. Writing in March, Benjamin observed sagely that “While the jihadist threat is genuinely global, it is by no means equally distributed. ”

And one main reason cited by the author?

“The United States still has the blessing of geography—two oceans that mean that outside extremists will need to fly to get here. As we found on Christmas Day 2009, when Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab tried to detonate his underwear on a flight bound for Detroit, our aviation security, no-fly lists and intelligence need constant updating. But we have made major strides. By contrast, Europe, with its weak external borders, nonexistent internal borders and a migrant crisis that has brought close to a million and a half migrants into its borders, faces multiplying perils.”

And although clearly the United States has decided to “fight the terrorists over there,” Benjamin perceptively observes that it’s also made notable progress securing the border:

“One big reason why the chances of a Brussels or Paris-like attack are lower here is that we’ve been working flat out to reduce the threat for almost 15 years, since 9/11. With one of the worst extremism problems in the West, Britain has gone hard at this as well. But the same cannot be said for our Continental cousins. The United States has spent upwards of $650 billion on homeland security since 9/11. No comparable European statistic exists, but judging by law enforcement, border security and other agency budgets, the overall figures are much lower.”

I’ve been careful to argue that these two approaches aren’t mutually exclusive, and that one form of military operation in the Middle East can contribute significantly to U.S. security – at least until border controls are even stronger. That’s a campaign of anti-ISIS harassment, conducted through the air and with special forces on the ground, aimed at keeping the group off balance enough to prevent the consolidation of an Afghanistan-like base for staging September 11-scale attacks.

A somewhat larger scale anti-ISIS effort has made important progress in disrupting the group’s capabilities over the last year. But the victory will be pyrhhic if takeovers of terrorist strongholds like Mosul and Raqqa generate claims of “mission accomplished.” Benjamin is right to warn against U.S. complacency. But that’s likeliest to be prevented if the hard, unglamorous, continuing work of better securing the border moves to center stage in Washington’s anti-terrorism policy.

Im-Politic: Obama Keeps Ducking the Hard Terrorism Choices

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civil liberties, David Rieff, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, immigrants, ISIS, Islam, Jeffrey Goldberg, Middle East, Muslims, Obama, refugees, terrorism, The Atlantic, The New York Times

Give President Obama credit where it’s due. His continuing willingness to expose himself to reporters’ questions contrasts strikingly and favorably with the practice of his presumptive successor, Hillary Clinton – who has almost entirely shielded herself from freewheeling give and take with the media during this presidential campaign. Unfortunately, in the process the president also keeps showing that he’s learned absolutely nothing about protecting the United States adequately against the threat of Islamic terrorism. Just look at the transcript of his Pentagon press conference last week.

As Mr. Obama made clear, he keeps showing every sign of prioritizing the (impossible) task of achieving lasting victory versus terrorist forces on Middle East battlefields over the much more feasible strategy of keeping them out of the United States.

And the president is absolutely correct to claim that, after a string of alarming victories in Iraq and Syria, ISIS has lost considerable Middle East territory as well as some of its key leaders. He’s also correct to admit – as he has repeatedly – that the group’s “military defeat will not be enough. So long as their their twisted ideology persists and drives people to violence, then groups like ISIL will keep emerging.”

But as has also repeatedly been the case, he has failed to recognize genuinely the futility of, as he described it last week, “working to counter violent extremism more broadly, including the social, economic and political factors that help fuel groups like ISIL and Al-Qaeda in the first place.” And this after how many dollars, and how many American lives, have been lost in this region over the last two decades? In an oil-rich area that has not exactly been starved for resources in recent decades?

Even stranger, in a series of interviews with The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg that culminated in a lengthy and comprehensive description of the president’s foreign policy views, Goldberg came away concluding that Mr. Obama believes there is “little an American president could do to make [the Middle East] a better place” and that “the innate American desire to fix the sorts of problems that manifest themselves most drastically in the Middle East inevitably leads to warfare, to the deaths of U.S. soldiers, and to the eventual hemorrhaging of U.S. credibility and power.” The White House has never issued a denial. So it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that the president’s views on American engagement in the region have been at best completely incoherent.

At the same time, the president’s views on keeping terrorists out of the United States, and dealing more effectively with the special problems posed by America’s Muslim community, remain much more coherent – but troublingly so. For even though U.S. borders and developments inside the nation are much more controllable than events in the Middle East, Mr. Obama’s perspective is dominated by a clear-cut fatalism. As the president once again explained in last week’s press conference, he believes he’s wrestling with a moral dilemma that puts a low-ish ceiling on his ability to protect his countrymen.

On the one hand, “[P]recisely because they are less concerned about big spectacular 9/11 style attacks, because they’ve seen the degree of attention they can get with smaller scale attacks using small arms or assault rifles or in the case of Nice, France, a truck; the possibility of either a lone actor or a small cell carrying out an attack that kills people is real and that’s why our intelligence and law enforcement and military officials are all working around the clock to try to anticipate potential attacks, to obtain the threads of people who might be vulnerable to brainwashing by ISIL.”

On the other hand, however, “We are constrained here in the United States to carry out this work in a way that is consistent with our laws, and presumptions of innocence.” Moreover, “if we start making bad decisions [like] instituting offensive religious tests on who can enter the country, you know, those kinds of strategies can end up backfiring.”

The president isn’t wrong about the need to balance domestic security with civil liberties and tolerance.  But with the significant exception of the Patriot Act and its authorization for U.S. intelligence agencies to expand their electronic data-gathering programs, he seems to view the Constitutional restraints on anti-terrorism goals as an all-but-paralyzing straitjacket.

For a compelling argument that his approach is not only overly timid, but veritably childish, take a look at this recent op-ed in The New York Times by David Rieff – a progressive. I fully agree with the author’s charge that the president refuses to admit that “In any war — including a just war — we lose a certain amount of our humanity,” and that “absent some miraculous end to terrorism, in fighting it we are going to compromise some of our values.”

This critique also applies specifically to Mr. Obama’s Muslim policies both at home and abroad. Indeed, they are greatly strengthened by the (a) president’s continued insistence – in the face of all the facts and common sense – that anyone calling for any types of curbs on Muslim immigration or refugee admissions into the country is a bigot, and (b) by his determination to respond to evidence of special security problems in the domestic Muslim community by suggesting that, if anything, its members are more patriotic and greater contributors to America’s safety proportionately than the population as a whole. As I’ve explained in a previous post, the lionization of Khizr Khan shows the extent to which this tactic has spread through the ranks of Democrats and mainstream journalists – notably by those who couldn’t even define “Gold Star Family” three weeks ago.

Presidents have no greater responsibility than national defense. If Mr. Obama took that duty to heart, he’d spend less time vilifying critics of his terrorism policies and propagating misleading anecdotes about fully assimilated American Muslims, and more time figuring out (as Rieff has so eloquently urged) how to fight the war that’s clearly underway while “controlling the worst excesses” and holding on “to enough of our humanity to have a chance of clawing back the rest when the war ends….” In particular, he’d emphatically denounce Clinton’s proposal to quintuple Middle East refugee admissions — which can only greatly worsen the domestic terrorism threat. Until he does, he’ll remain vulnerable to the accusation that his major concern isn’t protecting his fellow citizens, but ducking hard choices.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: A New Phase for Global Terrorism?

Tags

Afghanistan, American Muslims, border security, Iraq, ISIS, Middle East, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, September 11, Syria, terrorism

Another day, another terrorist bombing – or three of them, as is the case with Saudi Arabia today. And oddly, they persist, and even multiply, at the same time that the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization, ISIS, continues to lose ground militarily in Iraq and Syria, where it had seized control over a scary amount of territory in recent years. I suspect that this seeming paradox both might become an appalling New Normal, and is telling both supporters and critics of America’s counter-terrorism strategy – including yours truly – that they need to question some of their major assumptions.

As I’ve written repeatedly, major U.S. leaders across the political spectrum have it backward in claiming that America’s top ISIS-related priority needs to be to defeat the group militarily on the battlefield. Though they often differ as to the mix of American, other free world, and local Middle Eastern forces that will be needed to accomplish this mission, they all insist that in this era of free global travel and nearly instantaneous global communication, it’s folly to believe that the United States can protect itself from ISIS and similar terrorism by tightening border control.

These voices add that neglecting ISIS’ self-styled caliphate would enable the group to consolidate a sizable, Afghanistan-type base for planning the launching big September 11-like attacks on U.S. and other targets; jeopardize other American interests in the Middle East, like ensuring access to oil; and keep ISIS’ main recruitment pitch intact – including for U.S. “lone wolves” – by reinforcing its claim to be successfully defying the infidel world and riding the wave of history.

I’ve responded that defeating ISIS would at best simply create a breathing spell until the utterly dysfunctional Middle East spawned a successor, and that however difficult it is to control visitors’ access to the United States, it’s much easier than shaping the evolution of the Middle East in more favorable, constructive ways.

At the same time, I’ve recognized that because better border security won’t happen overnight, military pressure needs to continue on the caliphate to impede its consolidation, and keep its leaders too busy defending themselves to be plotting future global strikes. My preferred instrument has been a combination of air strikes and special forces harassment. I’ve also emphasized that, because of the domestic U.S. energy production revolution, the Middle East has become much less strategically and economically important, and that Washington can now afford to focus narrowly on terrorist threats.

But the proliferation of foreign ISIS or ISIS-inspired attacks as the so-called caliphate shrinks – especially in Iraq – raises doubts about all these analyses. As I see it right now, here are the likeliest implications:

>ISIS’ prowess with internet-style recruiting is now so formidable that it can spark major terrorist threats to the United States even without a significant territorial base. So significant U.S. military involvement in the Middle East no longer matters much anymore.

>ISIS is lashing out globally precisely because it’s failing on the ground in the Middle East. (Contributor BJ Bethel made that argument on RealityChek in April.) So staying the current policy course makes the most sense.

>Territorial bases are no longer essential for fostering large-scale terrorism, but their potential to generate these attacks must still be minded. As a result, preventing their consolidation is a necessary but not sufficient response.

>Territorial control remains vital for ISIS’ power and global strike capabilities, and the United States and its allies simply haven’t undermined ISIS’ thoroughly enough.

Right now, I’m leaning toward Number Three – along with my ongoing conviction that better border security (including more monitoring of the U.S. Muslim community) will provide the most effective protection for Americans. But the latest twist in the struggle against terrorism should be reminding everyone that these forces remain impressively agile and adaptive. Consequently, both supporters and opponents of U.S. strategy need to display these characteristics, too.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Fearless Foolishness on Terrorism

Tags

2016 election, chattering classes, Donald Trump, Immigration, ISIS, Michael Tomasky, Muslims, Orlando, Orlando attacks, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Paris attacks, refugees, September 11, terrorism, The New York Times

Ever since the September 11 attacks, I’ve worried that a sizable share of the American public, and especially its chattering and media classes, has lost the instinct for self-preservation. Michael Tomasky’s column in the June 18 New York Times epitomizes this trend – and the extra oomph it’s acquired over the few months, thanks in part (but only in part) to presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump’s free-swinging presidential campaign.

Tomasky, editor of the “journal of ideas” Democracy, got off on a wildly wrong foot with his description of the politics of terrorism since September 11. In his view, it’s a story of successful “fear-mongering” that began with former President George W. Bush’s “talk of weapons of mass destruction and mushroom clouds” and launch of the second Iraq War, but that might be coming to an end with what he views as strong public push-back against Trump’s statements following the Orlando shooting.

No one should support fear-mongering. But has the post-September 11 American political and policy scene really an example of Republicans “whipping the electorate into a state of frenzy about this or that threat”? Here Tomasky’s resort to social-science-y jargon becomes even more exquisitely revealing than that jaw-dropping belittling of an event that killed nearly 3,000 people (from 93 countries) and injured thousands more.

As the author explains it, fifteen years ago, unscrupulous right wing demagogues exploited fear’s ability to lead voters to “embrace more conservative positions than they might otherwise have.” Even worse, in Tomasky’s view, they took advantage of the tendency of “people who start imagining their own death [to] begin to sanction extreme measures to prevent it from happening.”

Apparently, it’s unacceptable to Tomasky and to those Americans who consider their country’s reactions to terrorist violence to be excessive, that outbursts of mass murder spur widespread demands that U.S. leaders go beyond business-as-usual to save their compatriots’ lives and their own.

If you believe Tomasky et al don’t deserve this accusation, then tell me how you would explain his contention that the most sensible reaction to September, 11 nowadays – and one he’s pleased to report is spreading – is a shoulder-shrugging recognition that “we have joined the world, the weary and beleaguered world, and learned that anything can happen anywhere, anytime”?

This stunningly blasé attitude clearly also lies behind Tomasky’s condemnation of Trump’s statement, following last November’s Paris attacks – and a mere two week before the San Bernardino, California murders – that “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule.” And even though 49 more innocent Americans were killed by an ISIS follower in Orlando, Tomasky is still preaching (literal) fatalism.

Indeed, here, evidently is his greatest terrorism-related worry right now: that “a different kind of terrorist attack this fall — one actually orchestrated by the Islamic State, say, or spreading death more randomly — may produce a more traditional fallout than Orlando.” Translation: Americans may become even more insistent that their leaders figure out how to keep them safe. Thankfully, this school of thought wasn’t prevalent in Massachusetts in 1775 – unless Paul Revere was a fear-mongerer, too?

Tomasky’s article is not completely off the wall. He rightly notes that “You can’t stoke fear if you can’t also reassure. It won’t work. If you want to make people scared and force them to turn to you as their protector, you have to demonstrate that you are worthy of being that protector.” He just as rightly observes that Trump hasn’t passed that test of leadership beyond his base.

The author also makes the entirely legitimate point that some of the post-September 11 Bush policies – chiefly the second Iraq War – have backfired in major ways. (He would have placed himself on stronger ground, however, by acknowledging that under Bush, nothing remotely approaching a September 11 repeat took place, and that throughout his term, the 43d president urged Americans not to turn either on their fellow Muslim citizens or on Islam in general.)

But it’s impossible to read Tomasky’s piece objectively, add in its complete lack of alternative policy proposals, and not conclude that his top priority is to help foster the emergence of a “political golden age when inducing fear will never work.” (Yes, that phrase is a verbatim quote.) You needn’t be a Trump-ite, or support blanket Muslim immigration and refugee bans or other unworkable ideas, to recognize that in a still-dangerous world, a dose of fear is essential for survival itself – and that 63 Americans killed by Islamist-inspired attackers in the last six months alone is an unmistakable sign that current U.S. terrorism strategy urgently needs some more of it.

Following Up: Obama Still Deflecting Radical Islam Challenge – & Endangering America

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civil liberties, Following Up, Immigration, ISIS, Islam, Obama, Omar Mateen, Orlando, Orlando attacks, Paris attacks, profiling, radical Islam, refugees, terrorism

In yesterday’s post on the Orlando terror attack, I criticized President Obama for ignoring the Islamic extremism angle even after it was confirmed by a senior FBI official. Earlier today, he made some follow-up remarks addressing the issue. Unfortunately, although Mr. Obama took some modest steps toward linking yesterday’s shootings and similar outrages to a strand of intolerance in Islam that is anything but fringe, his gingerly treatment of the subject still indicates a strong reluctance to recognize the problem. Therefore, it’s hard to imagine him starting to support the full mix of measures likeliest to keep Americans safe.

Speaking to reporters today, the president acknowledged that “It does appear that at the last minute, [murderer Omar Mateen] announced allegiance to ISIL….” So he’s now on record as placing the atrocity in categories other than “hate crime” and “gun violence/mass shooting.” Mr. Obama also noted that ISIS and similar groups – which he has long accused of “perverting Islam” – have targeted “gays and lesbians because they believe that they do not abide by their attitudes towards sexuality.”

In addition, the president denounced – rightly in my view – those voices who seem determined to treat the policy choices facing the nation as “either/or” and who suggest that “either we think about something as terrorism and we ignore the problems with easy access to firearms or it’s all about firearms and we ignore the role, the very real role, that organizations like ISIL have in generating extremist views inside this country.”

The key question, however, is whether Mr. Obama’s analysis can justify the fundamentally new preventive measures toward which the Islamist connection unmistakably points – like more restrictive immigration policies that target (or “profile,” if you will) newcomers and visitors from heavily Muslim countries, a pause in admissions of refugees from the war-torn Middle East, and markedly greater surveillance of America’s domestic Muslim community.

The string of qualifiers that accompanied this statement signals that none of these changes is on his mind. Mr. Obama said that Mateen’s allegiance to ISIS “appeared” to have reflected a “last minute” decision. He also stated that “at this stage, we see no clear evidence that he was directed externally” and that “also, at this stage, there’s no direct evidence that he was part of a larger plot.” All these comments unavoidably – and no doubt deliberately – suggested that the link between Mateen and Islamism was the flimsiest, shallowest sort possible, and thus virtually irrelevant to his actions.

Moreover, despite the president’s realistic description of ISIS’ propaganda and recruiting capabilities inside the United States, he seems unwilling to take the next step and conclude that the terrorists’ main targets – and likeliest converts – aren’t just randomly sprinkled throughout the American population.

Mr. Obama characterized these targets as “troubled individuals or weak individuals” – which obviously is true. But ISIS and similar groups have a much more specific focus, and their successes are equally particular. They’re individuals who either are Muslim by background, who are engaged in or actively contemplating conversion, or who identify with the faith, or with certain of its precepts. Which means that America’s counter-terror approaches need to concentrate on this community. And the reality of limited resources makes some form of strategic prioritization all the more essential.

Revealingly, as I’ve previously pointed out, President Obama has admitted that extremist ideologies have resonated to a disturbing degree within mainstream Islam, and that the world’s mainstream Muslims – including presumably those in the United States – have not responded adequately. These views, expressed at a press conference in Turkey shortly after the November, 2015 Paris attacks, deserve to be presented at length:

“…I do think that Muslims around the world — religious leaders, political leaders, ordinary people — have to ask very serious questions about how did these extremist ideologies take root, even if it’s only affecting a very small fraction of the population. It is real and it is dangerous. And it has built up over time, and with social media it has now accelerated.

“And so I think, on the one hand, non-Muslims cannot stereotype, but I also think the Muslim community has to think about how we make sure that children are not being infected with this twisted notion that somehow they can kill innocent people and that that is justified by religion. And to some degree, that is something that has to come from within the Muslim community itself. And I think there have been times where there has not been enough pushback against extremism. There’s been pushback — there are some who say, well, we don’t believe in violence, but are not as willing to challenge some of the extremist thoughts or rationales for why Muslims feel oppressed. And I think those ideas have to be challenged.”

The president is correct in warning of stereotyping’s dangers. But the Orlando shooting reminds devastatingly that his record on balancing the protection of domestic Muslims’ essential liberties and the protection of all Americans’ security – by fostering such anti-extremist pushback from that community, stepping up monitoring, and strengthening immigration controls – has fallen way short.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why the Middle East Refugee Debate Has Just Been Settled

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Brussels attacks, Europe, Germany, ISIS, Middle East, migrants, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Paris attacks, refugees, Syria, terrorism, vetting, Washington Post

Here’s hoping that President Obama has found time on his current overseas trip to read the Washington Post carefully. Because if he does, he would realize that opponents of admitting more Middle East refugees into the United States have been utterly and completely correct, and that from now on, the only remaining supporters are either willful know-nothings and guilt-drenched-to-the-point-of-being-suicidal bleeding hearts – along with politicians determined to pander to them.

What’s ended any serious debate over the refugee issue are the results of a Post investigation published yesterday. It offers overwhelming evidence that significant numbers of terrorists have indeed hidden in the tides of migrants streaming from war-torn Syria, Iraq, and the like into Europe, and that in the last few months alone they’ve helped carry out the horrific attacks in Paris and Brussels.

The Post article, by Anthony Faiola and Souad Mekhennet, doesn’t mean that Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s Muslim ban or similar religious litmus test proposals are good or practical ideas. It also makes clear that Europe’s efforts to vet the migrants were marked by the kind of incompetence not yet displayed by American national and homeland security authorities, and that the Europeans were also simply overwhelmed by numbers that not even the most utopian U.S. politicians have been talking about.

But no fair-minded reader can possibly end the piece confident that Americans can be adequately protected against enemies that have seized thousands of passports from embattled Middle East countries, that use the latest technology to doctor them – and that recruit from failed states like Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen that lack any serious record-keeping capacity.

The key finding in the article: “[O]ver the past six months, more than three dozen suspected militants who impersonated migrants have been arrested or died while planning or carrying out acts of terror. They include at least seven directly tied to the bloody attacks in Paris and Brussels. “

In addition, the authors claim to have interviewed an ISIS commander, who told them that “We have sent many operatives to Europe with the refugees. Some of our brothers have fulfilled their mission, but others are still waiting to be activated.”

The Post article isn’t the first to detail the exploitation of the refugee crisis by terrorist groups. In February, Germany’s domestic intelligence chief stated that European governments have “seen repeatedly that terrorists are being smuggled in, camouflaged as refugees. That is a fact that security authorities must always seek to recognize and identify.”

Yet the president is clinging to his goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees by October 1 – even though only some 1,200 have been settled so far.Mr. Obama hasn’t backed away from his claim that opponents of his policies are fear-mongering (not to mention “scared of widows and orphans”). Indeed, if not for the pushback, it’s likely that he’d press for letting in even more migrants.

Supporters of greater refugee quotas – including the president – are right to note that the United States faces a variety of terrorism threats, including those from home-grown radicals of all faiths who arguably are at least as dangerous. They’re also right to note that, whether you favor religious litmus tests for admissions or not, they’re all too easy to fool or evade.

But as the Post article documents, the admissions backers are profoundly wrong — and reckless — to use these arguments as excuses to maintain or increase American admissions. For if U.S. leaders are already hard-pressed to protect the public from existing dangers, multiplying these threats in any way is simply unconscionable.

Guest Post: Cable News is Badly Missing the Big ISIS Picture, by B.J. Bethel

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Brussels attacks, cable news, Fareed Zakaria, Guest Post, Iraq, IS, ISIS, media, Middle East, Paris attacks, pundits, San Bernardino, Syria, terrorism, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Thomas Friedman

Although campaign junkies wouldn’t know it, one of the biggest news developments of the day is being badly mis-reported by the cable news networks they followed obsessively: The Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL – also commonly known as ISIS or just IS) is losing in the Levant – namely, in Syria and in Iraq.

With presidential candidates wanting to forgo the Geneva Convention, carpet bomb civilians and generally try to out-tough each other in debate after debate, you’d think IS is conquering the world like Alexander the Great, or running a blitzkrieg through central Europe. But producers and executives trying to capture eight-second attention spans seem incapable of getting the story right. In fact, the only reliable American reporting on IS’ remarkably fast fade is coming from major U.S. newspapers.

Just a year and a half ago, IS was indeed frighteningly on the rise. It controlled an area the size of Great Britain, reaching from Syria into Iraq to Tikrit. The group captured the second-largest city in Iraq – Mosul – after the Iraqi military refused to fight. It created a new arena for terror on social media, posting videos of brutal executions. Mass executions of Christians in Libya, captured on video, quickly followed, and shocked those who failed to realize the reach of the group or its brutality.

Adding to the sense of alarm: evidence that IS was rewriting the terrorism rule book Western officials thought they’d figured out. Indeed, last year The New York Review of Books published a history of IS by “Anonymous” – identified as a high-ranking official in a Western government. The main theme: The group defied convention. Nearly every move it made was wrong according to the existing framework of success for terror groups and the West had no explanation for its existence, let alone its success and how to stop it.

Circumstances are different now. The Islamic State has lost most of its major territory in Iraq. An Iraqi military division – trained by the U.S – ran IS out of the city of Tikrit in a day and a half. Its last major stronghold outside of rural territory is Mosul, but local news service Rudaw has reported that Sunni militia, the Kurdish and Iraqi presidents, and U.S. envoy Brett McGurk are planning to retake Mosul, in what is expected to be one of the bloodiest battles in the region’s history of the region. Already, the U.S. military has been operating within 75 miles of Mosul. It seems the bully has finally taken a punch to the face.

Yet when the IS issue is discussed on television – whether by pundits, politicians or candidates – it’s within the framework of two years ago, when the group was flooding Iraq. This alarmism seems to be justified by the group’s dramatically stepped up attacks outside the Middle East – in Paris, Brussels, and San Bernardino, California. But paradoxically, IS’ strikes outside its home region reflect its worsening predicament in Iraq and Syria, not its strength, and cable’s failure to present this context shows the costs of coverage lacking context or even analysis with minimal depth.

The contrast with the major dailies is especially revealing. Take The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the battle in the Levant. When the Free Syrian Army took Palmyra last week, the Journal had the story a day or two later. The New York Times, and Fareed Zakaria’s Sunday morning GPS CNN show are also feature reporting with detail and solid judgment.

Why has national TV news been portraying the Islamic State with all the sloppiness of local TV news discussing the latest school board meeting? In all likelihood, because reporting complexity would make the standard four-panelist, five-minute pundit segments much difficult for audiences to follow. How could you keep typical viewers from flipping the dial after years of feeding them little but the latest cheap shot or salvo aimed at a rival political operative?

Debates could suffer, too. Since the audiences generally haven’t been informed about the current facts on the ground, on-target questions would be confusing. And the candidates themselves, as well as ratings-starved networks, would lose valuable opportunities to make those showy, attention-grabbing, tough-sounding “crank up the Enola Gay” quotes that end up on Vines and Facebook.

What exactly should the cable networks in particularly be covering? In particular, they need to do a much better job understanding and explaining IS’ attraction to its fighters and supporters.

During the group’s heyday a year ago, IS was indeed recruiting in droves. Now it’s failing to find new followers as it takes major losses and discovers fighting is a bit tougher when you aren’t rolling into cities unimpeded.

Thomas Friedman of The New York Times put it best – if you are a 20-year-old man in Syria or Iraq, don’t have a wife or job; IS can provide those. But circumstances have changed. IS is facing actual opposition, meaning there’s a good chance of dying from a bullet wound or a gravity bomb. IS, moreover, was paying its fighters with oil revenues, but these started drying up substantially right after its rigs were bombed by allied airstrikes.

In addition, one major reason for IS’ success despite its brutality and other convention-defying tactics has been its religious message. That is, IS is as much an apocalyptic cult as much as a radical Islamist terror group. It cites a belief that a confrontation with the West in Syria would bring about the end of the world. This is why the group uses social media as a means to keep itself in the news and to try to drive the U.S. into a conflict in Iraq: a final round with the West on Islam’s home soil would lend credibility to its vision of the end times and ostensibly supercharge recruiting.

But today, the group is engaged in heavy combat, its organization and rank and file both taking heavy losses. But the Western military role in Middle East combat has been relatively light – especially on the ground. So those end-of-the-world predictions are looking ever dicier.

In addition, IS has been losing much of the ground it had gained in Syria as well as in Iraq. The Kurds pushed IS across the Euphrates three weeks ago, forcing them into their home territory of Aleppo. Six months ago this accomplishment would have been unimaginable. Last week the Free Syrian Army defeated IS in Palmyra, the ancient Roman/Greco city.

Indeed, this brings us to another reason why IS’ recent loss of traction isn’t being covered: the unholy alliance arrayed against it. Hezbollah, Syrian dictator Bashir Al-Assad (who was Public Enemy No. 1 three years ago ahead of IS and all other radicals before him), the Free Syrian Army, the Russians, the Turks, the Kurds, (maybe some Al Qaeda elements), the Iranians – all these forces have had a part in pushing IS back and handing it defeat after defeat even as U.S.-aided Iraqi forces are beating the group in Iraq. How does one tell that tale in a 30-second news byte?

But complexity can never excuse shoddy reporting – in particular when it’s obscuring the most important IS-related development of all: IS isn’t attacking Brussels and Paris for its enjoyment but for survival, trying to move the battlefront, trying to take the focus from the Levant. Expect IS also to become more active in Libya, where it has created a new franchise, for lack of a better word. This isn’t the darkening shadow of conquest we’re seeing, however, but the desperate lashing out of a cornered animal.  

B.J. Bethel is an Ohio-based journalist who has covered politics, government, the environment, and sports for over a decade.