We're in the middle of an ideological war.
At least, some of us are.
The "War on Terror," in retrospect, was probably a bad policy name. "War on Al-Qaeda and its allies" would have probably been better. Really, we're not waging a war on Hamas, Hezbollah, the Basques (of Spain), Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers, Indonesian who-knows-what-they-call-themselves, etc. I'm equally unconvinced that the War on Terror is secretly a "War on Radical Islam." We surely don't like Radical Islam... nor should we. But we shouldn't be out to militarily crush the ideology, and we haven't shown signs of trying to do that. We've stayed far away from many of the most radical Islamists-- Syria, southern Lebanon, Indonesia, Somalia. Iraq was probably the least of our Radical Islam worries in the Middle East... at least until we showed up. There's certainly been no tendency in the US "War on Terror" to unilaterally fight terrorists or Radical Islamists.
We're rather confident at this point that Bush was planning on taking out the Hussein regime even before 9/11, so let's not even consider the 2003 invasion as part of the War on Terror itself (regardless of what the President claimed at the time). Given that, we've had one major military operation against a terror operation, and this has been in Afghanistan.
Even our considerations of action (military and not) against Iran are unrelated to Terror or Islam. Iran's pressing need for nuclear weapons, suspiciously combined with a pressing need to wipe Israel off the map, should reasonably make any US foreign policymaker feel some hostility. But on top of it, evidence mounts that Iran is meddling in Iraq and making Coalition lives harder in creating security for the country. Given our desperation to fix up Iraq and go home, hostility in US foreign policymakers is understandable.
So it's clear that the "War on Terror" is poorly named. But why change it?
A few reasons. First, wars on concepts tend to do poorly, and help accentuate individual failures. The War on Drugs and War on Poverty are failed policies that we're hanging on to (and spending gobs of money on) regardless of performance. We don't need another one of these. Second, and more importantly, US foreign policy needs to be clear. We need to let our allies and enemies alike know where we draw the line between tolerable and unacceptable behavior. We need to let potential adversaries know what will cause us to go to war. The "War on Terror" is a war against a tactic. If we declare that we'll go to war against anyone who uses this tactic, then we either have to follow through with it and be consistent, or the sentiment will be lost, and none of our potential adversaries will know where our line is.
This clarity of communication was key to fighting the Cold War effectively, and will be key to fighting against potential terror enemies effectively. From here, I think we should replace the "War on Terror" with, indeed, a "War on Al-Qaeda and its allies." Many countries have interpreted the former as the latter, which is excellent: Al-Qaeda is a black name, and is not given haven in any country that wishes to avoid our wrath. Since our war began, they have lost ground in most states with strong security and administration (and have gained in Iraq and Northwestern Pakistan, where there is relatively little government influence). They've also lost ideological support overall:
Defeating Al-Qaeda, and making it clear that anyone who attacks us or our allies will fall onto our black list, should be a much more clear and effective line. Middle Eastern countries will have a strong incentive to crack down on potential radical groups that should wish us harm, so that we don't have to show up and do the cracking down ourselves.
Hopefully, a less ideological administration will be elected in 2008, and may take this more pragmatic approach to our fight against Al-Qaeda and its allies. Should that occur, I will be toasting, hopefully with many of you, to the End of the War on Terror.
1 comment:
Generally, calling it a war at all is a bad idea. You want wars to be short, intense operations carried out primarily by your military. The "war on terror" either does not or should not meet these conditions.
Defeating terrorism is not going to be a short endeavor. We're going to be dealing with the threat of terrorism for probably the rest of our lives. Hopefully, we will be able to reduce it from the current looming global threat, but radicals with bombs will always be a threat.
Neither is it intense, especially not for the population in general. Except for fear, that is. We are happily shucking civil liberties in the hopes that it will make our fear go away and give us a sense of security. As has been often pointed out, there have been no attacks on the U.S. since 9/11. One attack per six years is not an intense campaign.
The military is the entirely wrong entity to handle or carry out our policies on terrorism. They may at time be necessary for operations (e.g., Afghanistan), but the Secretary of Defense should not be a primary player in directing our counter-terrorism policy. Diplomacy, intelligence, and security (though there are civil rights concerns with the second two items) should be the basis of our policy of keeping Americans safe, denying terrorists the resources they need, and forming an internationally cooperative response to stamping out terrorism.
We're going to have to give up a lot of bravado in our propaganda here. "War" sounds great. It sounds strong. It sounds committed. It also misframes the conflict we're actually, does not resolve uncertainty about our specific intent with regard to other states, and creates improper expectations of what the executive branch should be able to do and what citizens should have to give up.
War also has the unfortunate side effect of riling up feelings about civilizational conflicts. Is this a war on Islam? Then why are so many of our targets Muslims? Should states with deep Islamist streaks be worried that we'll invade them? These questions are not helping us defeat terrorism; they are creating more terrorists.
So what do we call it? I'm okay with using "campaign" if there's a good phrase there. The American Strategy Against Terror? The International Association to Agree That Terrorism is Bad and Maybe Do Something About It Sometime? (Sorry, I think the UN already snagged that one...) I don't quite know what the better phrase is, but I think it was a mistake to call it a war in the first place. It will take a long time to undo and repair all of the damage that calling it the "War on Terror" has brought about both domestically and in America's standing abroad.
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