Brian M Downing
In the last year, the US has experienced a number of terrorist attacks, successful or not, and prevented the occurrence of others. The most recent, a failed car bombing in New York City, has led to concern the country is facing the prospect of a wave of attacks. Understanding the bases for this might be helpful in countering it and preventing others.
Failure in Success
The recent rise in attacks in the US are, paradoxically, rooted in successes against al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. In the uncertain weeks after the September 11th attacks, the administration warned of scores of al Qaeda “sleeper cells” that were prepared to wreak havoc across the country. Americans braced themselves for the onslaught, but nothing happened. America went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, terrorist attacks rocked Spain and Britain, but the US saw only an inept shoe bomber and a few other failed attempts.
The post-9/11 quiet has been attributed to several things. The international community shared intelligence and cooperated in identifying al Qaeda personnel and halting money transfers. Islamic minorities were thought to enjoy greater acceptance in, and even assimilation into, American society, while in Europe they remained more isolated and rejected.
The most bruited explanation, however – one the Bush administration advanced repeatedly to bolster support for its foreign policy – was that the American military was destroying al Qaeda over in Afghanistan and Iraq. Better to fight them there than here, it was repeatedly said.
American and northern Afghan forces drove al Qaeda across the border, into the tribal areas of Pakistan, where they found havens in North Waziristan. In Iraq, after several years of vicious insurgency and sectarian fighting, diplomacy won over Sunni Arab fighters, who then turned on al Qaeda, which had behaved rather haughtily with locals. In Pakistan, drone strikes decimated the al Qaeda leadership, though not the highest level.
But al Qaeda did not disintegrate. It evolved into a less organized, more diffuse social movement that builds terror networks, which grow in Somalia, the Arabian Peninsula, and northwest Africa. Networks develop in the Islamic world and the diaspora in Europe. Largely defeated in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, the movement is now targeting the US.
Sources of Support
Specific grievances energize the social movement and its networks. Iraq is of declining significance to the American public, but it remains a source of anger in the Islamic world. The US invasion is seen as an unjustified attack, a grab for oil resources, and the opening campaign in an effort to conquer and humiliate the region.
The Palestinian question occasionally surfaces in the American public, though only rarely in a manner that provokes reflection on its importance in world affairs. Elsewhere, there is the growing perception that Israeli settlements on West Bank are nearing de facto annexation, with a de iure ritual likely under a continued Likud government. The ire might be attenuated by the view that the Obama administration is standing up to the Likud, though this is unlikely to last.
The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 did not rile the Islamic world, almost all of which saw the al Qaeda attacks as outrageous and contrary to Koranic teachings. Initial acceptance of the western presence has given way to seeing it as another occupation. Observers see little of the promised economic development, only an appalling number of civilian casualties from air strikes and drone attacks.
The US calculus sees civilian casualties as an acceptable trade-off: terrorist and insurgent leaders are killed; the so-called collateral damage has not, as feared, destabilized Pakistan as most Pakistanis have turned against Islamist militancy. But this general hostility obscures individual responses – both inside Pakistan and throughout the diaspora, including the United States. And terrorism comes from individuals in networks more than from trends in public opinion.
Pakistan as Locus
The tribal areas of Pakistan, especially North Waziristan, have become an important center of terrorist planning, much more so than they were when remnants of al Qaeda fled across the Durand Line in late 2001. There, they cooperate with the Mehsud tribal movement, the Pakistani Taliban, most notably in the bomb-making trade.
Thus far, the groups have had considerable success in terror bombings in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and occasionally outside the region. But many operatives have been inept – a sign, perhaps, that al Qaeda remnants and the Mehsuds, while skillful in guerrilla warfare and in regional attacks, are much less skillful in training foreign operatives and making a global network. This may be based on the insularity of the Mehsuds and the decimation of al Qaeda.
Reports indicate that the US will pressure Pakistan to mount ground operations into N. Waziristan. This would be a mistake. The Pakistani army is still trying to consolidate control in the Swat Valley and S. Waziristan, and owing to its long-standing orientation toward conventional war with India, it is still learning the art of counter-insurgency. Further, the Mehsuds of N. Waziristan, as interlopers have learned from hard experience, are among the fiercest fighters of the Pashtun/Pathan peoples. The British found them to be indomitable and opted to sign treaties granting them autonomy – pacts that the young Pakistani state judiciously chose to honor decades ago.
Heavy casualties could weaken public support for the campaigns against the Pakistani Taliban, which only came about last year when militants unwisely struck into the Punjab. A costly campaign could also cause trouble inside the army where there is considerable sympathy for the Taliban in the officer corps and rank and file alike.
Two options are more attractive. First, continued use of US drones relying on intelligence from the Pakistani military will disrupt the organization and communication of al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. Although such strikes are a grievance exploited by terrorist networks, they have the advantage of minimizing the presence of outside forces. Greater help from Pakistani intelligence has led to much lower civilian deaths from the drone strikes in the last year, and this trend should continue.
Second, the US should continue pressuring Pakistan to drive the Afghan Taliban toward a negotiated settlement. This can be effected by arresting key figures and cutting support, clandestine or not. A negotiated settlement, which would entail a departure of western forces from Afghanistan, will greatly reduce the American presence in the region, which is after all a principal reason for the insurgency and international terrorism as well.
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US policies in Afghanistan, from support for the anti-Soviet mujahadin forces to the most recent counter-insurgency program, are parts of cycles of unintended consequences, misperceptions, and blowback. Washington’s response has been to increase its presence in the region, which has led to more problems.
Domestic politics in the US will make a troop reduction in Afghanistan a difficult proposition, despite impending problems of the stalemated war. But strategic consideration – and fiscal ones as well – should make a lower profile in Afghanistan and Pakistan worthy of consideration if not a high priority.
©2010 Brian M Downing