The Long and Short of It
The War on Terrorism Began So Well. Then the Focus Changed. What Is the Bush
Administration Aiming to Do Now?
By Robert G. Kaiser
Sunday, September 8, 2002; Page B01
Amid the hoopla surrounding the
anniversary of Sept. 11, three
questions seem apt: Why did the
Bush administration veer off the
course it set for itself a year ago,
when President Bush promised to
"rally the world" to fight a war
against terrorism and then did so
magnificently -- but only for a
while?
Why has the administration now
chosen to neglect its friends as it
pursues its enemies -- or rather,
the enemy most easily targeted,
Saddam Hussein?
Why is the United States flirting
with a new doctrine of preemptive
war so radical it has no precedent
in international law or American
history -- and why hasn't this
flirtation provoked our politicians to
conduct a serious national debate,
first of all in Congress?
We're still too close to these events
to see them all clearly, but it's not
too soon to see that the Bush
administration's initial
sure-footedness has given way to a
stumbling clumsiness. This has been a bad summer for American diplomacy. It
isn't easy for the world's leading power to alarm all of its allies in a matter of
months, but this is what the United States has done, for purposes that remain
mysterious.
The administration has accomplished this despite the successful beginning to
the military campaign set off by the attacks on New York and Washington a
year ago. Not only did President Bush rally allies on every continent to join an
elaborate, efficient international coalition, but the Russian president, Vladimir
Putin, used Sept. 11 to finally abandon the pretense that Russia and America
could revive their Cold War rivalry. He allied his country firmly with the United
States, then with the NATO alliance. Two Central Asian republics, Uzbekistan
and Kyrgyzstan, former parts of the Soviet Union, welcomed U.S. bases on
their territory, creating a new geopolitical reality. No government on Earth
openly took the side of al Qaeda.
That first phase was triumphant. The anxiety of last fall that somehow America
and its allies would be stymied in Afghanistan, as the Soviets were two
decades earlier, now seems silly. Routing al Qaeda and its protector, the
Taliban regime in Kabul, proved remarkably easy. Watching joyful Afghans
dancing in the streets was a joyful experience.
The first phase has cost more than $30 billion and 51 American lives, but the
initial mission was accomplished: no more Taliban, no more safe haven for al
Qaeda. But the campaign stalled in early December, when American
commanders decided not to send U.S. troops into the mountains around Tora
Bora, and Osama bin Laden escaped -- at least that was the conclusion of
American intelligence.
Since then the war hasn't gone very well. Key al Qaeda leaders remain at
large, presumably including bin Laden, though he may be dead. With or
without him, our enemy can still operate. A new U.N. study concludes that "al
Qaeda is by all accounts 'fit and well' and poised to strike again at its leisure."
It is sobering to consider how much we still don't know about al Qaeda.
German investigators have apparently established that the Sept. 11 plot was
hatched in Hamburg in a cell led by Mohammed Atta, pilot of one of the
planes that hit the World Trade Center. Who was Atta's superior? Unknown.
Who in al Qaeda's hierarchy helped plan the attack, or approved it? Unknown.
What was bin Laden's personal role? Unknown. What did the plot's authors
hope would be its result -- what are their strategic goals, if any? Unknown,
though bin Laden's past comments suggest some answers, such as pushing
the United States out of Saudi Arabia.
"Know your enemy," soldiers like to say, but we've still got a lot to learn about
al Qaeda.
The U.S. government has repeatedly advertised its own inability to penetrate
or understand al Qaeda by issuing any number of brightly colored alerts and
warnings that a new attack was imminent. Those wrong predictions suggest
grave deficiencies in American intelligence, a subject our public figures have
generally avoided.
Multilateralism was critical to the administration's early successes in the war
on terrorism, which makes it all the more surprising that the Bush
administration abandoned it so quickly. Beginning with the December
decision to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a succession
of policy choices revived the administration's reputation for unilateralism and
infuriated old allies. Why did this happen?
The answer begins with the White House itself. If we know remarkably little
about al Qaeda, we should also acknowledge ignorance about many of the
inner workings of the administration.This is a secretive American government.
In its eight months in office before Sept. 11, it took, out of public view, a series
of decisions that made allies wonder if it cared about their concerns. One of
those, shortly before Sept. 11, was to scuttle the long-negotiated enforcement
protocol of the international convention on biological weapons -- ironically,
now a dead letter as the world gets increasingly antsy about biological
weapons.
The ABM Treaty decision particularly upset the French and Germans, who
considered the pact the foundation of nuclear arms control. It was followed in
January by Bush's announcement in his State of the Union speech that Iran,
Iraq and North Korea constituted an "axis of evil." This infuriated Europeans
trying to build bridges to Iran, and South Koreans and Japanese trying to
work with North Korea. The administration stuck by the term, although it
never explained how these three unconnected nations constituted an axis --
"an alliance of two or more countries to coordinate their foreign and military
policies," according to one dictionary definition.
But the most important decision that fed our allies' anxiety about revived
American unilateralism was last June's change of course on the Middle East.
For many years the United States and its allies have differed on how best to
achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace; the United States has long been more
sympathetic to Israeli governments than many Europeans have. But there was
a qualitative change during the last year. The context for it was the war on
terrorism.
President Bush has said from the outset that the terrorists responsible for the
Sept. 11 attacks hated America because "they hate our freedoms." But the
available evidence does not support this explanation. Bin Laden's own
statements and the personal histories of participants in the Sept. 11 plot
suggest there are more specific reasons for the terrorists' hatred. They include
American support for regimes that they detest in the Arab world; American
bases on Arab territory, especially in Saudi Arabia; and American support for
Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory and for Israel's military campaign
against the Palestinians. Psychological alienation from modern Western
culture and a radical interpretation of Islam add spice to this deadly stew.
By ignoring the items on this list and denouncing an enemy that hates us for
what we are, not for what we say and do -- or what they think we do --
President Bush has created an all-purpose bad guy whose existence allows
him to sidestep any examination of American policy. But al Qaeda is led by
Arabs from the Middle East and is deeply rooted in Middle Eastern politics and
intrigue. Its grievances, however irrational, come from there.
The administration acknowledged the Arab connection early on by recognizing
a need for improved "public diplomacy" in the Middle East, to better explain
U.S. policy to Arabs and improve America's image in the region. But the
problem, as American specialists and Arabs pointed out, went beyond imagery
and explanation. Arabs have real grievances against the United States, first of
all connected to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
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