Somebody Else's Problem

I must admit that parts of President Bush's strategy on terrorism have me stumped. I realize that to some degree this is because President Bush acts like a businessman instead of a politician: he sets goals and then manages by exception, looking for things that are broken instead of micromanaging those things that are imperfect but working. I also realize that there are limits to what he can say, because the enemy will hear as well, and knowing your enemy's strategy is the first step in defeating him: if the Islamists know the details, they'll be prepared for them.

Still, I think I've teased out a thread that I haven't seen discussed elsewhere, and the more I think about it the more I am convinced that I am right: President Bush is turning terrorism into an Arab/Muslim, as opposed to a US/Western, problem.

Consider President Bush's early answer (and he's been consistent since) to whether more troops were needed in Iraq: "As a matter of fact, the strategy is to, is to have more troops but they would be Iraqi troops, Iraqi police, Iraqi civil defense corps, and there's about 160,000 trained Iraqis that are in charge of their own security. The truth of the matter is for Iraq to emerge as a free society, the Iraqi citizens must step up".

Or consider the current strategy around Falluja: negotiate with local leaders to do the job, rather than level the part of the city where the insurgents are holed up; or around Najaf: point out to Sistani how Sadr threatens him, and let him take care of it.

Or consider President Bush's strategy on the Palestinians: offer them a chance, and when they don't take it, get off Israel's back and at the same time tell other Arab nations that they need to permanently resettle displaced Palestinians. Or consider our actions in Afghanistan, where we are providing the heavy striking power while training up an Afghan Army which is slowly building up strength and not only chasing Taliban and al Qaeda insurgents, but also displacing local warlords' armies over time as well. Or consider our treatment of Saudi Arabia: pull out the troops and give no shield for the Saudis from the terror they have spent decades nurturing.

In the end, I believe that President Bush's strategy is to secure the US and our coalition allies (and hopefully Old Europe, though that's largely up to the Europeans), provide a safe haven for representative government in Iraq (and possibly other countries like Iran and Syria), pull nuclear weapons off the table by destroying regimes that are close to developing them, and ensure the flow of oil. The effect of such a strategy, if successfully implemented, would be to remove the West as a productive theater for attacks, while removing America's protection from despotic Arab/Muslim regimes. This would make the Islamist's most productive target those despotic Arab/Muslim regimes that birthed terrorism as State policy, and will thus force those countries to clean up the problem.

As long as we are able to transmit that strategy (assuming that is the strategy) between administrations in the same way that we transmitted containment during the Cold War, there's a chance that we can end terrorism eventually without actively occupying all of the countries that sponsor terrorism.

Posted by Jeff at April 28, 2004 10:13 PM | Link Cosmos