Yet terrorism, as we know, is a whole lot worse today than it was back in 1986, or 1996, for that matter. In one horrible sense, “Bibi” Netanyahu proved prophetic. He warned that “terrorism follows an inexorable, built-in escalation. To be effective, it must continually horrify and stupefy.” And, yes, that’s just what’s happened.
So let’s be glad Richard A. Clarke wrote his new book, “Against All Enemies.” He may be vindictive, theatrical and egotistical (“pain in the a–,” is the term most of our mutual acquaintances use for him), and his best seller has been talked about so much in the last week you’re probably sick of hearing it mentioned. But the former coordinator for counterterrorism in the Clinton and Bush administrations is a thoughtful pro when it comes to the nuts and bolts of eliminating terrorists, and his recommendations for what should have been done after September 11–and still might be done–are the best antidote I’ve found to the kind of fatal absolutism promoted by Netanyahu and his sympathizers.
The first challenges at home are political and bureaucratic, which is one reason for Clarke’s frontal assault on the administration. A lot of folks at the Pentagon think like Netanyahu. Richard Perle, until recently on the Defense Advisory Board, and Douglas Feith, now undersecretary of Defense for policy, co-wrote a position paper for the Israeli prime minister back in 1996 that advocated, among other things, the replacement of Saddam Hussein with a Hashemite monarch from Jordan. Perle and former White House speechwriter David “Axis of Evil” Frum recently published “An End To Evil: How to Win the War on Terror,” which is an apologia for the Iraq invasion and, in other respects, a sequel to Netanyahu’s aging opus.
Some of their common analysis is useful: the West must show more resolve, more unity and less hesitation to act against clearly defined threats. Nothing to argue with there. But their absolutist approach refuses to consider the real grievances that help terrorists recruit. Even to raise the issue is portrayed as a lack of moral clarity. The only way to deal with people who are on the other side is to break their will, humiliate them, vilify them, even if that means subjecting whole societies to occupation and repression, first in the name of self-defense and then, curiously, in the name of freedom. This only makes sense over the long term if you think you can keep a lid on those societies indefinitely, or have the money and skills and manpower and blood to transform them completely. Or, if you believe, as Netanyahu claims, that “in many regions of the world, especially the Middle East, anger precedes respect.”
As a matter of obvious fact, anger begets more anger, more violence, more “inexorable, built-in escalation.” Most Israelis understand that, which is why many have had second thoughts, and mounting concerns, since the Sharon government blew the spiritual leader of Hamas to smithereens last week. Will the killing of a septuagenarian paraplegic make anyone safer? Will it disrupt Hamas terrorism? Will it intimidate other Hamas leaders? Not likely. But the rage that followed made Gaza that much harder for any moderate force to govern.
As a matter of common sense, anger should be minimized whenever and wherever possible. Yet this notion that force is all “they” understand–not only the terrorists, but the societies from which they come–is hard to shake. In February, Likud’s Deputy Defense Minister Ze’ev Boim got so carried away speaking at a memorial service for terrorist victims killed in 1978 that he asked rhetorically, “What is it about Islam as a whole and the Palestinians in particular? Is it some form of cultural deprivation? Is it some genetic defect? There is something that defies explanation in this continued murderousness.”
Boim subsequently apologized, after he was confronted by an Israeli public outraged at the “genetic” reference. He said he’d never been a racist. But the assumption that the terrorists’ violence is incomprehensible and inevitable, if not congenital, is a current that runs deep among many of those who tell us “how to win.” The West, including Israel, has to be careful not to fall into that trap.
Clarke understood this, which is one reason he wanted to keep the war on terror focused on the terrorists known to attack the United States–those of Al Qaeda. This was a dangerous group but not a mass movement, and he wanted to make sure it didn’t become one by attacking it selectively and repeatedly, killing its agents, cutting off its funds, marginalizing it until, like the Abu Nidal Organization of the 1980s, whatever fragments were left just didn’t pose a threat anymore.
But Clarke also understood the importance of longstanding grievances. The Muslim world’s hatred of colonialism, for instance, is not just an academic debate, it’s a deeply felt resentment based on experiences that most Westerners have forgotten or failed to learn. Every major terrorist group in the Islamic world, whether secular or Salafi, taps into this source of anger. It can’t be addressed as an afterthought or an irrelevance.
Clarke fully supported the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan as a direct response to a direct attack, carried out with the full backing of the international community. But when he talks about the Iraq adventure, his well-informed fury is just about incandescent. “Rather than seeking to work with the majority in the Islamic world to mold Muslim opinion against the radicals’ values, we did exactly what Al Qaeda said we would do,” writes Clarke. “We invaded and occupied an oil-rich Arab country that posed no threat to us, while paying scant time and attention to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. We delivered Al Qaeda the greatest recruitment propaganda imaginable.”
The conclusion of Clarke’s book is deeply pessimistic. Accusing the administration of “unthinking reactions, ham-handed responses and a rejection of analysis in favor of received wisdom,” he says we’ve been left less secure and will be paying the price for a long time. Yet as Clarke lists the steps that were not taken after September 11, because the Iraq war became such a distraction, he also points toward the direction counterterrorist policy ought to take in the future.
A truly massive effort should be made to eliminate vulnerabilities at home, he writes. Steps have been taken, to be sure, but much more is needed–and the American people have to understand them. “The Attorney General, rather than bringing us together, managed to persuade much of the country that the needed reforms of the Patriot Act were actually the beginning of fascism,” says Clarke.
Secondly, a global effort has to be made to counteract the ideology of Al Qaeda. To fight the ideology of communism, “we found or created spokesmen, leaders, heroes, schools, books, films, development programs,” writes Clarke. “That effort did as much to win the Cold War as did the U.S. army tanks in West Germany.” Nothing remotely so ambitious has been tried in the Muslim world.
Thirdly, the United States must work with key countries–Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan–“to strengthen open governments and make it possible politically, economically, and socially for them to go after the roots of Al Qaeda-like terrorism.”
All of this will be harder to find money for, and harder to do at all, because of the Iraq war. But it’s still necessary, and possible, if we put aside that received wisdom that tells us “anger precedes respect,” that dismisses the political element of the conflict, and, while telling us “how to win,” lays the groundwork for war without end.
