Why we can't win the "war on terror"

A provocative new book from an expert on terrorism argues that Bush's tough-guy stance is making things much worse -- and that we should negotiate with al-Qaida.

By Gary Kamiya

Read more: Books, Gary Kamiya, Osama Bin Laden, Reviews, Book reviews, al-qaida, Iraq War

Illustration by Mignon Khargie/Salon.com

Sept. 15, 2006 | As the midterm elections approach, the Bush administration has launched its latest propaganda campaign, claiming that it is our Churchillian duty to fight the menace of "Islamofascism" -- a meaninglessly broad term that conflates secular insurgents in Iraq, al-Qaida-inspired Sunni extremists, Syrian Alawites and Baathists, Palestinian nationalists, Shiite leaders in Iran and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon. Those who don't sign on to this supposedly WWII-like struggle, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld charged, are "appeasers."

It is hardly surprising that George W. Bush has revived this kind of heroic, clash-of-civilizations rhetoric, which has always worked for him. In fact, this is an insultingly simplistic formulation that, by failing to distinguish between different types of groups, not only would keep us bogged down forever in Iraq but threatens to enmesh us in new quagmires.

In a recent speech, ambassador James Dobbins, who headed U.S. negotiations after the Afghanistan war, made this point emphatically. "In a search for moral clarity, the administration has tried to divide the Middle East into good guys and bad guys," Dobbins said. "America tends to treat Middle East diplomacy as a win/lose or zero-sum game in which Syrian, Iranian, Hezbollah or Hamas gains are by definition American losses and vice versa. The result, of course, is the United States always loses, because if you insist that the population of the region choose between Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, on the one hand, or the United States and Israel, on the other, they are going to choose the other side every time."

It was Bush's failure to distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein that got us into the mess we are in today. If his latest sales pitch for an undifferentiated "war on terror" succeeds, the result will be permanent war, the hatred of at least a sixth of the world and serious long-term damage to our nation's standing. Whether Americans will realize this, call off Bush's radical "war on terror," recognize who our actual enemies are and start to fight them with our brains, not just our muscles, may determine whether a terrorist in a cave with a handful of followers will succeed in doing what empires and führers could not.

Louise Richardson's admirably clearheaded "What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat" helps dissipate the fog of emotionalism, patriotic chest beating and just plain bad thinking that have swirled around America ever since 9/11. Her book effectively demolishes virtually every myth that the Bush administration has promulgated about terrorism, and demonstrates (if further demonstration is needed) why its policies have greatly increased the threat to the United States.

Until now, there was little chance that a dispassionate work like Richardson's could be heard. But with Bush increasingly resembling an incompetent, overmuscled boxer taking wild, roundhouse swings at his opponent -- and losing badly on points in the late rounds -- perhaps Americans are ready to consider a smarter approach, and start trying to outbox our terrorism foes rather than knock their block off.

Richardson, who is the executive dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, became interested in terrorism because of her background. Of Irish descent, she grew up strongly sympathetic to the Irish Republican Army, and as a youth considered joining the organization. Later, as a professor of government at Harvard, she took up terrorism as an intellectual hobby before teaching classes about it. At that time, her field was highly unusual. Before 9/11, the "terrorism studies community," as she calls it, was "marginalized ... no major universities had positions in terrorism, and very few even offered a course in the subject." After 9/11, she notes, a new breed, so-called counterterrorism experts, emerged. "Their priority was counterterrorism policy and American power ... They found the terrorism studies community incurably soft on terrorism, ignorant of policy, and blind to the threat of al-Qaida. Members of the terrorism studies community tended to console themselves by remarking how little the newly minted experts knew about their subject. It is clearly in everyone's interest for this gap to be eliminated."

Richardson says she "emerged from her academic shell" to challenge the Bush administration's response to terrorism. "Lives have been lost because of our government's failure to understand the nature of the enemy we face and its unwillingness to learn from the experiences of others in countering terrorism."

Richardson has two main critiques of Bush's antiterrorism policies. The first is now accepted by virtually everyone who is not invested in Bush's war: We should never have attacked Iraq because it had nothing to do with international terrorism. By doing so, we squandered international support, stirred up Muslim and Arab rage, and made the terrorism threat far worse. Her second point is more controversial because it directly challenges the Bush administration's Manichaean, good-vs.-evil response to terrorism: The entire "war on terror" was a mistake. "Our objective should not be the completely unattainable goal of obliterating terrorism; rather, we should pursue the more modest and attainable goal of containing terrorism recruitment and constraining resort to the tactic of terrorism."

This means learning about our enemies, not just demonizing them. Under Bush's leadership, however, thinking is tantamount to appeasement. When it comes to terrorism, America is still more or less in the first day of class, ignorant of its enemies and in denial about their motivations. "What Terrorists Want" makes a compelling case that dogmatic certainties, moral posturing and tough-guy sloganeering offer cheap emotional rewards and pay domestic political dividends, but are completely counterproductive.

Richardson starts her analysis by offering a lucid definition of terrorism. In her view, terrorism "simply means targeting civilians for political purposes." She then notes terrorism's seven key characteristics. First, it is politically inspired. (Refuting Colin Powell's pious -- and silly -- statement about al-Qaida that "we should not try to cloak their ... criminal activity, their murderous activity, in any trappings of political purpose. They are terrorists," she notes, "in point of fact, it is precisely because they did have a political purpose that they were, indeed, terrorists.") Second, it must involve violence. ("Cyberterrorism" is not terrorism.) Third, its purpose is not to defeat the enemy but to send a message. Fourth, the victim and the act usually have symbolic significance. Fifth, it is carried out by substate groups, not states. (Richardson acknowledges that this is a controversial definition, and admits that states do employ terrorism. She draws the distinction because without it, discussions of terrorism become conceptually unwieldy.) Sixth, the victims of terrorism are not the same as the intended audience. Seventh, terrorism deliberately targets civilians. A final crucial point: Terrorists are weaker than their enemies. This is why they embrace terrorism.

Are there "good" terrorists and "bad" terrorists? Richardson wisely declines to enter that endless debate over means and ends. Rather, she sticks to her criteria, regardless of whether a terrorist claims to be a "freedom fighter" or indeed of whether he has subsequently become a statesman. Terrorists do not retroactively get not to be terrorists because their side won. Richardson cites the case of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin: That he became a statesman in the '70s does not alter the fact that he was a terrorist in the '40s. What is noteworthy, however, is that Richardson does not use the term to demonize but to describe. It is simply a fact that Begin, like his counterparts in the Red Brigades, the Tamil Tigers, Hamas, al-Qaida and countless other groups, was a terrorist. This does not mean that he was an evil monster forever beyond understanding, or that he was insane or a criminal, or that he had no legitimate motive. It means simply that he used violence against civilian targets for political ends: i.e., he was a terrorist.

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