Bush's incompetence gives al-Qaida new life

In the best of times, hunting down an individual in Pakistan's tribal areas would be rather like trying to find a person moving among safe houses in Wyoming, Colorado and Nevada. The current unrest would only make the job of any U.S. Special Forces operating in the region that much harder. But the de facto American threat to invade Pakistan also brought an alarmed reaction from the Musharraf regime. On CNN, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri angrily pointed out that Pakistan had sacrificed 700 troops to the fight against extremists in the tribal areas. He warned that any U.S. incursion would enrage the Pakistani public and defeat any hope of Washington winning local hearts and minds.

The Musharraf military regime was rattled by public distaste for the invasion of the Red Mosque and seminary, and further weakened by a Supreme Court ruling on July 20 reinstating the chief justice, whom Musharraf had high-handedly attempted to dismiss. The Islamabad government fears that if the Americans abandon it now, or act precipitately, instability will ensue.

In addition, not only has al-Qaida reconstituted itself in the tribal areas of northern Pakistan, and not only did a sort of Pakistani Taliban make a play for control of some of the country's capital, but the Taliban allies of al-Qaida are resurgent in southern Afghanistan. In recent weeks they have pulled off destructive suicide bombings against NATO troops and Afghan civilians. On Monday, Taliban forces killed six NATO troops, four in a roadside bombing. On July 18 and July 19, they had kidnapped two Germans and 23 Koreans. One of the German hostages was found shot on Saturday. The presence of NATO forces and more than 20,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan has not stopped the Taliban from attempting to regain control of the Pashtun regions.

The resurgence of al-Qaida, and the usefulness of Bush's Iraq war as a recruiting tool, were further demonstrated by events in Europe. On July 21, Italian authorities announced the arrest of three Moroccans, whom they charged with running a terror-training program from a mosque and of being linked to al-Qaida. It is believed that their trainees were placed throughout the world, including in Iraq.

In an ideal world the United States could deal with such a threat by close cooperation with Italian counterterrorism officials. But the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect named Abu Omar in Italy by Central Intelligence Agency operatives without Italian permission has roiled relations between the two countries.

In February an Italian court indicted 25 CIA employees in connection with the "extraordinary rendition," and Italy has demanded their extradition, saying that Italian authorities had the suspect under surveillance and precipitate U.S. action derailed their efforts to trace his network. The CIA delivered Abu Omar to Egypt, where he was imprisoned and says he was tortured, and he has now been released. In view of this fiasco, how likely are Italian authorities to share all their information on the new Moroccan cell and its links to al-Qaida with Washington? The Bush administration, having failed to learn its lesson in Italy, is now talking about intervening unilaterally in Pakistan.

The Iraq war grabs the headlines, though increasingly it, too, is seen through the prism of the American political campaign for 2008, which is already in full swing. The U.S. public seemed little interested in the bin Laden videotape praising al-Qaida martyrs, the first to appear since October 2004. The Italian arrests barely registered on public consciousness. The connection of the Red Mosque events and the subsequent turmoil in Waziristan to the revitalized al-Qaida presence in Pakistan was seldom recognized by the U.S. press.

Astonishingly, al-Qaida may be back, and the signs of its resurgence are everywhere, but there is little reaction from an American public that has everything to fear from the group. War-weary, bogged down in a fruitless guerrilla war in Iraq, disillusioned with the Bush team (which has lied to it assiduously), the public appears to be taking its eye off al-Qaida. If so, it would be making the same mistake as Bush, who is obsessed with Iraq to the detriment of urgent counterterrorism measures. Those efforts, to be successful, will require international cooperation rather than unilateral grandstanding, not something in which this administration has proved adept.

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