With the untimely (i.e., too long delayed) death of Anwar
al-Awlaki, Sheriff Obama has another notch in the grip of his
six-gun. Obama has to be credited for the operation that killed
Awlaki, just as he should take credit for the operation by Dev
Group — the formal name for “the Jedi,” SEAL Team 6 — which
killed Osama bin Laden.
Obama has significantly increased the unmanned aerial
vehicle (UAV, i.e., drone) attacks against terrorist targets in
Afghanistan, Yemen, and elsewhere. And according to various
reports, the Awlaki attack benefitted from both the NSA’s
monitoring of terrorist communications and the intelligence
gathered by the UAVs hunting for Awlaki.
In the February TAS, I wrote
about the unresolved legality of an American president ordering the
killing of an American citizen such as Awlaki. I will leave it to
others, especially my scholarly friend
Andy McCarthy, to further debate that point and drive our legal
system to a solution. But there’s an equally important question we
need to resolve: Is the underlying strategy the right one for us to
employ in a war that is no nearer to ending than it was on
September 12, 2001?
The answer is a qualified yes because of two fundamental
facts about terrorist groups.
First is the fact that terrorist groups are cults of
personality, killers following a charismatic leader. Those such as
bin Laden and Awlaki attract and indoctrinate followers to do their
will. “Lone wolf” terrorists do not pose the danger that terrorist
leaders do because, though they may cause massive damage as did
Timothy McVeigh, by definition they do not organize and propel
terrorist networks that pose an existential threat to the United
States.
By decapitating the terrorist networks, we can reduce —
and have reduced — the networks’ abilities to function.
Which leaves us with the second fact: no matter how many
of these terror leaders we kill, there will be others who replace
them and some will succeed before we can kill them. New leaders
will arise and focus their terrorist followers — as Awlaki did —
on operations as large as they can organize or encourage directly.
Awlaki’s reach was not as great as bin Laden’s but his intent in
the Fort Hood massacre, the unsuccessful Christmas Day underwear
bombing, and the equally unsuccessful Times Square car bombing was
intended to do as much damage as his followers could do. Left
alive, his cult — and his reach — could have grown to a far
greater extent and more able to mount more massive and competent
attacks.
The unending rise of terrorist leaders is one of the flaws
in the whack-a-mole strategy. It first became evident in the 2004
Bush-Kerry campaign.
After 9/11, President Bush declared a “global war on
terror,” which sent liberals into a paroxysm of definitional
denial. How can you declare war on a tactic, they argued, which is
all that terrorism is? They had a point.
In October 2004, Kerry said: “We have to get back to the
place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but
they’re a nuisance.” Kerry’s “nuisance” comment drew Rudy Giuliani
to say that the idea we would tolerate some level of death and
destruction was positively “frightening.”
Kerry saw terrorism as a law enforcement problem, not an
existential struggle. President Bush’s response said, “See, I
couldn’t disagree more. Our goal is not to reduce terror to some
acceptable level of nuisance. Our goal is to defeat terror by
staying on the offensive, destroying terrorists, and spreading
freedom and liberty around the world.”
In a New York Times
interview that month, Kerry said: ”I think we can do a better
job of cutting off financing, of exposing groups, of working
cooperatively across the globe, of improving our intelligence
capabilities nationally and internationally, of training our
military and deploying them differently, of specializing in special
forces and special ops, of working with allies, and most
importantly — and I mean most importantly — of restoring
America’s reputation as a country that listens, is sensitive,
brings people to our side, is the seeker of peace, not war, and
that uses our high moral ground and high-level values to augment us
in the war on terror, not to diminish us.”
Bush’s strategy — to stay on the offensive indefinitely
against “terror” — wasn’t that different from Kerry’s. Both placed
us on the strategic defensive by not connecting the terrorists to
those who made their attacks possible. The nations that sponsor
terrorism were left unscathed. If you add Bush’s policy to Kerry’s,
the sum is Obama’s strategy.
SO WHERE SHOULD we go from here? We have to continue the
“whack-a-mole” strategy now, and for the foreseeable future. But to
do that will not produce victory against Islamic
terrorism.
The Republican candidate debates haven’t focused on the
issue yet but they should, and quickly. Only Newt Gingrich has
called for a serious debate solely on that subject. But Gingrich —
like the other eight (or is it nine?) — hasn’t said what strategy
he would employ to win the war.
Imagine, if you can, a debate in which three questioners
faced off with the candidates. The Dream Team of questioners would
consist of a few men whose knowledge and strategic thinking about
the issue of winning war and ending the threat of Islamic terrorism
is known for its clarity: Former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld,
former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Richard Myers and — since
this is, unfortunately, a fictional debate — me. Here are the most
important questions the candidates should have to
answer:
From Mr. Rumsfeld: “How would you structure and employ
America’s military and intelligence capabilities to end the threat
of Islamic terrorism? Give us at least three specific points in
your answer.”
From Gen. Myers: “In my book Eyes on the Horizon,
I wrote that ‘The nations that sponsor terrorism must stop.
Compelling states to stop supporting terrorists will often require
military activity, which will be inherently controversial.’ Do you
agree that we have to end state sponsorship of terrorism and, if
so, how would you do it?”
From me: “The war in which we are engaged is in two parts:
a kinetic war, which we are fighting in places from Afghanistan to
Yemen and more; and an ideological war which we haven’t yet begun
to fight. How would you win the ideological war against the
Islamists?”
President Obama’s defense strategy is to fight a
“hands-off” war, with drones killing terrorists and rhetoric
apologizing for America to the rest of the Islamic world. It is a
delaying action, aimed at keeping the war off the front pages until
after the election. And while all of our political energy is being
used to debate why so many Texans are without health insurance,
Obama’s failure to engage and defeat our principal enemies in a
decisive war increases the dangers we face now and will face
forever until we change the strategy or lose the war.
Leadership isn’t only about how to reduce the bloated
federal budget. It’s about explaining to the American people — to
paraphrase Jefferson — in words so plain and firm as to command
their assent. In an election, Jefferson’s “assent” means
demonstrating adherence to a leader by voting for him, not just
against the other guy.
With Florida’s acceleration of the primary election
schedule, there is little time for candidates to focus on anything.
But if they fail to focus on this debate, they will default to
Obama and leave us leaderless on the most fundamental issue
affecting America’s future.
How, gentlemen, can we “win the future” if we first do not
secure it?
