There is no question but that anti-Americanism increased in the region as a result of the war, as did Islamic fundamentalism. The pool of people willing to carry out terrorist attacks in Iraq certainly grew. The pool of people willing to carry out such attacks in the United States also grew. What is not clear is whether the pool of willing people capable of carrying out such attacks also grew. It is not the number of people who want to carry out an operation that matters, nearly as much as the number of people able to carry out the operation.
Begin by distinguishing strategic terrorism attacks from tactical terrorism attacks. A tactical terrorism attack is characterized by being carried out within a society where the attacker is able to blend in, on a scale that is relatively easy to organize and that causes limited casualties. A suicide bomber in Iraq or Israel who causes a few dozen casualties is tactical. By itself it does not destabilize a society. It rises to the strategic level only when a very large number of such attacks take place. Thus, in Iraq , a large series of tactical events combine to create strategic destabilization.
A strategic terrorist attack has three characteristics. It is carried out at some distance, and certainly outside the geographical area where the attacker is at home. It causes massive casualties, sufficient to destabilize a society simply by itself. In order to protect it from penetration by security, a relatively few conspirators are involved. The obvious example of a strategic attack was 9/11, an attack carried out on an intercontinental basis outside the attackers' society, causing massive casualties and involving relatively few people.
The key to the 9/11 attacks was not the attackers' willingness to die. It was the ability to organize a small number of people to penetrate the United States undetected, to conceive of the attacks and to execute them. The primary skill was not carrying box cutters through security; it was the ability to operate covertly in enemy territory for an extended period of time and then execute the attack. If you think that's easy, imagine an American team of 19 people (plus support personnel) moving to Saudi Arabia or Iran and pulling off a 9/11-style attack. Strategic terrorism is hard to do.
There has been a massive increase in tactical terrorism in Iraq . That means that there has been a huge number of attacks in Iraq by Iraqis and by other Arabs and some Iranians. These attacks have certainly destabilized Iraq , but these attackers either have not been able to, or have chosen not to, conduct strategic attacks against the United States. This does not mean they will not do so later, nor that they will not succeed. It does mean that to this point, the very real upsurge in radical Islamist sentiment in Iraq has been tactical and not strategic in nature.
In this sense, the NIE is certainly correct if it winds up saying there has been a massive increase in the terrorist pool. Bush is correct in saying that, while this might be the case, it has not so far risen to the level of strategic operations. It might also be argued that the type of people being recruited are unsuited for strategic operations because of background or training. That argument is not altogether persuasive, as we would suspect that you could find 20 potential candidates in Iraq, assuming you had the training infrastructure needed to prepare them for strategic operations without detection.
The argument should be phrased this way. The number of tactical terrorists in Iraq has soared because of the war. The number of radical Islamists in the region has also risen by an indeterminate but substantial amount. This does not by itself translate into a strategic threat to the United States , because sentiment turns itself readily into tactical attacks but not into strategic ones. Therefore, until now, Bush's argument is compatible with the NIE.
The problem with Bush's argument is the phrase "until now." Bush can have no confidence that another team may not be in place or on its way. But his critics also cannot make the argument that if they are on the way, it was because of the Iraq war. After all, Osama bin Laden had no problem recruiting a strategic team prior to 9/11, without the Iraq war. Having a larger pool does not necessary increase or decrease the strategic threat.
There are many reasons to criticize the war in Iraq and Bush's execution of it; but even though on the surface this seems to be one of the strongest arguments against it, it seems to us to be one of the weakest. Strategic covert operations do not depend on large recruitment pools. They depend on strong expertise in strategic covert operations. Few people have that, few people are suitable for it -- and al Qaeda did not need a huge pool to hit the United States painfully.
Four other observations today that could have a later influence:
1. U.S. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to meet with Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, Kuwaiti daily Al-Watan, which is owned by a member of the ruling Sabah family, reported Sept. 25. The pro-government daily said "a significant change in relations has taken place," but offered no details on the report's source. Further investigation suggests the source was "someone high up" in the Qatari government, and the owner of the paper is reportedly close to the emir. There also are suggestions that the spat between Washington and Doha has escalated to the point that the United States is considering moving its Selliya military base out of Qatar. Qatar has recently been having trouble with Saudi Arabia , particularly over the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, and Doha has close ties to Tehran. Though this report has not been confirmed, it could signal a significant shift in U.S. presence in the region; finding more information is a priority.
2. Senior leaders in the Israeli and Saudi governments allegedly held a secret meeting a little over a week ago. There are some suggestions that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with Saudi King Abdullah (which Olmert has denied) or Prince Bandar bin Sultan, secretary-general of the Saudi National Security Council. The story has been all over the Israeli press, but Saudi Arabia denies any meeting took place. Given the rising Iranian ambitions in the region, we have anticipated shifts by Gulf states to contain the rising Iranian tide. The Saudi-Israeli contacts and Egypt 's initiative to restart its civilian nuclear program appear to be early signs of the way in which the Arab states are maneuvering to constrain Iran. It will be important to watch these developments, particularly in light of an apparent shift in the other direction in relations between the United States and Qatar .
3. Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Liangyu was sacked over a pension scandal. But Chen was not only a local official -- he also was a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and a close ally of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin. His ouster is a sign of current President Hu Jintao's strength, and a move to further solidify Hu's power and economic policies. But in China, business is closely tied to who you know, and foreign firms that have built up their operations through close ties with Chen have now lost their champion. Though Hu is unlikely to punish these foreign firms at this time, Chen's removal will still leave many of them in the lurch. Further, the shifting personalities in Shanghai could open new opportunities for others, initially in the real estate sector, as alternative Shanghai leaders scramble to the top of the heap.
4. Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has said there is a 50-50 chance North Korea will test a nuclear device sometime soon. Though this is simply a guess, Armitage suggested that the U.S. response to such a test and any follow-on provocations would be to increase troop strength in northeast Asia and pressure North Korea. Notably absent was a threat to respond to a North Korean test with military action. Pyongyang sees Washington as being in a weakened position, and sees its ties with China as strained and unreliable. Pyongyang sees a window to perform a test and be recognized as a nuclear power, and Armitage has now said the U.S. response might not be the worst-case scenario. Armitage is not part of the current administration, and his words do not necessarily convey policy, but Pyongyang will be looking closely at his message, and will continue to assess the costs and benefits of a test. We need to get a more current understanding of the North Korean mindset regarding the test and Pyongyang 's fundamental relationship with China.
Iraq Sept. 22-26, 2006: On the ground U.S. Maj. Gen. James Thurman, the commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad , revealed Sept. 22 that he still has not received six additional Iraqi battalions -- some 3,000 troops -- that he requested early in Operation Together Forward, which began in June. Of the approximately 302,000 Iraqi security personnel, there are 9,000 soldiers, 12,000 national police and 22,000 local police in the Iraqi capital. Most Iraqis in the security apparatus are recruited and serve locally, and are not willing to travel -- not that Baghdad would be a popular duty station right now. But this illustrates the status of the nation's security forces -- they have little hope of controlling the country when the government cannot deploy them when and where it needs to.
In another telling incident, Kurdish militia gunmen attacked an Iraqi police station in Jola after the town's police chief was replaced with an Arab officer. The attack illustrates the position of the national government in Iraqi Kurdistan and the underlying loyalties of the Kurds themselves. The decision to replace the old police chief was made at the national level, by the Iraqi Interior Ministry. The Iraqi government in Baghdad will have to continue to walk a very fine line as it tries to assert its authority without overstepping its bounds. The national government is in no position to take action in the north that is not condoned by the Kurds themselves.
Meanwhile, incidents in the North continue at very high levels, particularly in the form of car bombs. The main road from Baghdad to Mosul, known as MSR Tampa, has seen a particularly high incidence of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The massive number of internal refugees remains the most pressing potential problem.
As Operation Together Forward continues in Baghdad , British and Iraqi troops in Basra undertook a new security offensive, dubbed Operation Sinbad, on Sept. 27 in Basra. The operation, involving 1,000 British troops and 2,300 Iraqis, is intended to facilitate reconstruction and to weed out militia members that have infiltrated the police force. It is expected to continue until February 2007, when responsibility for and command of security operations in the city and the northeastern half of the province is scheduled to be handed over to Iraqis. It remains to be seen whether the British experience will be similar to the U.S. experience in Baghdad . No matter how successful the offensive ultimately is, there will likely be a spike in violence in the short term against British and Iraqi forces.
Meanwhile Ad Diwaniyah has begun to quiet down after military operations there, with all areas of the city being heavily patrolled. However, private security contractors are advised to avoid the area, as recent indications suggest they may be specifically targeted. IEDs in the area are also increasingly being triggered by private security details. New advisories are being released about neighborhoods in Al Kut.
Another new trend is the increasing prevalence of explosively formed projectile IEDs -- a particularly deadly type of construction that, when built properly, can penetrate even heavy armor. The explosive is covered with a soft metal like copper, which dynamically reshapes itself in the course of its flight as it is propelled away from the blast. The force of the explosion drives the projectile as it punches through a target's armor. It is a complex device -- designing it is much more complicated than building it, however. This is of course the problem. Indications are that most of the explosively formed projectiles that have been recovered are of domestic, improvised construction. Now that the design has been worked out and the skill-set honed, the knowledge can only proliferate -- around the country and beyond.
