(Dis)Loyal readers: I have taken a position that does not allow me much opportunity to blog, so I apologize for my long and unexplained absence.  But on to the matter at hand.

There is no shortage of commentary about the “Ground Zero Mosque,” which is neither at Ground Zero nor exactly just a mosque, so I will keep this short and try to contribute an original perspective. I am not going to address what I think about the morality, wisdom, and legality of the decision to build this center in close proximity to the site of the World Trade Center. We have all had enough of that. I only focus on the strategic angle.

To be clear at the outset, I do not think the Cordoba Initiative is Islamist-inclined. However, as a friend of mine, who is good at assessing these things, recently noted in an email to me:

My own view…is that the Cordoba guys are not Islamists. At least not in a meaningful way. Certainly, Islamists will seize it and do the whole, "Look at those American crusaders persecuting us Muslims.”

A small example from the Wall Street Journal:

 

Islamic radicals are seizing on protests against a planned Islamic community center near Manhattan's Ground Zero and anti-Muslim rhetoric elsewhere as a propaganda opportunity and are stepping up anti-U.S. chatter and threats on their websites.

 

One jihadist site vowed to conduct suicide bombings in Florida to avenge a threatened Koran burning, while others predicted an increase in terrorist recruits as a result of such actions.

"By Allah, the wars are heated and you Americans are the ones who…enflamed it," says one such posting. "By Allah you will be the first to taste its flames."

As I have maintained before on this blog, the Islamist movement represents a late modern global insurgency of sorts. A standard tactic and technique of insurgency is to provoke the counter-insurgent into reacting disproportionately in such a way that helps to mobilize the insurgent’s constituency against the counter-insurgent.  

The “Irgun Strategy” is one term that has been ascribed to this technique, as the Jewish terrorist organization of the same name designed its attacks during the Mandate Period to provoke the British into implementing repressive measures against the entire Jewish population. But the Irgun were not the first to invent it, nor were they the last to use it. The Taliban continue to use it to great effect in Afghanistan by firing upon Coalition Forces from civilian homes, hoping to draw artillery fire or air strikes on civilians for a propaganda coup. This was the logic behind General Stanley McChrystal’s mandate to avoid air strikes under these circumstances. And it is no small irony that Israel has faced enemies that have used the “Irgun Strategy” – Hizballah, Hamas, and their fedayeen predecessors (although the Israeli defense establishment has not shifted their strategy and operations accordingly...a topic for another post).

The uproar (there are some particularly grotesque examples from Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, but I think they are just trying to keep up with their constituencies) over the Cordoba Initiative Mosque and Cultural Center is the latest and most spectacular demonstration that we fail to understand the Islamist Movement’s Irgun Strategy.

Western Islamist groups consistently engage in provocative behaviour designed to draw out the worst elements of the Western polities and thus simplify an element of mobilization that social movement scholars refer to as boundary activation – activities that contribute toward the increasing saliency of inter-group differences, whether they are economic, social, religious, racial, ethnic, or otherwise. Boundary activation draws out the “us vs. them” dynamic that often relies on a narrative of exclusion or discrimination that feeds a sense of vicitimization.

This creates and solidifies in-group cohesion and loyalty and strengthens out-group hatred and distrust. In this case, Islamist activists will be able to use this episode to argue – this time, with some credible evidence – that Muslims cannot ever be truly part of America and cannot enjoy the same rights as other Americans. The narrative continues that America leads the West in a war against Islam, in which Israel is a proxy (or America is a proxy of Israel, depending on which version you prefer).  This all creates what some have called an oppositional consciousness among many Muslim youth with interactive exposure to narrative of Islamist activists. This is an empowering mental state that prepares members of a group to act to undermine, reform, or overthrow an incumbent system. In other words, it is a mental state that prepares members of a group for insurgency.

Long story short: the vitriol over the Cordoba Initiative makes it easier for the bad guys to recruit worldwide.

Thus we see figures like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and the grotesque Pamela Geller willingly serving as propaganda tools for the Islamist movement and serving the Islamist strategy.  So I turn their obscene fear-mongering and disingenuous flag-waving back at them (only slightly tongue-in-cheek):

Ms. Palin and Dr. Gingrich – stop helping al Qaeda.

As I mentioned at the beginning, whether or not the Cordoba Initiative project is an intentional provocation is another matter. There has been much written about the group and I won’t repeat it here. While Imam Rauf has said some offensive things, the evidence that he and his organization are Islamist-inclined is thin. Regardless, it serves the larger Islamist strategy and shows Western Islamist groups the power of creating such a divisive fuss during an American election year. This makes further provocations inevitable. Let us hope we will react with more sense next time.

A more clever response would have been to warmly welcome the Cordoba Initiative to New York, but politely and firmly request that they sign on to an international campaign to stop the persecution of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Pakistan and elsewhere or to co-sponsor the construction of a Christian church and a synagogue in a Muslim country (Saudi Arabia would be asking too much – it would be bombed by someone anyway). Or perhaps just to build Christian and Jewish prayer rooms in the Cordoba Initiative Mosque and Cultural Center. Even if they were to say “no thank you,” that would still be a strategic win for the United States, if done right.

 

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An increasing number of analysts in the United States are beginning to address the problem of home-grown Islamist terrorism in much greater depth than ever before. Unlike the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the attacks of 9/11 were, of course, perpetrated by foreign nationals.

In part, this has contributed to something of a consensus in the United States that home grown radicalisation was a problem which was largely confined to Europe and that the main threat to American national security was external.  "The feeling was we're a country of immigrants and people tend to come to the US and feel accepted, whereas in Europe they are caught between two worlds", observes Stephen Grand, director of US-Muslim relations at the Brookings Institution.

However, a number of events in recent weeks and months have led to a serious reappraisal of this view. The most dramatic of these was the Fort Hood shootings of 15 November 2009, which killed 13 people, and was allegedly perpetrated by Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army major who was serving as a psychiatrist. Hasan’s radicalisation has also been linked to Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical Islamist preacher of Yemeni dissent, who is a US citizen and has spent much of his life in the country.

There is worrying evidence that these events are indicative of a broader pattern. Al Qaeda has a history of trying to attract UK and American citizens to become active agents for its cause. Further, as the The Sunday Times has reported, during the past eight months alone, there have been 13 cases in which 30 American citizens allegedly plotted to carry out attacks or joined terrorist organisations in Pakistan or Somalia. Earlier this month, Sharif Mobley, a 26 year old New Jersey man of Somali heritage, was arrested in Yemen and charged with membership of Al Qaeda. Reports also claimed that Mobley had worked in power plants in the US before moving to Yemen.

Last week, in another dramatic development, news broke of the October arrest of Colleen LaRose ('Jihad Jane'). LaRose has been accused of actively trying to recruit others as part of a plot to assassinate the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who lives under a fatwa for cartoons he drew about the Prophet Mohammed. As part of the same investigation, it also emerged that another American woman, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31 years old and originally from the town of Leadville in the Rocky Mountains, had been arrested in Ireland. Newspaper stories claim that both women had been discontented divorces, until finding Islam and becoming radicalised; it also seems that the internet played an important part in their radicalisation.

These incidents feed into another growing concern, which is the potential role of women in Islamist terrorism. In a prescient article for the Hudson Institute, published the very day that the 'Jihad Jane' story broke in the media, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens observed that Islamist teachings on the involvement of women in jihad have developed significantly in recent years, and seem to forecast an increasingly prominent role for female jihadist. As Meleagrou-Hitchens summarises:

As the United States and Europe have slowly come to terms with the grim reality of the Islamist terror threat, comment and analysis on how to deal with it have almost invariably concentrated on angry young males. What has frequently been overlooked is the role played by females on the peripheries of many terror plots in the West. Their involvement has ranged from encouraging their jihadi relatives, ensuring that their will to carry out the operation remains strong until the end, to withholding information from the authorities. Although the West has yet to see its first female suicide bomber, recent developments suggest that such an incident is likely, perhaps even inevitable.

In late 2009, the wife of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri wrote "A letter to the Muslim sisters" in which she argued that Muslim women should "fulfill whatever they [the commanders of jihad] ask of us, may it be through monetary aid to them or any service or information or suggestion or participation in fighting or even through a martyrdom operation." Nor is this an unprecedented phenomenon. Between 1985 and 2006, there were an estimated 134 Islamist-inspired suicide attacks carried out by women across Russia and Chechnya, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Morocco, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan.

On Wednesday 10 March, the Center for Strategic and International Studies convened a panel to discuss the issue of domestic radicalisation in the US. The contents of the discussion can be viewed here. The Center has also published a report, by Rick Nelson and Ben Bodurian, which contains two overriding pieces of advice for US policy makers in this area:

First, they must consider new ways to interdict the growing trend of "Internet radicalization." Many of last fall's suspects connected with transnational terrorist recruiters via the Internet; stopping this sort of activity is crucial to stemming domestic extremism in the United States.

Second, several of those arrested last fall seemed to harbor the belief that the United States is at war with Islam. This is a "narrative" that al Qaeda and other global terrorist groups actively promulgate; it holds that U.S. counterterrorism efforts signify a "clash of civilizations" between the West and Islam. The United States must continue to work to puncture this narrative. White House officials already have discarded phrases like "war on radical Islam." But ultimately, the United States needs to go further than this, because al Qaeda seizes on more than just U.S. rhetoric to galvanize support for its agenda; the group also points to America's military presence in Muslim countries as evidence for its preferred narrative. The United States, then, should consider how to balance the need to combat global terrorism with the drawbacks of large-scale, direct military intervention. Doing so will require the United States to forge stronger partnerships with states plagued by extremist violence.

These conclusions provide a starting point for a range of discussions, particularly the connections between foreign policy and domestic radicalisation which have previously been identified in the UK. The report also makes a brief suggestion that ‘Europe’s experience with, and responses to, homegrown extremism have much to offer U.S. policymakers and officials’, arguing that small-scale initiatives such as the Quilliam Foundation illustrate the value of official engagement with Muslim communities.

Understandably, senior US policy makers have taken great interest in the fact that the UK has funnelled much time, money and effort into counter-terrorism policies, as part of the CONTEST (and CONTEST II) strategies. But the emphasis on outreach and engagement leaves a number of questions unanswered. What does 'engagement' mean and, more importantly, just who should the state be engaging with?

There are some things the UK does very well in this field; other things it does less well. Approaches to domestic counter-terrorism have evolved significantly since 9/11 and 7/7.

Nonetheless, it is important for US policy makers to recognise that the sagacity of the CONTEST (and CONTEST II) and the Prevent strategies continue to remain a great source of debate within the UK. In particular, the long-term wisdom of using non-violent extremists as a bulwark against those prepared to use violence has been questioned, alongside the precise criteria used for 'engagement' with various Muslim groups.

As Amm Samm's previous posts on FREERad!cals have made it clear, senior US policy makers should think long and hard before they transport the UK model to American soil. Further quality in the debate is needed.

 

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On Tuesday Jane Perlez at the NYT reported that Pakistan offered to mediate with Taliban factions who use its territory and have long served as its allies. This is not the first time that Pakistan floated such an idea. In July the Army's spokesman Athar Abbas floated the idea during a CNN interview when he stated Pakistan still had contacts with various Taliban factions and hinted at what wanted [hint: it had something to do with keeping the country to its east out of the country to its west] in exchange for helping to broker a solution. That trial balloon got popped a few hours when the Inter-Services Public Relations denied Abbas ever made the comments.

This time around, the offer came from Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the army chief, during a meeting last month at NATO headquarters. Two things jump out from Perlez's reporting. First, this:

Pakistani officials familiar with General Kayani's thinking said that even as the United States adds troops to Afghanistan, he has determined that the Americans are looking for a fast exit.

The idea that Pakistan is moving because it thinks the U.S. is working on borrowed time could be read many ways, but two broad notions stand out. One is that America has done a poor job of convincing its allies and its enemies that it is prepared to stay the course and Pakistan is positioning itself to resume some sort of hegemonic relationship vis-à-vis Afghanistan. Maybe not turning the clock back to September 10th, but it has successfully waited the U.S. out and is now poised to deliver an acceptable peace.

The other is that Pakistan sees the writing on the wall and realizes that without the U.S. there in the long-term it is going to be forced to deal with a government in Kabul that is much closer to Delhi than it would like. Further, this suggests that Pakistan doubts whether, even without the U.S. there, it could turn the clock back to September 10th and enjoy a proxy government [even one that did not listen to it all that much] in Kabul.

In reality, both of these calculations probably exist simultaneously. Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has claimed the ISI stayed out of Afghanistan more than the U.S. expected for the first 4-5 years of the fight because it assumed the U.S. would triumph. When the Taliban’s insurgency gained legs a few years back, the ISI reengaged. It probably did so out of fear and opportunism. In any event, the question is not just what Pakistan hopes to gain in terms of influence in Afghanistan, but what it can deliver for the U.S. and whether that aligns with American goals for the region.

This goes to the second item that jumped out at me:

What the Pakistanis can offer is their influence over the Taliban network of Jalaluddin and Siraj Haqqani, whose forces American commanders say are the most lethal battling American and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan.

The Haqqani network is responsible for much of the violence in southern Afghanistan and the major suicide bombing operations in the country. The Haqqani's are close to al-Qaeda's leadership – a relationship that goes back to the war against the Soviets – and have acted as a proxy for Pakistan in Afghanistan. It was responsible for planning the suicide bombing operation against the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008, which U.S. officials claim the ISI engineered. It also helped AQ and the TTP to stage the 30 December attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan. The million dollar question is, therefore, which way would the Haqqani's swing?   

My evolving sense of the ISI vis-à-vis control over proxies like these is that it has a lot more contact and influence than it claims publicly and a less influence than it claims privately. Could Pakistan get the Haqqani network to ratchet back in Afghanistan? Maybe. But could it get the Haqqani's to deliver their AQ allies? I'm pretty skeptical. And while stability in Afghanistan would be great, the idea was always to degrade al-Qaeda. Perlez reports:

According to a Pakistani military official, the Pakistanis would first have to resolve where Qaeda fighters would go and whether they might be given safe passage to Yemen or another location.

This seems a bit far-fetched to me and I can't imagine the U.S. agreeing to it. Of greater concern is that, if the U.S. does pull back from an Afghanistan where Pakistan has greater influence without rolling up al-Qaeda elements in the tribal areas then it is going to be much more difficult to keep the pressure on. Again, stabilizing Afghanistan would be wonderful and taking players like the Haqqanis off the pitch would go a long way toward doing that.

 

But fighting in Afghanistan was always supposed to be a means to the end of al-Qaeda elements in the region. On that score, Dan Markey who knows a thing or two about Pakistan summed it up pretty well when he told Perlez 'The United States side is pretty worried about seeing a deal emerge that suits everyone other than us.'
 

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The subtitle of my 2005 book Elusive Peace is How the Holy Land Defeated America. And after listening to President Obama's annual address to Congress and the nation's televisions, I can categorically say that the Holy Land defeated America again.

In his speech, Obama did not refer at all – not even a single word - to the Middle East peace process. True, he is facing huge problems and pressures at home, but not to mention the peace process which, in the past, was quite high on his agenda, is also to admit failure.  

It would not be fair to put the blame for failing to resume peace talks in the Middle East on Obama alone, as Israelis and Arabs are not easy clients to deal with; but no doubt mistakes have been made by the Obama team.  

Back in July 2009, I wrote in Words are easy and many that, "Obama is now losing momentum…" Indeed, Obama's principal mistake was his attempt to squeeze concessions from Israelis and Palestinians before bringing them together; to force the Israelis, for instance, to stop building settlements on the disputed land before the renewal of peace talks. He failed, however, to realise that in the never-ending-Middle-Eastern-souk, trying to squeeze concessions takes time and, in the meantime, you lose momentum. Instead, Obama had to take advantage of his (then) huge popularity and drag Israelis and Arabs to the negotiating table, forcing them to compromise then and there.   

So what's next? As I have already argued in He's a nice guy, I have held barbecues at the Sea of Galilee and elsewhere, the way forward is to put on ice the complicated Israeli-Palestinian peace track and focus, instead, on trying to sort out the less complex Israeli-Syrian dispute.
Ahron Bregman

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Thanks for staying with me as I am unfolding my argument (Parts One, Two, and Three). This is the fourth post in a series about the coming Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) policy in the US.  I launched into this because I am worried about some fundamental misunderstandings I have seen about radicalization and movement participation. I am also concerned that US policymakers aren't as aware of the flaws of the UK's Preventing Violent Extremism strategy as they should be (next post is on the "sins" of Prevent).

As I have argued in previous posts, the frustration-aggression and grievance obsessed models that policymakers and others are applying are woefully incomplete lenses through which to understand why people participate in movements and are driven to action.

In this post, I point to collective identity as the foundation of what has come to be called radicalization.  Islamist movements from al-Qaeda to the Muslim Brotherhood work hard to foster a sense of collective identity among Muslims worldwide. This identity is not simply "I am a Muslim" – 1.57 billion people hold that identity. It goes beyond that, tying into a network of shared meaning. I call it an ummah-oriented Muslim activist identity.  It involves membership in the ummah, which becomes the most salient source of identity and loyalty. Islam (or an interpretation of it) becomes the highest source of legitimacy for thoughts and actions from the mundane to the profound. It is an activist identity that fosters affective bonds between all members of the ummah and encourages a compulsion to some sort of organized action (some good, some bad, some neither – but let's try to keep moral judgments out of this as long as we can) on its behalf – whether that be donating to an Islamic charity for earthquake victims in Kashmir, protesting outside of an Israeli embassy, funnelling supplies to the mujahideen, or strapping explosives to your crotch and boarding a plane bound for Detroit.

This is not to imply that collective identity is inherently threatening. It is a social phenomenon that every person on the planet experiences in one way or another. Patriotism (otherwise known as nationalism) is a potent example of collective identity.

Collective identity is a necessary foundation for mobilizing people to action – for any cause.  Unlike grievance, alienation, relative deprivation, etc a great deal of social science research has unambiguously found that that collective identity is an explanatory variable or an "intervening causal mechanism."

Thus, when shaping policy on counter-radicalization, it would be wise to avoid designing and funding programs that encourage and foster an ummah-oriented Muslim activist identity among Muslim-American youth.  This mistake has been made in a big way by our British friends and it is one of the cardinal sins of Prevent.

Beyond that, grasping the concept of collective identity will allow policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders to better understand (1) why and how people are hostile towards out-groups, (2) what shapes peoples' interpretations of justice and injustice, (3) why some people are more willing to engage in collective action or individual action on behalf of a collective, and more.

Collective identity can be defined as

[A]n individual's cognitive, moral, and emotional connection with a broader community, category, practice, or institution.  It is a perception of a shared status or relation, which may be imagined rather than experienced directly, and it is distinct from personal identities, although it may form part of a personal identity.  

More simply, it is a sense of "we-ness" with distinct boundaries. It is not just what "we" are; it is what "we" are not. Collective identity mediates the relationship between the society and the world, and the individual and society. It is at the crux of the relationship between objective and subjective realities. We have numerous collective identities simultaneously – but one collective identity is usually more salient than the others, focusing one’s attention on issues that impact the group one believes he/she is a part of, often at the expense of individual concerns.

All social movements seek to enlarge the sense of collective identity for mobilization. Studies have found that out-group hatred and discrimination is not difficult to activate or generate "even absent direct conflict and prior hostility." Such is the power of collective identity. Thus, generating a collective identity among a constituency is the important task facing social movements. Collective identity also serves five psychological functions for the individual: belonging, distinctiveness, respect, understanding/meaning, and agency. These functions help explain why grievances are seen as such and through what prism or scripts they are understood. Identity often precedes grievance. This explains in part, for example, why a British-Pakistani teenager from Leeds feels tied to Palestinian suffering.

Gamson explains that collective identity "is central in understanding people's willingness to invest emotionally in the fate of some emergent collective entity and take personal risks on its behalf." He continues:

It has the consequences for how people understand the sociocultural system they are attempting to change and which strategies and organizational forms they will see as appropriate. Groups that have achieved a successful integration of personal and collective identity will have an easier time doing what it takes to launch many kinds of collective action.

Melluci argues: "The propensity of an individual to become involved in collective action is thus tied to the differential capacity to define an identity."

Collective identity helps overcome the free rider dilemma, as "high levels of group identification increase the costs of defection and the benefits of cooperation." Drawing on Melluci's concept of "networks of shared meaning," Wiktorowicz explains:

[R]adical Islamic activists promote a set of values and identities that challenge dominant cultural codes. In doing so, they seek to create a common community of "true believers" tied together through a shared interpretation of Islam typically characterized by high levels of tension with common religious understandings. Activist proselytizing thus focuses on teaching Muslims (and even non-Muslims) about the deviance of mainstream interpretations while offering the movement's own understanding as definitive. The resulting network of shared meaning is the basis of a common identity that frequently involves commands to risky activism in the name of God.

This is a very broad overview of a huge body of literature and I am at a 1,000 words so my conclusion is abrupt. As such, I had to pass over some things, but I think I made the case that collective identity is a – if not the – foundation for any process leading to collective action or action on behalf of a collective.

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Part One
Part Two

In my last post I addressed the focus on marginalization, alienation, and relative deprivation in the discourse about radicalization and counter-radicalization, as seen in Daniel Benjamin's speech last month on CT policy. I pointed out that these are discredited and/or insufficient explanations for why violent radicalization – and indeed movement participation as a whole – occurs. As I noted, we find that individual terrorists do not experience higher levels of relative deprivation, but that they often come from communities or even countries that are relatively deprived.  This, however, should not come as a surprise as most places and communities have less than other countries and communities.

Thus, saying that violent extremism emerges from relatively deprived communities is not much more analytically useful than observing that violent extremism emerges from communities where they breathe oxygen. Both are everywhere. Not to mention the fact that violent extremism also emerges from communities that are not relatively deprived (but not communities where they don't breathe oxygen…so far, at least).

This brings me to another quote from Daniel Benjamin's speech:

There is no denying that when children have no hope for an education, when young people have no hope for a job and feel disconnected from the modern world, when governments fail to provide for the basic needs of their people, when people despair and are aggrieved, they become more susceptible to extremist ideologies.

Benjamin's speech reflects the assumption that grievances represent root causes and that it thus is possible to identify grievances, structural strain and dysfunction which have ‘alienated’ individuals from society, driving them to look for different providers of belonging, satisfaction, and meaning which can lead them to violent Islamism. The implication is that, if the right grievances and system imbalances can be identified, we can tackle the 'roots' of terrorism by changing policies or implementing programs aimed at resolving them. As a result, individuals will feel less alienated and extremism melts away.

The trouble with this logic is grievances are ubiquitous, but collective extremist ideologies aren't. Grievances do not lead to ubiquitous terrorism. They don't lead to ubiquitous violence. They don't even lead to ubiquitous collective action of a milder sort, like protests and boycotts.

As Trotsky said, 'In reality the mere existence of privations is not enough to cause an insurrection; if it were, the masses would be always in revolt.'  Most of the poorest countries in the world, where basic needs are not provided (except for a select elite), and jobs are few and far between have produced little or no terrorism, despite the presence of deprivation – both absolute and relative – political disenfranchisement, and other things to be aggrieved about.

Along these lines, Wiktorowicz decries 'overly simplistic formulation of an inexorable linkage between structural strain and movement contention.'

He continues:

Systems are not inherently balanced or static, but rather consistently dynamic as they experience the pressures and strains of societal changes, events, and interactions. More importantly, structural strain and the discontent it produces (the alleged catalyst for contentious action) are ubiquitous in all societies...yet do not always elicit a movement....Movements are not merely psychological coping mechanisms.

So if strain, deprivation, grievance and discontent are everywhere on every country and in every ethno-religious community, how do we account for violent Islamism? How do we account for the majority of people that do not become involved in it? Why do some 'aggrieved' people choose terrorism over crime or charity or political involvement? The answer is: we need to look elsewhere or bad policy will result.  

Bert Klandermans, professor of applied social psychology at Free University (Amsterdam), argues that grievance interpretation is at the core of the social construction of contention and 'interpretations, rather than reality itself, guide political actions…'

But we don't want to get ahead of ourselves.  We first must address collective identity, or that sense of 'we-ness' that makes the interpretations meaningful and relevant to the individual and group. This is the most crucial and under-appreciated element of 'radicalization' – violent or otherwise. Crucial because without it, the rest doesn't happen.

Stay tuned...


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This post is the second in a series, following on my post about the developing policy of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) that was announced by Daniel Benjamin of the State Department.  

Before I set off on this very wonky and technical post (I'm sorry, but it's necessary), I'd like to make it clear that CVE isn't just a foreign policy initiative. This will be domestic as well.  From what I have pieced together, high level DHS officials are working on developing domestic CVE as well. I think FP also sees the writing on the wall.

Also, I apologize for not citing something at every turn here, but this is a blog post, not an essay, and I just don't have the time. As always, feel free to challenge me on any of this.

I also want to make it clear that I am not trying to beat up on Daniel Benjamin – a guy who was onto al Qaeda and mass casualty terrorism before most. His speech has presented an opportunity for public debate about a major policy formulation and I think we’d be fools not to take advantage of it.  

The flaws I point out are not unique to the speech. They are symptomatic of a larger affliction: the discourse on violent extremism and movement participation remains haunted by bad social science. Disproven ideas have managed to hang on because (a) they seem intuitive and (b) much (though not all) of the work that has been done on studying radicalization since 9/11 is poor and ignores major advances in sociology and social psychology – a point I will return to later in the series.

Benjamin said in his speech, 'We know that violent extremism flourishes where there is marginalization, alienation, and perceived–-or real–-relative deprivation.'

Really? Do we?

Relative deprivation is a contestable and woefully incomplete explanation for violent extremism and especially terrorism. And as far as alienation and marginalization, this is almost a return to the Hoffer school of movement participation – a model that has long been disproven. Many of these flawed explanations for political violence and movement participation can be broadly traced to various strains and breakdown theories as well as the related frustration-aggression model.

The frustration-aggression model posits a linear casual link between (you guessed it) frustration (or, interference with goal-directed behavior) and aggression (in order to remove the source/cause of frustration, see John Dollard, Frustration and Aggression, 1939).

Eric Hoffer popularized a version of this model in his 1951 book, The True Believer. He wrote about participants in Communist and Nazi parties, painting them as atomized, alienated, and dysfunctional souls with a need to believe in something – it didn't matter what – and a compulsion to subsume themselves in a collective geared toward the realization of drastic goals. [Insertion: I feel like I should mention that Hoffer's ideas share a great deal with mass society theory, which was pioneered 8 years later by Kornhauser, but that could just be that both were heavily influenced by Durkheim. Any professional sociologists out there should feel free to chime in to clarify]. Even though the central premises of this book were discredited decades ago, they still have an uncanny hold on the discourse about participation in radical movements. Hoffer's Wikipedia entry says The True Believer remains 'an insightful classic today.' Let's just hope the average Free Radicals reader isn’t the sort that trusts Wikipedia.

However, movement participants – including violent Islamists - are usually not alienated and dysfunctional. Action as part of a movement does not emerge from an accumulated number of atomized individuals. Movement participants are, in fact, well-embedded in their societies and social networks, which is, incidentally, the means through which they become involved in violent extremism, (this doesn’t just apply to violent Islamism, by the way).  If they were atomized, they wouldn’t join movements.  This is just one of the intersections where Hoffer took a wrong turn, and it feels like we are still along for the ride.

The idea of relative deprivation emerged from the frustration-aggression school of thought in the 1960s, largely thanks to James Davies, James Geschwender, and Ted Gurr. Relative deprivation is when social actors perceive themselves as deprived when compared (or relative) to others.  As Buechler explains:

In this case, the strain is most evident on the social-psychological level of how people assess their current situation against various reference groups or past or anticipated future situations. Whenever they find a benchmark that implies they could or should be better off than they are, a condition of relative deprivation exists and this psychological strain triggers participation in collective behavior.

As David Ronfeldt observes,

[A]t an everyday-language level, 'deprivation' retains a strong hold on the public mind, including among policy analysts and practitioners, as a seemingly sensible way to understand why societies that produce suffering and frustration also produce political violence and sometimes terrorism.

But, as Ronfeldt and many others have pointed out, just because it seems sensible, doesn’t mean it is correct.

While many studies have not discounted the idea that relative deprivation may be an indirect contributing factor, it should not be given the explanatory weight that it has in the contemporary discourse.  For example, we find that relative deprivation is not common among individual terrorists, but they often come from communities or even countries that are relatively deprived.  This, however, should not come as a surprise as most places and communities have less than other countries and communities.  

More in the next post…

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Al Qaeda’s haven in Yemen and the alleged failure of US homeland security procedures are two issues that are receiving a lot of scrutiny right in the wake of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s failed Christmas Day plot. I will address the former in this post.

As Peter Neumann noted in an ‘instant analysis’ on the heels of the attack, Abdulmutallab was thought to have received his training, explosives, and instructions from al Qaeda in Yemen. As Vahid Brown reported on Jihadica, the media wing of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has claimed responsibility (side note: Brown has a fascinating post from a few days before Christmas, ‘A Mujahid’s Bookbag’ that everyone should read). According to a translation provided by the NEFA Foundation, AQAP claims:

The heroic mujahid, martyrdom-seeking brother Omar al-Farooq waged a unique operation on-board of an American aircraft that took off from the Dutch city of Amsterdam, heading towards the American city of Detroit, during their [Christians] celebration of the Christmas holidays on Friday December 25th, 2009, by which he infiltrated all the advanced, new machines and technologies and the security boundaries in the world’s airports. Heroically and straightforwardly, fearless of death, dependent on Allah, by his great act he broke the American and international intelligence legend, and he showed their fragility and rubbed their noses in the mud, and he made all of what they spent on security development techniques a [new] heartbreak for them.

Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, was in touch with the American-born extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who resides in Yemen. According to an interview al-Awlaki gave a couple days ago, he provided Hasan with religious sanction for the attack. As Peter wrote in his analysis, Yemen launched strikes (with some sort of US assistance) days ago within its own borders against AQAP targets.  30 people were killed, including two top leaders and possibly al-Awlaki. AQ men vowed revenge at a gathering of thousands the next day where a representative for the group stated:  ‘[Y]ou should understand that we do not want to fight Yemeni soldiers. There is no problem between us and the soldiers. The problem is between us and America, but victory is coming soon.’

These strikes against AQAP followed another set of strikes a week before that saw cruise missiles launched at AQAP training camps in Yemen, killing 34 al Qaeda fighters. Accompanying ground raids captured 17 more al Qaeda members.

AQAP claims that Abdulmutallab’s failed bombing was a response to these cruise missile attacks. They stated:

Unification in doctrine and Islamic brotherhood are the reasons that pushed this wealthy young man, from Nigerian origins—the mujahiden brother Omar al-Farooq—directly respond to the unjust American aggression over the Arabian Peninsula, and, grace to Allah, that was through direct coordination with the mujahideen in the Arabian Peninsula after the monstrous raids using cluster bombs and cruise missiles that were launched from the American warships occupying the Gulf of Aden, targeting the proud tribes of Yemen in Abin, Arhab, and lastly in Shabwa, and they killed tens of Muslim women and children, and they also killed entire families. These operations were waged through a Yemeni, American and Saudi collaboration, including a number of neighboring countries.

Abdulmutallab was almost certainly trained and provided with explosives well before these strikes in Yemen took place, which makes AQAP’s claim that this was a response ring a little hollow, but it is possible that the timing of Abdulmutallab’s fateful trip to Detroit was influenced by the strikes. That is one of many questions we hope will be answered.

Just yesterday, Yemeni authorities arrested 29 al Qaeda members who were supposedly planning attacks on government targets and the British embassy.

For more on AQAP, see here and here. For an interesting short piece on al Qaeda in West Africa, see here.

Rep. Jane Harman may have exaggerated a bit when she said that ‘Yemen is the new FATA, or it will be,’ but either way, Yemen’s problems have clearly become the world’s. The CIA and Special Forces teams have already been in Yemen for about a year, working against AQAP and training Yemen’s military and Interior Ministry personnel.

Putting these highly trained men on the ground in Yemen comes at no small cost to the US taxpayer.  Some have screamed bloody murder over the idea of American ‘boots on the ground’ in Yemen, but fairly recent history shows that as terrorist safe havens develop, waiting too long may only increase that necessity along with the number of boots we’ll need.


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The internet is abuzz with rumours and speculation about the incident onboard the Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Friday night. As you will have heard by now, one of the passengers attempted to ignite an explosive device shortly before landing. The US authorities are treating the event as an attempted terrorist attack.
It’s too early still to gauge the full extent of what happened. The following points, however, are sure to be prominent as the story unfolds:
THE ATTACK
Why did airport security fail? Amsterdam Schiphol – where the suspected terrorist got onboard the plane – is one of Europe’s largest airports, and has a good reputation for its security. Why weren’t the explosive materials detected? What were they, and how did they get on the plane?
UPDATE: The latest reports are saying that the suspect did NOT board the plane in Amsterdam, and that no secondary screening had taken place at Schiphol.
Similarities with the ‘shoe bomber’.  Richard Reid, the so-called ‘shoe bomber’ tried to blow himself up onboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami shortly before Christmas in 2001. As with today’s incident, Reid was caught fiddling with the explosive device, which failed to set off. Interestingly, it later turned out that Reid had an accomplice, Saajid Badat, who was hoping to bomb a different plane.
Al Qaeda still obsessed with blowing up planes. More than eight years since the 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda – if it really was Al Qaeda – hasn't come up with anything new. Most Al Qaeda-linked plots in the West have been directed at airliners or public transportation.  Also, they still prefer conventional explosives – none of the more adventurous predictions about chemical, nuclear, or radiological attacks have become reality.
THE SUSPECT
Who is Abdul Mutallad? The suspect - a 23 year old Nigerian national - is currently in hospital with injuries. According to the BBC, he might have been enrolled as a student at University College London at the time of the attack. Was he radicalised in Nigeria, or is he a product of London(istan)? Given that his name was mentioned in US databases, was he also known to the British authorities? What exactly did they know about him?
Leaderless jihadist or Al Qaeda operative? The suspect’s name appears on US government lists, but there is no evidence that the suspect was a trained, hard core Al Qaeda activist. This leaves us with the (by now) familiar dilemma of deciding if the attempted attack should count as Al Qaeda. Who recruited and equipped him? Who directed the operation? It seems fairly unlikely that he pulled this off all by himself, but the extent and level of Al Qaeda involvement will remain an issue of contention for months.  
THE CONNECTIONS
Terrorism going global. The incident is a good illustration of how Al Qaeda inspired terrorism has become more and more transnational -- a Nigerian national, who seems to have received training and instructions in Yemen, boards a plane in Holland, and nearly blows it up in the United States. Four continents – and that’s only the main suspect!
Nigerian Al Qaeda operatives. The involvement of a Nigerian in an Al Qaeda type operation is a novelty. Few, if any, Nigerians have played prominent roles in the organisation, and there remains little concrete evidence of significant Al Qaeda activity in Nigeria (though there are plenty of rumours). At the same time, the country is riven by civil unrest between the Christian South and the Muslim North, and there are several other, sometimes violent Islamist groups who are active in Nigeria, including Boko Haram, the Hisbah, the Zamfara State Vigilante Service, and Al-Sunna Wal Jamma (also known as the Nigerian Taliban).
Flashpoint Yemen. US government sources claim that the suspected perpetrator received the explosives and his instructions in Yemen -- one of the hotspots for Al Qaeda activity about which Western security services have been warning for years. Only yesterday, Yemen launched a strike against an Al Qaeda training camp in the south of the country and killed eight aspiring suicide bombers in the north. Among the people who died were two top leaders and (possibly) Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born extremist cleric who is said to have inspired the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan.

 

As we learn more about the plot, I will keep updating this post...

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On 16 December, Jarret M. Brachman, author of Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice (2008)―and fearless blogger―gave testimony before the US House Armed Services Committee’s Sub-committee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities.  The topic of his statement was ‘cyberspace as a medium for radicalisation and counter-radicalisation’ and should be required reading [pdf] for all those interested in the relationships between online technologies and people’s transitions to violence of thought and action.

Jarret cites a series of 2009 case studies, all characterised by some level of online activity―Nicky Reilly, David Headley, the Sargodha Five, Hasan Nidal, Najibullah Zazi, all of whom have been discussed on this blog over the last few months.  No surprise that the internet has played a role in all these foiled plots, and Jarret moves swiftly on from this element of radicalisation to address a much broader point about US policy.

His observation is that the US is ill-equipped to engage in the ‘war of ideas’ because it has insufficient intellectual capital to do so.  Jarret maintains that the US has no equivalent to the Norwegian FFI’s TERRA program, for example – a dedicated centre for the study of Islamist ideology and culture.   Jarret’s reasoning is summed up best thus:

History, culture and language are the keys to long-term national strategic endurance.  Understanding the world, not on a reactionary, threat-by-threat basis, but from a global perspective is the preferred approach, and a lesson that was not seemingly learned from the Cold War.

We have seen glimpses of the US admitting this.  The flawed Human Terrain System is an attempt to redress the institutional paucity of area experts by employing civilian social scientists in the US Army.  I recall (hopefully not erroneously, as I can’t find the source) some figures from a couple of years ago suggesting that when the US finally invaded Iraq in 2003, their in-house language skills were such that only a single officer spoke Kurdish, for example.  No-one’s suggesting that the US must have staff competent in every language of the world but when the Middle East is one of your strategic priorities it pays to have people who can converse with those who live there.
 
The importance of cultural understanding applies to almost every field of human intervention―medicine, law, social policy, commerce, etc.  It’s not for nothing that HSBC claims to be ‘the world’s local bank’.  Jarret recommends that a program is implemented that allows for ‘creative, collaborative academic scholarship’, with the first step of developing an online platform where ideas can be exchanged about jihadi ideologies and cultures; mirroring, in fact, the ways in which jihadis and Islamist use the internet.  A network to counter a network.

This does raise questions about the relationships between the academy and government, however, not least of ethics and autonomy.  Academics who work in security policy should constantly be aware of their own epistemological stance and seek to be open about what it is they do and why.  Although Jarret states that the US ‘needs to invest in up-and-coming scholars doing work on social, cultural and historical topics, particularly when it does not seem directly applicable to operational necessities at-hand’ (my emphasis), I can see a lot of academics bristling at the idea of conducting research just in case it becomes useful to government.

It’s not for me to decide for government or scholars what they research and why, although I’d obviously be happy for more state investment in research, with obvious caveats.  I think that Jarret’s ideas are useful for one simple reason though: I’d rather the US and its allies acted with cultural understanding than without it.  Academics surely do not know all but as Karl Popper said: ‘Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.’ The last eight years reminds us of the costs of action at the expense of understanding. 

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Check out Lorenzo Vidino's new paper for the Real Instituto Elcano, The Homegrown Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland (pdf). Here is the summary of this very timely piece:

The wave of arrests and thwarted plots recently seen in the US has severely undermined the long-held assumption that American Muslims, unlike their European counterparts, are virtually immune to radicalisation. In reality, as argued in this ARI, evidence also existed before the autumn of 2009, highlighting how radicalisation affected some small segments of the American Muslim population exactly like it affects some fringe pockets of the Muslim population of each European country. After putting forth this argument, this paper analyses the five concurring reasons traditionally used to explain the divergence between the levels of radicalisation in Europe and the US: better economic conditions, lack of urban ghettoes, lower presence of recruiting networks, different demographics and a more inclusive sense of citizenship. While all these characteristics still hold true, they no longer represent a guarantee, as other factors such as perception of discrimination and frustration at US foreign policies could lead to radicalisation. Finally, the paper looks at the post-9/11 evolution of the homegrown terrorist threat to the US homeland and examines possible future scenarios.

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Mazel Tov to the wizard of words Barack Obama for winning the Nobel Peace prize! He is a nice guy, a good speaker, and I do like him.

But what a terrible timing to earn a Nobel Peace Prize: just a week after announcing the dispatch of extra 30,000 troops to Afghanistan (thus bringing the US total to 100,000, close to the number of Soviet troops in the country during the 1980s).

Well, I wish Obama all the best but, frankly, I think that all this Nobel Peace Prize business is, at this stage, a bit premature and, in fact, I am pretty sure that the perspective of history will regard Obama as war president. I hope, though, that the scenario I describe in This is how we'll get out of Afghanistan will never materialize.

We should also recall that the Middle East Peace Process was high on Obama's list of priorities. Do you remember "Remarks by the President on a New Beginning", which was Obama's speech at Cairo University on 4 June 2009? Well, let me just tell you that, in spite of huge efforts by Obama's special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell, thus far the verdict is: zero results.

And as I commented on Obama and the Middle East peace process in one of my previous post: "Words are easy and many, while great deeds are difficult and rare".

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On Monday, Fred Kaplan captured the sense of ambivalence many seem to feel about Afghanistan. I've been and remain a proponent of a surge there, but just barely. With that in mind, a few quick impressions from President Obama's speech:


1.    The tone itself is what we’ve come to expect – measured, lacking in hubris and suggesting an extensive cost-benefit analysis. Whether or not one agrees with the Administration, the extensive review process suggests the President means it when he says "I'm mindful of the words of President Eisenhower, who -- in discussing our national security -- said, "Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs."

2.    The President reiterated his goal of "disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Qaeda and its extremist allies." I'd like to know more about how we’ll deal with actually degrading al-Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan during the next 18 months. I understand the President was constrained in what he could say, but I was looking for more about how U.S. operations in Afghanistan translated to action against AQ in Pakistan. I think there is a strong case to be made for why continued U.S. action in Afghanistan is necessary to degrade al-Qaeda. I’m not sure whether the President missed a chance to make that case last night or if he smartly avoided getting too bogged down in al-Qaeda. I wonder whether part of this was a response to the previous Administration.

3.    With his mention of Somalia and Yemen, Obama publicly recognized that whatever the U.S. does in Afghanistan, those actions alone will not defeat al-Qaeda. I don’t think, and certainly hope, that this Administration is not planning to launch a COIN-focused strategy against these or other ungoverned spaces. So why should Afghanistan be any different?

The argument has been made that because AQ is now a transnational movement we should not focus so much energy on Afghanistan. Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are AQ 1.0 and we’ve already moved on to AQ 2.0 or 3.0. In other words a decapitation strategy won’t work. Further, attacks can be planned anywhere and so there is no point in focusing so many resources on Afghanistan.

This misses a few salient points. Most jihadi groups are waging what I’d call peripheral campaigns against the West, while remaining focused primarily on their own backyards. Al-Qaeda’s senior leadership – and by that I don’t just mean the top two – is different. It prioritizes the fight against the U.S. and its allies, and most plots disrupted in the West continue to emanate from the Afghanistan/Pakistan region. That makes degrading the capabilities of actors in this region a fundamentally different objective than degrading the capabilities of all jihadi groups in other ungoverned spaces.

4.    Not much was said about Pakistan, but what was said mattered. First, the President made clear that the U.S. relationship with Pakistan would extend – in terms of time and scope – beyond America’s activities in Afghanistan. Second, he made it clear that the U.S. “cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known and whose intentions are clear.” Getting Pakistan to actually go after all of the militant outfits inside its borders will be no easy task. Building capacity there is a must have, but that alone will not be enough. I’ve often wondered whether the U.S. has more or less leverage over Pakistan when it is fighting next door.

5.    The time horizon is clearly what many people will focus onIt’s almost trite to note by this point, but people in the U.S. don’t believe there will be a drawdown in 2011 and people in Afghanistan don’t believe the U.S. will stay. I don’t really think there was a better option – an open-ended commitment was not politically feasible on the home front. That said, it is somewhat unfortunate that the 18-month time horizon just happens to coincide with the official start of the general election season for the 2012 elections. And that the start of the general election season coincides with the traditional summer season surge of fighting by the Taliban.

On the one hand, I do think that putting out a time horizon is necessary to pressure political actors in Afghanistan. On the other, the Taliban can simply melt away and wait things out. Of course, there is no guarantee that a drawdown will actually begin in 18 months or what that will look like. Also missing was a description of what a withdrawal would look like.

6.    There was a clear commitment to facets of the COIN model – strengthening the ANA and ANP as well as providing security for the populace – but no real details about how this will work. That’s understandable. But given some of the other acknowledgements of past failures and current counter-arguments, I’d like to have seen the President acknowledge the challenge posed here. I assume he did not for fear of undercutting morale in Afghanistan. The U.S. is gambling a lot on the ability to build an Afghan army and Afghan police force in the next 18 months. What happens if [or when, depending on your degree of pessimism] this does not come together?

 

You can have a look at the transcript here.

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I disagree with David Kilcullen on several matters, but I agree 100% with what he said recently at Georgetown, as reported by Bellum. Some highlights:

•    We've suffered from only incrementally increasing the number of troops over the years. The Taliban has proven itself capable of absorbing the impact from an additional 10-30 thousand troops. We need to either "overmatch" them with a substantially larger deployment  or not send any at all (or possibly draw down).
•    Whenever we send more troops, violence will spike almost by definition.
…
•    There is "not much point" to negotiating with the Taliban right now. This is because the Taliban believe they are winning and so have no reason to bargain. Our goal should be to fight first and hard, to convince them that they should talk.
…
•    Successful counterinsurgencies take 15-20 years. Unsuccessful ones take 9-11 years.

It is refreshing to have a president that is deliberative and doesn't just follow his 'gut', but this is getting a little ridiculous. It is decision time.

Mr. Gates said a central focus in Mr. Obama's deliberations was "how do we signal resolve, and at the same time signal to the Afghans, as well as the American people, that this is not an open-ended commitment?"

The latest clues about the president's thinking, as provided by Mr. Gates, came a day after it was disclosed that the United States ambassador to Afghanistan, who once served as the top American military commander there, has expressed in writing his reservations about deploying additional troops to the country.

The position of the ambassador, Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general, puts him in stark opposition to the current American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who has asked for 40,000 more troops.

General Eikenberry sent his reservations to Washington in a cable last week, three senior American officials said on Wednesday. In that same period, President Obama and his national security advisers have begun examining an option that would send relatively few troops to Afghanistan, about 10,000 to 15,000, with most designated as trainers for the Afghan security forces.

This low-end option was one of four alternatives under consideration by Mr. Obama and his war council at a meeting in the White House Situation Room on Wednesday afternoon. The other three options call for troop levels of around 20,000, 30,000 and 40,000, the three officials said.

    ...

A central focus of Mr. Obama's questions, officials said, was how long it would take to see results and be able to withdraw.

"He wants to know where the off-ramps are," one official said.

The president pushed for revisions in the options to clarify how — and when — American troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government. He raised questions, officials said, about the exit strategy for American troops and sought to make clear that the commitment by the Untied [sic] States would not be open-ended.

I am all for an exit strategy, but President Obama should understand that there is a whole spectrum between a timetabled exit strategy and an open ended commitment. The nature of fighting insurgencies is more art than science. Conditions on the ground are constantly changing and strategy needs to be constantly reassessed in concert with policymakers.  The outcome of these deliberations should be setting the best course – not a decision to pick up and leave if this isn't turned around within x number of years (x is likely to be 2 years or less, if we are to believe the leaks coming out of the White House and DoD).

As Kilcullen reminds us: that is not how these things we call insurgencies work.

I will also add these questions for you all to chew on:

Does the United States have a moral obligation to defeat the Taliban? Do we owe anything to the Afghan people, especially in the south and east of the country, who would have to live under continued Taliban governance if the so-called Biden strategy (minimal counterterrorism/special ops effort) is followed?

Speak up in the comments.

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While I recognize that I still owe a piece on Prevent in the UK, the events in Fort Hood have sparked off a different line of thought which I thought I would quickly scribble down – this is the aspect of Major Nidal Malik Hasan as a Lone Wolf.

Let me quickly emphasize two things, one I do not have some sort of morbid fascination with the concept of Lone Wolves, and two, I am not by any means prejudging what might later come out about Hasan Malik.

The reason that this aspect has struck me, is the parallel story in the America that we are coming up to execution day for John Allen Mohammed, the infamous DC sniper who in October 2002, with the assistance of brainwashed teenager Lee Boyd Malvo, brought fear and terror to Washigton's streets. For as-of-yet not completely explained reasons, Mohammed (a Muslim convert who served in the U.S. Army during the Gulf War) decided to cruise around Washington, Virginia and Maryland and take pot shots from the back of their car at people going about their daily business.

Ten people were killed and three injured at random (Malvo further claimed they had killed another four people, though nothing more is known of this), and the city was practically brought to a stand-still. Having gotten to Washington myself about six months later, I can testify that people were still shaken by the experience then.

The men's plan was apparently to extort some $10 million from the government which they were going to use to train an army of homeless children in Canada to carry out similar acts across the country, the Washington shootings were merely the first phase. This plan is nothing like what we have currently understood Malik's to be (which are at best unclear at the moment, though speculation appears to focus around the fact he apparently did not want to be deployed in Afghanistan), but the terror and impact that has been caused is on a par.

While I may be proved wrong, it would be surprising if Hasan Malik's attack turns out to be some plot orchestrated by Osama and friends in a cave in Afghanistan/Pakistan. More likely he will be listed under the category of Lone Wolf, or individual who for his own reasons chooses to launch a random terror attack. Whether this is classified as Islamist terrorism, thanks to the links to Al Awlaki, the fact he was shouting "Allahu Ackbar," or details that are yet to emerge we shall see, but what remains clear is that a single man armed with weapons has essentially taken over global headlines. Back in 2002, John Allen Mohammed (admittedly more of a Lone Wolf Pack, by which I mean a group of individuals operating without any tangible connections, and it seems clear that it was Mohammed who was driving the agenda), brought America's capital to a standstill for a few weeks.

The point here is that Lone Wolves (or Lone Wolf Packs) are surprisingly effective terror tools when they are actually able to carry out their action. Think what would have happened had young Isa Ibrahim managed his plot to attack a mall in Bristol or if Nicky Reilly's manipulation pushed him to successfully blow up a restaurant rather than just himself (a friend also told me of a case in 2005 in the US of a chap who blew himself up, however, I cannot find more information – if anyone else knows please let me know...).

The troublesome thing is, however, that these individuals are equally hard to legislate or police against – all sorts of warning signs can be seen posthumously, but it is with the 20/20 given by hindsight. It is understandably hard to figure out how you are going to legislate against the insane or those who are simply driven to insanity by the hothouse of modern life.

But none of this detracts from the fact that they can be grimly effective, and that in many ways one can see an attempt to harness their potential in the writings of someone like Abu Musab al-Suri whose ideal of "a global insurgency" is constructed around individuals independently choosing the same path, with no tangible and thus compromisable connections, but driven by a similar ideology and towards a similar goal.

In a way, this is maybe the real face of the "leaderless jihad" that Sageman has spoken about. Fortunately, it remains clear that as appealing as the Al Qaeda narrative may have appeared at times, it has not managed to make this leap yet.

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Last week, US military psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan took the disastrous step of opening fire with a handgun on Army colleagues at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 and injuring 30 more.  Quite rightly, the world has been wondering how exactly this came to pass.  Was he, for example, a radicalised Islamist, or did he just ‘flip’ as a result of factors unrelated to the US 'war on terror'?  One issue that has inevitably arisen is whether the internet might have played a role in his decision-making prior to the shootings.

The day after the events at Fort Hood, Associated Press reported that Hasan was on law enforcement's radar six months ago as a result of internet postings that  'discussed suicide bombings and other threats'.  The Los Angeles Times reported that this comment―left on online document sharing site Scribd under the name 'NidalHasan' on 20 May 2009―could have been Maj. Hasan. 

As one of the other Scribd users comments, a quick Google reveals multiple Nidal Hasans on the internet, and there is no evidence they are one and the same.  What none of the news agencies reported is that 'NidalHasan' left this single comment in response to an Islamist tract on suicide bombing but that it elicited no other comments or discussion until after his death when, presumably, there were a lot of people Googling multiple variations of his name.  This user also did not upload documents to the site and cannot be considered―under that moniker at least―to have been very active at all.

The FBI (presumably) did not open a case on this or other 'Nidal Hasan' internet activity, so if he was 'under suspicion' it was probably a pretty thin file at that time.  After the events of 5 November, a preliminary forensic search of Hasan's computer showed that he 'visited Web sites promoting radical Islamic views, but investigators have not found any e-mail communications with outside facilitators or known terrorists.'  Officials therefore tentatively concluded that he was working alone.  Subsequent reports that he attended the same mosque as two of the 9/11 hijackers mean that the default theory will probably be that he was at least influenced, if not radicalised, as a result of exposure to individuals like this and the mosque's 'radical imam'.

Investigations are ongoing and it is far too early to tell what the role of the internet may have been in causing an ostensibly peaceable medical man to become a violent killer.  It seems likely that whatever his online activities in life, the internet will remember him in other ways. 

Researchers report that the jihadisphere has been alive with praise for the man, including an approving epitaph from radical Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and support from al-Awlaki's followers.  More details will doubtless emerge of the pyjamahideen's predictable transformation of Hasan from American army officer to jihadi hero and, if found guilty, shahid.  In the meantime, it seems that Hasan's internet footprint will be substantially greater as a result of other people's online actions than his own.

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The shooting at Fort Hood has pushed some ideas kicking around in my head to the surface – namely the relationship between ideology and grievance.  (Long post, I apologize)

From what we know now (much more will be revealed in the coming days, weeks, and months – but contrary to what some are saying, this isn't a reason to abstain from analysis) Major Nidal Malik Hasan had been vocal about the presence of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For example, Col Terry Lee, a colleague of Hasan's, claims that at a conference 6 months ago, Hasan said that the US shouldn't be 'over there' and that Muslims should 'stand up and fight against the aggressors'. Col Lee also reported that in the aftermath of the summer shooting at a Little Rock recruiting station, Hasan was happy about the attack and said that it was a sign that the US should leave Iraq and Afghanistan. Hasan was also very upset about the way the Little Rock shooter was treated and allegedly said that Muslims should blow themselves up in Time Square. He wrote a comment on a website that seemed to justify suicide attacks.  Someone else reported that he 'heard Hasan equate the war on terrorism to a war on Islam'. And yet another person 'had previously argued with Hasan when he said that he felt the "war on terror" was really a war against Islam, expressed anti-Jewish sentiments and defended suicide bombings'.

What we see here is the interplay between ideology and grievances, with framing processes mediating between the two. Ideology on its own is not a motivating factor, but once grievances and experiences resonate with ideology, you have something potentially dangerous on your hands (ICSR's Peter Neumann nudged me in this direction).  How is that resonance achieved?

Frames are 'schemata of interpretation' that allow people 'to locate, perceive, identify, and label' experiences and events. According to social movement theorists Benford and Snow, collective action frames are 'action-oriented' legitimating frames that seek to 'mobilize potential adherents and constituents, to garner bystander support, and to demobilize antagonists'.

Collective action frames are strategically produced in a process of interaction between movement leaders, supporters, and participants as well as the opposition, neutral actors, and the media. Frames are not the same as ideology, but they often draw heavily on ideology.

Collective action frames have three core tasks: diagnostic (what is wrong and who is to blame?); prognostic (what do we do?); and motivational (why should we participate?).

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and their impact on Muslims there clearly had an effect on Hasan. He spoke about it with his colleagues, even when he knew his opinions were unpopular. These were important issues for him. He felt a strong tie to Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan – people he had never met – which shows powerful affective ties to an imagined community through the concept of the ummah.

Ideology helped make sense of this for him. It both fostered the 'in-group' love for fellow members of the ummah and provided a script for understanding and action, through frames, which are disseminated by Islamist activists, scholars, and terrorists through various forms of media. These frames are ubiquitous, due to modern telecomm (a search of his computer found that he visited 'radical' websites), and simple to grasp.

They helped him to diagnose, by explaining what was wrong (the US is occupying Muslim land and killing Muslims) and who was to blame (the US and US service members); make a prognosis, by explaining what was to be done (Muslims should attack American targets to deter the US); and motivate his own participation in action (this is justified according to Islam, which states that non-Muslim occupying powers must be resisted).

And the jihadist movement has now incorporated Hasan's actions into its own framing. Anwar al-Awlaki (pdf), a pro-AQ cleric, has praised Hasan's actions. Note the (color-coded) diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing in Awlaki's blog post:

Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges….[T]he only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal….The fact that fighting against the US army is an Islamic duty today cannot be disputed. No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right -rather the duty- to fight against American tyranny. Nidal has killed soldiers who were about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to kill Muslims.

Awlaki was an imam at the Dar al Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, VA when two of the 9/11 hijackers attended that mosque. Awlaki supposedly knew the hijackers well and served as a sort of spiritual guide to them. During the same period, Hasan held his mother's funeral at Dar al Hijrah.

While Hasan reportedly had great respect for Awlaki's teachings, this doesn't mean there is any real connection between Awlaki and Hasan or between the hijackers and Hasan – both possibilities are doubtful. But it is interesting to see that Awlaki seems to have framed both Hasan's worldview before the attack as well as the attack itself for the rest of the world.

 

UPDATE: I just saw this (thanks to a friend). Apparently, Hasan was trying to make contact with Al Qaeda.

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Thirteen people were killed and 31 wounded when Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist, opened fire at Fort Hood in Texas.

Some good coverage from the Telegraph:

The major is a psychiatrist who had been treating soldiers returning from Iraq for post-traumatic stress and alcohol and drug abuse problems.

"He was making outlandish comments condemning our foreign policy and claimed Muslims had the right to rise up and attack Americans," Col Lee told Fox News.

"He said Muslims should stand up and fight the aggressor and that we should not be in the war in the first place." He said that Maj Hasan said he was "happy" when a US soldier was killed in an attack on a military recruitment centre in Arkansas in June. An American convert to Islam was accused of the shootings.

Col Lee alleged that other officers had told him that Maj Hasan had said "maybe people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Time Square" in New York.

He claimed he was aware that the major had been subject to "name calling" during heated arguments with other officers.

Federal law enforcement officials have said Maj Hasan had come to their attention at least six months ago because of internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats.

The officials said the postings appeared to have been made by Maj Hasan but they were still trying to confirm that he was the author.

Maj Hasan's cousin Nader Husan said he was happy working for the military but did dread deployment to Iraq.

Another good article on Hasan from MSNBC.  It is beyond me why this extremist was still allowed to be an officer in the US Army and had access to firearms.

I hope there will be two investigations: One into Hasan himself, his process of radicalization, and his ties and another into how the Army handled Hasan once it came out he held these beliefs. I would hope names will be named (in both) and people will be fired or dishonourably discharged for not seeing the danger in someone who advocated attacks on American soldiers.

My heart goes out to the victims, their families, friends, and brothers/sisters-in-arms.

Please feel free to post your thoughts and link to other articles on this as more information goes out.

 

 

UPDATE: See footage of Hasan on the morning of the attack, provided by CNN.  We also see a conflicting portrait of Hasan emerging:

Staff Sgt. Marc Molano, based at Fort Knox, Kentucky, told CNN Hasan treated him for post-traumatic stress disorder earlier this year at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

"Dr. Hasan provided me with nothing but the best care," Molano said. "He was a very well-mannered, polite psychiatrist, and it's just a shock to know that Dr. Hasan could have done this. It's still kind of hard to believe."

Molano described him as "far and away one of the best psychiatrists I ever dealt with."

A soldier who served two tours in Iraq and is awaiting medical retirement for chronic PTSD and severe mental disorders called Hasan "a soldier's soldier who cared about our mental health."

"Hasan hears nothing but these horror stories from soldiers who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan," the soldier said. "Just hearing it I'm pretty sure would have a profound effect."

Mindy B. Mechanic, an associate professor of psychology at California State University, Fullerton, said listening to horror stories can have an impact, but such as extreme one is unlikely.

The impact on therapists who work with traumatized individuals is known as vicarious traumatization or compassion fatigue, Mechanic said.

"But they don't go out on shooting sprees," she said. "They might get depressed or have some emotional fallout from it, but to go on a shooting spree is not part of what happens to people from having to deal with trauma survivors all the time."

 

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The idea that the US would in any way provide assistance to a terrorist group affiliated with the Taliban and Al Qaeda must seem laughable to many. Yet this is exactly what the Iranian government and an array of international observers believe to be the case. In the wake of last week's revelation that Ahmed Wali Karzai is apparently on the CIA payroll, it's worth remembering the long history of covert US support for unpalatable characters and the resilience of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' thinking.

Let's not also forget that the 'global war on terror' is not the only focus of US strategic thinking, and there are bound to be times where its objectives conflict with other important strategic considerations – such as the ongoing US confrontation with Iran.

To be clear from the outset: the US emphatically denies providing any support to Jundallah, which rocketed back into the news recently with a dramatic suicide bombing in Sistan-Baluchistan that killed several dozen people, including high-level Revolutionary Guard officers. Formed in 2003, Jundallah is a extremist Sunni group (most closely affiliated with the Deobandi tradition) that engages in violence in support of a typical narrative of self-defence, in this case on behalf of the ethnically, religiously and linguistically distinct Baluchi people.

While Baluchi separatism remains a potent cause across the three states in which they are found – Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan – Jundallah specifically focuses on Iran's Shi'ite regime and claims to fight not for separatism but merely greater rights and equality. Based in Pakistani territory, it has carried out a number of attacks in Iran in the past few years, including car bombs, ambushes, mass abductions and suicide attacks. Jundallah has apparently strong links to Pakistani Taliban networks and alleged connections to Al Qaeda; it shares both organisations' vehement anti-Shi'a rhetoric and violence.

Like most militant groups, Jundallah requires a significant amount of funding whose sources are murky at best. There is little doubt that the group profits from the enormous flow of drugs traversing the Pakistan-Iran border in that region (by providing protection rackets rather than direct involvement in the trade itself). Beyond that, we are in the realm of allegations, suspicions and denials. Iran has accused not only the US but Pakistan and Saudi Arabia of supporting Jundallah.

There is, of course, a broad spectrum of activities that could fall under the rubric of 'support', from direct financial and military assistance to covert training to network development. Outside of the Iranian government, few seem to believe that the US is directly funding Jundallah or providing it with weapons or other military assistance.

A more likely scenario, as described in an ABC News report, is that the US has facilitated funding from other sources (such as the Saudis and expat Iranians) while also playing some kind of covert 'advisory' role. The aim would be to make use of Iran's indigenous opposition groups to destabilise and eventually bring down the current regime, a strategy that gained some currency during the Bush administration as a means of forestalling Iranian nuclear development without direct military intervention. But as a recent Foreign Policy article noted:

"[T]he Barack Obama administration might be tempted to use direct or indirect funding as a means of surrogate warfare to further pressure Iran's government. Violent anti-Iranian Sunni groups like Jundallah have not been placed on the U.S. State Department's terrorism list. And the Obama administration might feel that it's already being punished for the perception that it's funding the rebels and may as well try to reap some of the rewards.
But this would be shortsighted. The basic problem with any strategy to destabilize Iran via Sunni tribal rebellions is that Baluch nationalism spans three countries -- not just Iran, but also Afghanistan and Pakistan. Supporting a pan-Baluchistan movement would only worsen societal instability and national fragmentation in West Asia and South Asia."

The question of US support for Jundallah highlights a flaw in concepts like the 'global war on terror' and 'global insurgency'.  If we conceive of our worldwide struggle against terrorism and extremism as a unitary effort, this implies some level of consistency and ideological rigour – we will combat terrorism in any manifestation, in any location.

However, this kind of analytical framework does not always match real-world political and strategic considerations, in which the temptation to utilise terrorist groups as proxy armies against our adversaries must be fairly high.

Has the US given in to this temptation? In the absence of 'smoking gun' evidence, I remain agnostic on this question. If hard evidence of US support (indirect or otherwise) were to surface tomorrow, however, I would not be in the least surprised. Would you?

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A new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, casts further doubt on 'cyberterrorism' as a phenomenon with which states should be deeply concerned.  I agree.

We usually understand 'cyberterrorism' as attacks by non-state actors against computer networks and data.  These attacks are often presumed to result in civilian casualties and deaths, either as first-order effects ― plane crashes, industrial explosions ― or second-order consequences ― critical systems degradation, emergency service disruption.  Despite the continued attempts of a variety of actors to disrupt the assets of government, industry and individuals in this way, we have yet to witness a single death or major deleterious event as a result.

That we have not is in part due to the vigilance and sophistication of national and industrial defensive systems.  On the other hand, there are few indications that terrorists―howsoever we choose to construct that term―have managed to harness simultaneously the skill-sets and the intent to commit acts of this kind.

The CSIS report, and my upcoming op-ed in Congressional Quarterly Global Researcher, both point out that states should not be going off half-cocked about cyberterrorism.  The problem lies as much with the discourse, which often presents possibilities as reality: cyberterrorism as clear-and-present danger.   This does not mean that terrorists might not in future attempt directed assaults on critical infrastructures in this way, just that we need to be more careful about what terms we apply to phenomena, as this affects the ways we choose to respond.

If anyone doubts this―and hawkish commentators certainly do―we have abundant historical occurrences that might serve to illustrate this.  One egregious example is the political discourse immediately following 9/11, of which Adam Hodges and Chad Nilep wrote both 'formulates the questions and frames the responses'.  History will judge whether subsequent actions by the US and its allies were constructive but the prognostication is not good, I'm afraid.  Of course, 'getting tough' on cyberterrorism is unlikely to have the same international effect as the Global War on Terror but it may be even more thankless a task―particularly if it doesn't really exist in the way politicians and lobbyists would have us believe.

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As you may have heard, WorldNetDaily (WND), a far-right 'news' website at the forefront of such causes as the 'birther' movement and the vapid and vitriolic insanity surrounding the debate on health care just came out with this scoop:

As revealed in a new book detailing the operation and its findings, the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, is not the beneficent Muslim civil-rights group it claims to be. Indisputable evidence now shows CAIR and other "mainstream" Islamic groups are acting as fronts for a well-funded conspiracy of the Muslim Brotherhood – the parent of al-Qaida and Hamas – to infiltrate and destroy the American system.

The article continues:

'Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America,' a WND Books publication by counter-terrorism investigator P. David Gaubatz and "Infiltration" author Paul Sperry, documents CAIR's ultimate purpose to transform the United States into an Islamic nation under the authority of the Quran.

Apparently, a young man pretended to be a convert to Islam - even growing a beard – got a job at CAIR, stole or copied some documents, and his dad, Dave Gaubatz wrote a book (published by WND, naturally) about his experience with Paul Sperry, author of Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington. As you can see from the WND quote, this new book has an even catchier and more sensationalist title.

Gaubatz’s name hit the news in 2007 when he claimed that Saddam did actually have WMD (not to be confused with WND). Gaubatz is the 'director of intelligence and counter-terrorism studies' at something called the Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE). SANE’s mission statement, no longer posted, can now be found here. If you can tell me what it means, please comment and explain it to me, because I don't understand it. To me, it sounds vaguely like Nietzsche on LSD or Italian fascist political theory from the 1920s (also on LSD, of course). A taste:

National Existence is political order experienced by men of the nation as a Rise to Being. Its opposite is a replacement of political order experienced by men, women, children and slaves as a Fall from Being. This Redirection in the experience of the Terms of Being (Self, Society, G-d and World) results in the collapse of Self into Society and all into World. The goal, wittingly or otherwise: a World State.   

As readers of this blog may have picked up, I am no fan of CAIR.  There has been evidence in the public domain for years now about CAIR’s origins as a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. It was originally launched to manipulate the discourse about the Oslo Accords and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the early 1990s on behalf of Hamas.

The most persuasive evidence was released for the terrorism financing trails against the Dallas-based charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which was found to have funnelled millions to Hamas over the years. CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in both trials (the first ended in a mistrial, the second in a guilty verdict). The exhibits in the case – including internal Muslim Brotherhood documents and financial records – can be found on the website of the federal district court, northern district of Texas (Some of the more interesting exhibits are here, here, and here – English translations at back of documents). Prosecutors described CAIR as part of 'the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee and/or its organizations.'

While claiming to be a civil rights organization, CAIR is anything but. CAIR and other Islamist civil society groups like the Muslim American Society try to appropriate the methods and discourse pioneered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and many other prominent activists (who represent the best of American ideals), but these groups do so disingenuously and in support of an Islamist agenda which runs contrary to the values promoted and lived by Dr. King.

So, if I believe all this, why do I have a problem with WND's book? It's pretty simple. WND represents the worst of web journalism: they are conspiratorial, fringe, and lack credibility. Their reporting is offensive, divorced from facts and ethics, and often promotes an exclusionary and even racist point-of-view (Some highlights here, here, here, and here...oh and here).   There is no reason to think this book on CAIR will be any different. In fact, I would be shocked if it was. 

As I commented to a friend the other day, I don't know who pisses me off more: WND or CAIR.

Rep. Sue Myrick wrote the forward to the book. I have long respected Rep. Myrick, but I worry she has made the wrong decision by hitching herself to this wagon.

When the wackos of WND take on an issue, the credibility of the entire cause is damaged. It is hard enough when most of CAIR's critics are already on the right. It makes it much easier for CAIR's spin doctors to claim their opponents and critics are racists, bigots, and liars. CAIR's favourite weapon in their arsenal is the 'Islamophobia' smear. Anyone they don't like promotes 'Islamophobia'. And they have been joined by liberal blogs, such as the Washington Independent, who are rightfully turned off by WND's campaigns.

 It usually isn't true, but in the case of WND, it is. And that makes it much harder for the rest of us who prefer to stick to the facts and shy away from sensationalism. And so, we find that WND is actually hurting the cause they now try to champion.

To WND:

Please stop.

Very Sincerely,

Amm Sam


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A whole lot of grief and hurt feelings to judge by the debates going on in Pakistan over the Kerry-Lugar legislation, a complete version of which can be found here. Several American friends have asked what right Pakistan has to get so upset about receiving $1.5 billion a year from the U.S. And on the face of it that does seem a bit preposterous. Dig a little deeper and the outrage emanating from Islamabad [and really from Rawalpindi where the Army is based] makes more sense.

The conditions within the bill are viewed as a breach of national sovereignty. This is a particularly big deal in Pakistan, a young country which is hyper-sensitive about its sovereignty and which is seeing that sovereignty violated on a regular basis by US drone strikes.

Rather than trying to unpack the Pakistani psyche [as if there were only one] in a single blog post, I'd propose taking a step back and looking at how elites and masses are shaping the current debate. Caveat: this is an oversimplified, strawmaneque way of looking at the problem. But please bear with me.

To the degree that 'the Pakistani street' objects to Kerry-Lugar it is largely a question of trust. During my last trip there I had numerous debates with Pakistani colleagues about the appropriate level of conditionality in US aid.

For most of them the issue of sovereignty was viewed through the prism of trust, i.e. America either trusted Pakistan to sort out its own affairs or it didn't and thus felt compelled to meddle. This goes to both how America is believed to view Pakistan and how Pakistanis view themselves. Some of my debating partners were members of the liberal intelligentsia, people who were critical of the army and the government.Despite all of the vitriol they heaped upon the civilian and military leadership, they nonetheless took great offense at an outside power pushing Pakistan around.  

The political and military elites who have objected to the conditions in Kerry-Lugar appear to be instrumentalizing this national sentiment. I don't doubt that many of them feel the same sense of national pride, but I’d also bet that in some cases others factors are at play.

First of all, Congress wants to know where and how the money is being spent. Given the propensity for cash to be diverted in Pakistan this is an understandable request by Congress. Conversely, given the propensity for cash to be diverted in Pakistani this is an understandable point of contention for certain actors living there.

Second, the US also is making some of the same demands it has made for a while, but is now demanding a certification process. According to the bill:

Certification- The certification required by this subsection is a certification to the appropriate congressional committees by the Secretary of State, after consultation with the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence, that the security forces of Pakistan–

(1) are making concerted efforts to prevent al Qaeda and associated terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, from operating in the territory of Pakistan;

(2) are making concerted efforts to prevent the Taliban and associated militant groups from using the territory of Pakistan as a sanctuary from which to launch attacks within Afghanistan; and
    
(3) are not materially interfering in the political or judicial processes of Pakistan.

I've no doubt that a host of other factors are contributing to the discourse in Pakistan right now, not least the overall sense of US meddling. Could the bill have been written in a more sensitive manner? Probably. Is there a philosophical difference, i.e. the US wants metrics and elements within Pakistan see that as a breach of sovereignty. Absolutely.

However, I also have little doubt that beyond their explicit nature, it is the content of the above clauses that is raising some hackles. And I don't think the only reason for that is wounded national pride. It's not just that the US is placing conditions on aid, but the nature of those conditions. For example, is Pakistan acting against groups [LeT, JeM, the Afghan Taliban, the Haqanni Network] that it has been reluctant to move against in the past? Given the news that the Indian embassy was attacked, again, and that last time the ISI was reported to be complicit, these are worthwhile questions to ask.

This does not negate the sense among some Pakistanis that their country is being asked to fight America's war for it. Or among Americans that elements within Pakistan continue to play a double game vis-à-vis militant outfits operating there.

 

It does suggest that we need to move beyond the issue of sovereignty – always useful for whipping up the citizenry – and get down to the fundamental issue that we're dealing with two countries that have vastly different strategic priorities. On that score, it is debatable whether the US should be looking to win hearts and minds or simply looking for leverage where it can find it.

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The Nobel Committee said he was awarded it for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples".

"His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population" said the Norwegian committee.

There were a record 205 nominations for this year's prize.

UPDATE

Here are a few reactions from around the world: 

Shimon Peres:  "Very few leaders if at all were able to change the mood of the entire world in such a short while with such profound impact. Under your leadership, peace became a real and original agenda.”

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahi: "We condemn the award of the Nobel Peace Prize for Obama, We have seen no change in his strategy for peace. He has done nothing for peace in Afghanistan”

Hamid Karzai's spokesman Siamak Hirai: "His hard work and his new vision on global relations, his will and efforts for creating friendly and good relations at global level and global peace make him the appropriate recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize."

Ehud Barak : "I believes the prize will strengthen President Barack Obama's capability to contribute to regional peace in the Middle East, and to an agreement between us and the Palestinians that will bring security, growth and prosperity to all the nations in the region."

 

 

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Dalia Mogahed, President Obama's advisor on Muslim affairs, recently appeared on a London TV discussion show hosted by Ibtihal Bsis – an official from Hizb ut Tahrir. Hizb ut Tahrir is a global Islamist movement that calls for the overthrow of un-Islamic governments worldwide and revival of the Caliphate.

The Telegraph reports:

During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular "man-made law" and the West's "lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism".

They called for Sharia Law to be "the source of legislation" and said that women should not be "permitted to hold a position of leadership in government".

Miss Mogahed made no challenge to these demands and said that "promiscuity" and the "breakdown of traditional values" were what Muslims admired least about the West.

She said: "I think the reason so many women support Sharia is because they have a very different understanding of sharia than the common perception in Western media.

"The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance.

"The portrayal of Sharia has been oversimplified in many cases."

This story about the interview also graces Hizb ut Tahrir's website.  Dr. Mogahed, a member of the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, is also the executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and wrote a book with John Esposito, a well known scholar and apologist for Islamism.

The White House needs to send an unambiguous message that it is not acceptable for its advisors to appear on television with enemies of the United States and empower their message.

Dr. Mogahed missed a great opportunity to challenge Hizb ut Tahrir and engage in an informed debate with them about Islam, values, and the place of the United States in the world. Clearly she did not feel inclined to do so. This is a simple issue – hopefully one that will be resolved soon.

 I am not surprised to see Dr. Mogahed promoting Sharia. I believe in freedom of speech and she should be able to say whatever she wants (no matter how distasteful and dishonest), but not as a representative of the President of the United States.

Fire Dalia Mogahed.

 

UPDATE: The television segment can be viewed here

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This is somewhat consistent with past findings that Iranians like America, but not the American government. It is interesting, still, that the average Iranian seems immune to 'Obama fever'. Check it out. Full report here.

 

A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of Iranians finds that six in 10 favor restoration of diplomatic relations between their country and the United States, a stance that is directly at odds with the position the Iranian government has held for three decades. A similar number favor direct talks.

However, Iranians do not appear to share the international infatuation with Barack Obama. Only 16 percent say that have confidence in him to do the right thing in world affairs. This is lower than any of the 20 countries polled by WPO on this question in the spring. Despite his recent speech in Cairo, where Obama stressed that he respects Islam, only a quarter of Iranians are convinced he does. And three in four (77%) continue to have an unfavorable view of the United States government.

Even though only 16% have at least some confidence that Obama will do the right thing regarding world affairs, this is up from 6% who felt this way about President Bush. 51% have a favorable view of the American people.

25% refuse to say how they voted in Iran's recent tumultuous elections. 81% believe Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be the legitimate president of Iran. 71% believe they are free or somewhat free to express controversial opinions, but 58% believe the government has the right to censor media reports that could be destabilizing. 26% trust the Iranian government to 'do the right thing' some of the time and 54% trust the government to do so most of the time.

Should we take these findings about the internal Iranian political situation with a grain of salt, considering the fear respondents may have of the Iranian security services?

More interesting findings. Support for attacks on American forces is high, but not as widely held as many would have guessed:

Regarding attacks on US troops in Afghanistan, 26% express approval (16% strongly) while 49% are opposed and 18% have mixed feelings. Support for attacks on troops based in Persian Gulf states is slightly higher, with 32% approving (21% strongly); 41% disapprove, and 13% express mixed feelings.

Also:

A substantial number of Iranians favor the United Stated and Iran working together to fight the Taliban, the Sunni Muslim insurgent group in Afghanistan that has long been anathema to Shiite-majority Iran. Asked specifically about the option of 'Iran cooperating with the US to combat the Taliban operating in Afghanistan near Iran's border,' 43% are in favor and 41% opposed. A fairly high number—12%--say they do not know how they feel.

 

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Three separate terrorist plots have been interrupted in the US. Unfortunately, I don't have time to get into any analysis or commentary, but here is some good coverage:


Terror Suspect Is Charged With Plot to Use Bombs, NYT

Terrorism Suspect Planned Peroxide Bombs, Officials Say, WP

Tower bomb plot in series of US terror cases, Times

Illinois man charged in plot to bomb federal offices, Reuters

Men accused of unrelated bomb plots in Ill., Texas, AP


For some interesting snooping (thank you to a friend who wishes to remain anonymous for this idea), plug the name of the suspect in the IL plot, Michael Finton, into Facebook. He only has a few friends and is a fan of Khalid Yasin, a radical figure with an interesting website, who once claimed that the AIDS virus was created at a US military base with cooperation from four other governments.

Post comments here if you find anything else interesting.

Also, see this excellent contribution to the debate about Afghanistan in WSJ.

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Barack Obama was heard on five US talk-shows yesterday saying that the strategy on Afghanistan had to be re-thought.

He was notably questioned on General McChrystal's report in which the top military commander in Afghanistan makes it very clear that unless additional troops are sent, the conflict "will likely result in failure."

President Obama however refused to say if he planned to send in more troops or not:

"We're going to test whatever resources we have against our strategy, which is if by sending young men and women into harm’s way, we are defeating Al Qaeda and, and that can be shown to a skeptical audience, namely me — somebody who is always asking hard questions about deploying troops, then we will do what’s required to keep the American people safe."

 

Now I am not going to argue here on what should be done. This, readers, is for YOU to debate.

On a more hopeful note, today is Peace Day.

McChrystal said that the troops will be on the defensive but "will not conduct offensive military operations [...] to observe the United Nations' International Day of Peace".

Afghan defence minister's spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi expressed that "the people of Afghanistan are more thirsty for peace than any other nation. They have experienced decades of war and they want peace now".

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I wonder if the CIA's former bin Laden-hunter Michael Scheuer is angrier:

a)    that an excerpt from his latest book is also the latest in English-language propaganda for al Qaeda in the special 9/11 issue of Jihad Recollections [h/t Jarret Brachman];
b)    or, that the same issue says his archenemy, the late John O'Neill (former FBI Counterterrorism Chief), was Osama bin Laden's 'greatest rival' and the guy who 'had the potential of uncovering al-Qa'idah's international army' (table of contents and page 20).  

I am going with 'b' (he is probably is happy about 'a'), considering the well-known rivalry between Scheuer and O'Neill.  Lawrence Wright explains in his Pulitzer Prize winning book on al-Qaeda and 9/11:

They were the two men most responsible for putting a stop to bin Laden and a-Qaeda, and yet they disliked each other intensely – an emotion that reflected the ingrained antagonism of the organizations they represented.

September 11, 2001 was O'Neill's first day as head of security of the World Trade Center. He was last seen heading back into the south tower after the planes had hit.

Scheuer had this to say about O'Neill at a 2007 congressional hearing (p. 31):

Mr. DELAHUNT. And John O'Neill...you had this to say about him: 'Mr. O'Neill was interested only in furthering his career in disguising the rank incompetence of senior FBI leaders.'

Mr. SCHEUER. Yes, sir. I think I also said that the only good thing that happened to America on 11 September was that the building fell on him, sir.

According to CQ's Jeff Stein, after Scheuer said that, 'the room for once fell silent.'

Stay classy, Mr. Scheuer.

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I have nothing especially profound to say on this anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Whatever you may think of him, I encourage you to go back and watch the John Stewart's moving opening of the first Daily Show episode after the attacks.

Something else to keep in mind:

On the eighth anniversary of the attacks of 9/11, we still have not properly identified who we are fighting.  We have no coherent strategy and our policymakers have not sought to understand the ideology of those who openly call for our destruction.

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I was at the movies recently and saw a trailer for the Baader Meinhof Complex, a German film about the infamous Red Army Faction (RAF) directed by Uli Edel based on the book of the same name by Stefan Aust.

The trailer surprised me, and I'll tell you why.

I happened to see the movie last fall when I was on a trip in Europe. It tells the story of the RAF from formation to imprisonment. They murdered police officers, shot and bombed judges and state officials, bombed a newspaper office, bombed the US Army barracks in Frankfurt and much more. They were most active in the 1970s, but did not officially disband until 1998.

The film does not portray them as heroes or freedom fighters. It shows a group of misguided, angry, rebellious and somewhat sadistic young people (even Jean-Paul Sartre thought Baader was an 'asshole'). The son of one RAF victim even praised the film for showing the group as 'a merciless, ruthless gang of murderers.' Christopher Hitchens comments that the film 'interrogates and ultimately indicts (and convicts) the West German terrorists rather than the state and society which they sought to overthrow.' It is a great film and I recommend it...

BUT, we have this US trailer, which leads in:
    

Germany 1967. The children of the Nazi generation have grown up in the ruin their parents created. They vowed fascism would never rule their country again.

We see clips of action, police brutally pursuing protesters, a young woman (RAF member) being shot by police, one clip where a hot shirtless Irmgard Möller announces that 'screwing and shooting are the same'.

We hear Möller speak of 'resistance' and 'historical responsibility.' We are asked: 'Rebels? Radicals? Criminals? Heroes? Martyrs? Murderers? Victims? Villains? Icons?'

As if the historical record is far too ambiguous to know…and all with The Who's 'My Generation' in the background.

Dark music comes in to inform us the West German security officials are the real villains. The fleeing RAF terrorists are innocent. The narrator explains, 'In the fight for freedom, they lost themselves to the cause and ignited a revolution around the world.' Lost themselves to the cause? What does that even mean? Ignited a revolution? Where?

Is this bizarre to anyone else?

I found the UK version of the trailer. Heavy music, riots, crime sprees, a female RAF member killing someone, hijackings, BOOOOM:

A group of radicals were ready to change the world. Revolutionaries. Criminals. Murderers. A true story. Europe's most notorious terrorists.

Heavy-handed, sure. But perhaps better acquainted with the reality of the film. The German trailer too is much different from the American.
 
For some reason, Hollywood (behind the marketing of this film, not its creation) seems incapable of marketing anything about revolutionaries without romanticizing them (for instance, Che, a film about a 'heroic' butcher, dead-beat dad, and failed/'romantic' revolutionary). Fortunately, the Baader Meinhof Complex doesn't play along with their dreams.

Do Hollywood studio execs and marketing wizards have fonder memories of the New Left and the late 60's and early 70's (or what they can remember of it) than the Germans do? Probably. While the times they were a'changin' in the US, the German experience was much more traumatic.

RAF violence traumatized a people dealing with demons of WWII past and divided by the Cold War. For an excellent account, check out Bringing the War Home by Jeremy Varon.

Also, if you've ever wondered about the role of minotaurs in our terrorist detainee program, this is hilarious, from the Onion, h/t Abu Muqawama.

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GWOT, SAVE, GWOT + Long War, Overseas Contingency Operation Now What?

John Brennan, the assistant to the President for homeland security and counterterrorism, gave an important speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in DC to, as Brennan put it,

…outline the President’s efforts to safeguard the American people from the transnational challenge that poses one of the greatest threats to our national security—the scourge of violent extremists who would use terrorism to slaughter Americans abroad and at home.

This post discusses who the enemy is. Part 2 will examine the White House’s view that this is not a ‘global war’. Part 3 will take a hard look at President Obama’s decision not to use the word ‘jihadist’ to describe the enemy. After three posts that criticize this new approach, part 4 will lay out what I did like about Brennan’s speech – and there are quite a few things I liked.

Brennan’s speech was ripe with details, but this post will focus on the heart of the matter – how the US will define the ‘enemy’. As Brennan correctly explained, ‘How you define a problem shapes how you address it’. He continued:

As many have noted, the President does not describe this as a ‘war on terrorism’. That is because ‘terrorism’ is but a tactic – a means to an end, which in al Qaeda’s case is global domination by an Islamic caliphate. Confusing ends and means is dangerous, because by focusing on the tactic, we risk floundering among the terrorist trees while missing the growth of the extremist forest. And ultimately, confusing ends and means is self-defeating, because you can never fully defeat a tactic like terrorism any more than you can defeat the tactic of war itself.

As someone who has spent a lot of time and energy pointing out our government’s failure to understand this basic point, I was thrilled to hear Brennan say this (except for that part where he calls war a ‘tactic’).

Unfortunately, these wise words do not translate into a full understanding of the threat environment. Right after recognizing that terrorism is a means to an end, Brennan explained we are still just focusing on terrorism. Instead of including an understanding of ideas and broader movements in our policy process, Brennan assures us we are just fighting al Qaeda and its allies.  
I celebrate the end of our use of ‘War on Terror’ and I understand the Obama administration rightly feels the need to distance itself from the rhetoric of Bush and friends, but this new approach has a ‘disconnect’ between its logic and the resulting policy.

We see this disconnect again during the Q&A, when Brennan uses ‘terrorism’ as the yardstick to assess groups like Hamas and Hizballah rather than their goals.

If terrorism is a means to an end (‘global domination by an Islamic caliphate’), shouldn’t we be looking at other Islamist movements that advocate the same thing and use different means that may also threaten the security and interests of the US? I am thinking about movements like Hizb ut Tahrir and even the Muslim Brotherhood, whose motto is:

Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope

These are groups that are largely ‘political’, especially the Brotherhood, but they certainly support violence against Americans in Iraq and elsewhere, not to mention suicide bombings against Israelis. The head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Mohammad Mahdi Akef, has called Osama bin Laden a ‘mujahid’ and said, ‘When he [bin Laden] fights the occupier then he is a mujahid, and when he attacks civilians, this is rejected’ (Al Sharq al Awsat, 25 May 2008 via BBC Monitoring - Admittedly, the Brotherhood is not a monolith and Akef came under fire from some in the Brotherhood for this comment, but the movement widely conforms to basic precepts regarding imperative of Islamic governance that are strikingly similar to the ‘end goal’ of al Qaeda…to be continued in another post).

Does this mean we should be waging a war against the Muslim Brotherhood? Probably not, but it does mean we should recognize the existing state of confrontation and formulate policy accordingly. Does it mean that we shouldn’t talk to the Brotherhood or even groups like Hamas? I actually agree with President Obama that we shouldn’t be afraid to talk to anybody, but there is a fine line between dialogue and empowerment and if we pursue the former with these groups, we must also avoid the latter.

 

Photo credit: http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/images/femabriefing_PS-0523.jpg

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According to AP, the Obama Administration is looking to build a joint DOJ-DOD facility in the US to house and try Gitmo detainees:

Several senior U.S. officials said the administration is eyeing a soon-to-be-shuttered state maximum security prison in Michigan and the military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., as possible locations for a heavily guarded site to hold the 229 suspected al-Qaida, Taliban and foreign fighters now jailed at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.

The White House has made no official comment, but the House Republicans disapprove. Rep. John Boehner's (R-OH) spokeswoman called it an 'ill-conceived plan' because it would bring terrorists into the US. 

I posted on this issue before here. I agree that this new plan is ill-conceived, but for a different reason. To move them all to one location to be housed and tried would just create another symbol and another Islamist recruiting tool.  The detainees need to be moved to a number of supermax facilities that may need to be expanded and hardened, but are already in operation. Leavenworth and the prison in Michigan (Ionia?) may be among these, but it would be ill-advised to just pick one.

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Seven men have been charged with conspiring to provide currency, training, transportation and personnel to terrorists overseas; planning to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad; and with various firearms offenses. According to the indictment, the cell members were willing to martyr themselves. 

The details of the case have been reported on in detail. The plot centers around Daniel Patrick Boyd (AKA 'Saifullah' or Sword of God), a Muslim convert and veteran mujahid of the Soviet-Afghan War. Allegedly, over the past 3 years he recruited this group of men, which included two of his sons.

What bothers me is this quote from AG Eric Holder (courtesy Reuters): 'The constant scream of threats, the kind of things you have to be aware about, the whole notion of radicalization is something that didn't loom as large a few months ago ... as it does now.'

There is this notion in the popular discourse in the US that radicalization is a new problem for America – that it is something that had been confined to the Islamic world and Europe up until recently. But radicalization in the US has been a constant for years.

This current cell has a number of similarities with the so-called Virginia Paintball Jihad network, a group of Muslim-Americans (including some US military veterans), who convened under the spiritual leadership of Virginia imam Ali al-Timimi after 9/11 and agreed to join with the Taliban abroad to fight the impending American invasion.

There have been numerous plots since, some involving Muslim-Americans seeking to launch attacks abroad and others at home: the Lackawanna Six, Lodi, Omar Ahmed Abu Ali, Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, the JFK plot, the Fort Dix plot, I could go on…

I understand this NC plot, the Bronx plot, and al Shabbab recruiting in Minnesota have made an impression on Mr. Holder, but how is this something that did not loom as large a few months ago?

This plot fits right in with a pattern we have seen for nearly a decade and I am disappointed our Attorney General is not familiar with what the FBI and Justice Department were up to before his appointment.

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A great piece by Clive Thompson in NYT Magazine over the weekend: Open Source Spying. It tells the story of the intelligence community struggling Web 2.0 technologies, namely blogs and wikis, as a way of adapting to our fast-paced, information-saturated threat environment.

Then on Sept. 12, 2001, analysts showed up at their desks and faced a radically altered job. Islamist terrorists, as 9/11 proved, behaved utterly unlike the Soviet Union. They were rapid-moving, transnational and cellular.
…
But analysts were saddled with technology that was designed in the cold war. They now at least had computers, and intelligence arrived as electronic messages instead of paper memos. But their computers still communicated almost exclusively with people inside their agencies.
…
If analysts and agents were encouraged to post personal blogs and wikis on Intelink — linking to their favorite analyst reports or the news bulletins they considered important — then mob intelligence would take over.

Very much worth a read. Thompson's take on the divisions within the IC on this new way of doing things is excellent:

The Spying 2.0 vision has thus created a curious culture battle in intelligence circles. Many of the officials at the very top, like Fingar, Meyerrose and their colleagues at the office of the director of national intelligence, are intrigued by the potential of a freewheeling, smart-mobbing intelligence community. The newest, youngest analysts are in favor of it, too. The resistance comes from the "iron majors" — career officers who occupy the enormous middle bureaucracy of the spy agencies. They might find the idea of an empowered grass roots to be foolhardy; they might also worry that it threatens their turf.

He also points to an important question: In a business where an analyst's advancement up the chain is decided by his analytical output, how can an analyst's effectiveness and contributions be appropriately measured and rewarded in a wiki-world?

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The George Washington University National Security Archive has posted a series of reports on interviews and conversations between Saddam Hussein and his FBI interrogator. The declassification of these records was originally reported in the NY Daily News. James Gordon Meek had already released some of the reports and has an interesting four-part series on Saddam's interrogation at the Mouth of the Potomac.

I've been going through them and they make an interesting read. He jumps between lies, delusions, often defending and boasting about his monstrous rule. He even makes a few accurate observations: 'HUSSEIN stated that the United States used the 9/11 attack as a justification to attack Iraq'. Well, duh. For a great window into the mind of one of the most monstrous dictators of our time, take a look.

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There has been some interesting commentary on the different reactions to the so-called 'Twitter Revolution' in Iran in the US from both Republicans and Democrats.

President Obama is staying low key on this. He is 'deeply troubled' by the violence in Iran.  On Meet the Press, Vice President Biden was cautiously skeptical of the results and expressed concern over suppression of speech. He said the White House is 'going to withhold comment until we have a, you know, a thorough review of the whole process and how they react in the aftermath'.

Ok then. A piece in Politico surveys the GOP response. Senators McCain, Graham, and Cornyn are upset with Obama's decision. Senators Lugar, Martinez, and Alexander are not. McCain wants to back the anti-Ahmadinejad crowd. So does Rep Mike Pence.

The Wall Street Journal, not surprisingly, denounced Obama's approach and praised French President Sarkozy's forceful critique of the election. The editorial closes with a biting allusion to the infamous Hillary Clinton primary ad:

The Iranian rebellion, though too soon to call a revolution, is turning out to be that 3 a.m. phone call for Mr. Obama. As a French President shows up the American on moral clarity, Hillary Clinton's point about his inexperience and instincts in a crisis is turning out to be prescient.

Ouch.

Is Obama making the right call or is he blowing it? There is something to be said for standing up for the rights of others around the world. It is an inherent part of the American ideal. Michael Leeden of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies takes this approach, saying:

If America stands for anything it stands for freedom. We should have supported the Iranian people a long time ago. The current silence from the White House is shameful.

However, for the White House, the central question seems to be this: Would a forceful denunciation of the election and praise for Mousavi's supporters help?

They seem to think it wouldn't. In fact, it might even be the kiss of death. Obama said on CNBC, 'The easiest way for reactionary forces inside Iran to crush reformers is to say it's the U.S. that is encouraging those reformers'.

Robert Kagan, in a provocatively titled piece in the Washington Post, 'Siding With the Iranian Regime', argues that Obama has other reasons. Namely, the current upheaval complicates Obama's original plans for rapprochement with the Islamic Republic. This means the president is 'objectively on the side of the government’s efforts to return to normalcy as soon as possible'. It's not that Obama the Realist wanted Ahmadinejad to win, the neo-con intellectual argues, 'but once Mousavi lost, however fairly or unfairly, Obama objectively had no use for him or his followers' as antagonizing the regime is the last thing he wants to do. But Kagan says this approach is doomed to fail.

Matt Duss at Think Progress, in a frosty open letter to Kagan, sees this rhetoric in the same vein as tarring those who were against the Iraq War as pro-Saddam.  Slate's Dickerson places Obama's choice in the context of future negotiations over the nuclear question. As he puts it, 'the president needs to save his meddling for a bigger problem'.

Are we having fun yet?

Mir Hossein Mousavi, isn't exactly pro-American. Mousavi is for Iran's nuclear program and has been consistently supportive of Hizballah. It follows that at least some of his supporters in the streets and fence-sitters might be turned off by any blatant support from the American government.

Regardless, It would be well worth your time to watch this video by Iranian Artists in Exile, (h/t Washington Independent – read their analysis of the video).

I'm willing to bet that Mousavi, who is calling for another election, is hoping that Obama stays the low-key course.

What do you think?

 

UPDATE: Check out these links

With Turmoil in Tehran, Obama’s Policy in Flux – The Cable Key quote?: 'Obama is dedicated to diplomacy in a manner that is almost ideological,' one Iran hand in touch with the administration said. Obama has a longer term vision, he continued. 'He wants to do some stuff in the Middle East over the next eight years. He may not be able to achieve half of them unless he gets this huge piece of the puzzle [Iran] right.'

Five Ways Obama Could Promote Freedom in Iran – WSJ from Dan Senor and Christian Whiton (formerly of the Bush Administration). They had some experience in trying to 'promote freedom' in Iraq and N. Korea respectively.

Obama Sideline Strategy May Signal Shift in US Democracy Policy – Washington Independent

Should the CIA Meddle in Iran Now? - SpyTalk

Is Bob Kagan Wrong? – The Compass, RCW

A short guide to Iran’s security forces from the Guardian

 

 

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Hello readers. I am Amm Sam and I am happy to be blogging for ICSR.  I look forward to reading and responding to your comments.

With the House Republican leader warning us that and transfer and trial of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is 'the first step in the Democrats’ plan to import terrorists into America', my first post seems like a good place to wade into the Gitmo mess...

 A recent USA Today/Gallup Poll revealed that a large majority of Americans are opposed to closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center. 65% of Americans are against closing Gitmo, with 32% in favor of it. 74% are opposed to detainees being moved to prisons in their states, with only 23% for it. This is a big change from a January 2009 Gallup Poll that found only 45% opposed to closing the camp, with 35% in favour of it, with 20% undecided. What changed?

There has been a massively successful NIMBY campaign focused on scaring the living daylights out of the American people. If we close Gitmo, the terrorists may go free! If we move them to prisons in the US, why of course they could escape and wreak havoc in our cities and towns! 

Not only that, but they’ll radicalize other prisoners! Fred Kaplan has dismantled this better than I ever could, so I’ll just refer you to him. I’ll add that Gitmo is a walk in the park compared to life in the supermax prisons the detainees would be moved to, if that makes anyone feel better.

If the goal of the US government is to provide for the safety and security of its citizens, Gitmo’s Camp X-Ray is counterproductive.  As with most debates on national security, thinking 'tough' has trumped thinking strategically. While some of us don’t care about the 'plight' of our guests at Gitmo, many more do – right or wrong – and this is a war where perception trumps all.

The center of gravity in an insurgency is the political will or acquiescence of the relevant population. If we are fighting a global insurgency (not an 'Overseas Contingency Operation' – an odd label to be addressed in a later post), the 'ground' for which we fight is arguably the will of populations globally – Muslims but also non-Muslims; foreigners and our own citizenry.

Al Qaeda recognized long before our political leaders that this conflict will be won or lost through...well, I’ll just let Ayman al-Zawahiri say it:

…more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media. And that we are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of our Umma.

 Keeping the worst of the worst locked up in Gitmo may be what they deserve, and it incapacitates them, but Gitmo has become a symbol of 'American oppression' in the Muslim world and a bonanza for Islamist propaganda and recruiting. As SecDef Gates said, 'the name itself is a condemnation'.

Closing Gitmo and accepting it as a mistake won’t turn diehard enemies into friends, but it will deny AQ a potent recruiting tool. The bottom line is we are less safe as long as Gitmo is open. This is a lonely position - according to the new Gallup poll, only 18% of America agrees with me and twice that believes the opposite.

Why not move them elsewhere? And not just to Hardin, Montana, but to Fort Leavenworth and a few different supermax facilities to avoid the birth of a single new symbol. Put those you can on trial. Send some to Europe if we can (negotiations are progressing), repatriate the rest, and have the CIA track them. 

The fact that some former guests of Camp X-Ray have made it back to the battlefield and have killed demonstrates a serious threat indeed, but it does not change the calculus. What is worse, a few guys making it back to the fight or hundreds and thousands more radicalized to violence in the name of a prison camp that can be closed? If they make it back to the jihad (as 14% have, but this figure has been questioned), shoot to kill.

Suggestions that those who seek to shut down Gitmo (Gates and Gen. Petraeus among them) are sticking up for terrorists are dishonest. Still the 'tough' persist because if you act tough enough on terrorism, I suppose that is a good enough substitute for strategy.

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