It was not about us; it was about them. that is the firstthing to understand about the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and thePentagon.
Many motives may have figured in the minds of those who directed thisatrocity. Perhaps they hate us, as some pundits say, because we are rich, orbecause of our liberal and secular culture, or because of our support forIsrael--but none of these reasons is fundamental. The basic objective of theterrorists is to destroy the Middle Eastern governments that are friendly to theWest and replace them with radical Islamic regimes. Osama bin Laden has said thatthe U.S. military presence in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia,defiles Islam and is justification for jihad. Though cloaked in the language ofreligion, this comes close to the heart of the matter. Bin Laden and company wantto see their version of Islam dominate the Arab world, if not the entire Islamicworld. As President Bush said to the joint session of Congress, we happen to bein the way.
Certainly the grievances of the Palestinians are a rallying point exploited byextremists and terrorists of many stripes. But it is nonsense to assert, as KingAbdullah II of Jordan has, that the tragedy in this country would not havehappened if only Israel and Palestine had reached a peace agreement last year.Moves toward peace have always provoked more terrorism, not less. Moreover, theoperation that culminated on September 11 was under way for years.
The radical Islamic movement is born of the failure of much of the Muslim Arabworld to modernize. Arab socialism as a path to modernity reached a dead end inthe tyranny of Saddam Hussein, and Arab nationalism proved equally barren. Thecorrupt elites that control the government and the economy of many countries havesquandered oil riches and left the Arab masses in grinding poverty. Nowhere inthe Arab world are there real democracies.
For some Muslims--often middle-class or privileged ones--the failure of theirsocieties is unbearable. And rather than blame themselves, they look to externalcauses and seek solace in religion. The response of a few is to try to return toa 10th century of their imagination in search of a fundamentalist, militant, evenapocalyptic Islam that has never existed. It matters not that acts of terror andsuicide are antithetical to Islamic tenets.
The strategy of those who perpetrated this attack on America is to provoke aU.S. response that they can represent as a holy war against Islam, thus gainingadditional recruits and undermining the legitimacy of moderate Arab states thatcooperate with us. No one questions that retaliation is essential; theperpetrators and their supporters cannot be allowed to get off scot-free. But theretaliation must be measured and discreet, or we may drive more people into thearms of the extremists and also lose the enormous sympathy and support thetragedy has generated for us around the world. The Bush administration seemsfully aware of this trap but finds it difficult to avoid.
While the president has sensibly counseled patience, his rhetoric has raisedexpectations to unrealistic levels: "The enemy is terrorism itself." Our aim isto "root out terrorism everywhere." This is an impossible objective. Are we goingto go after the ira and its agents in the United States? How about Basque separatists? We have no dog in that fight. Or the Tamil Tigers? Sikhs of Kashmir?Chechens? The Kurds in Turkey or--closer to home--the Zapatistas? No, we are not.By the time he spoke to Congress, the president had qualified his language. We arenow targeting "terrorists of global reach."
Even so, we will have to be painfully discriminating. Radical and terroristorganizations in the Middle East often help one another, even across ideologicallines. Besides al-Qaeda, are we going to take on Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas,the Muslim Brotherhood, and the various Algerian terrorist groups? Some of them,such as Hamas, are directly engaged in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. Are wegoing to become combatants in that conflict? Not a good idea if our strategicgoal is to defend moderate Arab states against a radical Islamic takeover.
Aside from protecting our people, every action we take must be measuredagainst the goal of thwarting the control and domination of the Middle East byIslamic radicals--and enhancing the survival of states that are willing tocooperate with the West. Retaliation, capturing terrorist leaders, destroyingsafe havens--all of this must support and be subordinate to that overarchingobjective.
Will we prevail? the answer to that is all about us and not aboutthem. Despite the outpouring of patriotism, many commentators have questionedwhether Americans have the attention span to pursue the long, horizonless war wehave declared. But the problem goes far beyond our collective attention-deficitdisorder. We are ill prepared, psychologically and perhaps even militarily, forthe kind of war that must be waged.
The September 11 attacks have frequently been compared to PearlHarbor. As a wake-up call, certainly. For the struggle ahead, however, Vietnamprovides a much closer analogy as well as an object lesson.
First, there is the danger of "Americanizing" the conflict with Islamicradicals. When the United States moved into Vietnam in force, it turned astruggle among the Vietnamese into one with America. Apart from Israel, thebattle against Islamic radicals has largely been waged within such countries asSaudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, and Syria. In order to thwart bin Laden's effortsto turn these inter-Arab struggles into a war between America and Islam, we mustdepend on our friends in the Middle East to bear the principal burden in thisfight.
The United States can supplement its intelligence capabilities, providematerial support and training, and perhaps even conduct special militaryoperations on a selective basis. But we must take care not to undermine thepolitical legitimacy of the moderate Arab governments, or they could fall fromwithin as we defend them from without.
Second, there is the problem of finding the enemy. The Vietcong hid in thejungle, in tunnels, in sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos, and among the people.Despite massive defoliation, saturation bombing, incursions into Cambodia andLaos, and prodigious intelligence efforts, we seldom found them. Similarly,Islamic terrorists hide in the mountains, operate from sanctuary states, and moveinvisibly among the Arab people. Identifying them will require betterintelligence, but the information will infrequently rise to the standard ofcertainty. Rooting them out, therefore, will inevitably involve killing theinnocent and those only peripherally involved. Does America have the stomach forwhat in Latin America is called a "dirty war"?
Third, there is the question of sanctuaries. In the Vietnam War, we bombed butnever invaded North Vietnam, the principal sanctuary. Will we need to invadeAfghanistan in order to depose the Taliban and chase the terrorists from theirhavens? As the Russians amply demonstrated, this would be a massive undertaking.And what of Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Iran, all of which harbor and supportterrorists? If they do not respond positively to the lesson being readied forAfghanistan, can we--will we--invade them all? Neither the U.S. military nor theAmerican people are ready for war on such a scale.
We might try to bomb the sanctuary countries into acquiescence. It worked inYugoslavia but, unfortunately, not in Vietnam or anyplace else. Iraq is just themost recent example of how a bombing campaign alone will probably only strengthenthe control of the targeted regime. And the likely civilian destruction willradicalize more people throughout the region.
The fourth lesson of Vietnam concerns the corrosive effect on popular supportof what is now called "asymmetric warfare." The small victories thatcharacterized the conflict in Vietnam were hard to measure and uninspiring. Ourgovernment had to resort to the infamous "body count" to show any semblance ofmilitary success. The defeats were seen on TV in America's living rooms and werepsychologically devastating.
The battle with terrorist organizations will be even more frustrating.Capturing or killing Osama bin Laden would be satisfying but would notnecessarily stop acts of terror against us. U.S. victories against terroristcells will be small affairs and often kept secret to preserve intelligence assetsand protect our Middle East allies from adverse public reaction. So other thanour initial retaliation, there may be little to put on television to show that weare winning.
On the other hand, our defeats--and we must expect defeats despite all ourefforts--may again involve massive loss of American lives and be displayed ontelevision for everyone to see. This "asymmetric" impact will test Americans'resolve as never before.
Finally, against this backdrop of operational difficulty and potential publicfrustration, we need to consider whether the American people will support thisfight over the long haul. Vietnam offers no guidance in this respect since we werenever attacked at home. Indeed, it is sobering to realize that the fatalitiesinflicted on Americans in one day, September 11, amount to more than 10 percentof American deaths in a decade of combat in Vietnam.
Naturally, we want to fight back because we have been attacked. But once theinitial round of retaliation is completed, will the public remain steadfast? Inthe Gulf War, we fought for the principle that aggression shall not stand; but wewere also fighting over oil, and that became controversial. A quick and almostpainless victory silenced such criticism. Now we will be fighting for theprinciple that terrorism will not be tolerated--and to preempt a future and worseconflict between the West and a radical Islamic Middle East. But oil is notirrelevant to our interests in the region. In a long, drawn-out campaign againstterrorism, this could become a source of doubt in the eyes of many Americans.
Perhaps this is why the president has reached back to the rhetoric of the ColdWar and said that we are fighting for freedom. This also is an eerie echo ofVietnam. And freedom is hardly what friendly Arab governments seek under thecircumstances.
This war is fully justified by our strategic interests. Despite dauntingobstacles, it is by no means doomed to failure; America has enormous resourcesand worldwide support. We must conduct the war, however, in a way that ensuresthat this support--above all, on the home front--remains strong. Theadministration needs to start by being candid; this, too, is a lesson of Vietnam.We may be able to disrupt the terrorists' operations, keep them on the run,neutralize their key leaders, undermine the governments that providesanctuary--in short, we should be able to control and minimize the level ofIslamic terrorism--but it seems unlikely that it can be eliminated entirely.
Can we sustain our commitment in such a struggle? Can the generation scarredby Vietnam accept the casualties and moral compromises that the battle againstterror inevitably entails? Can the subsequent generations of Americans who havelittle or no knowledge of the Vietnam War learn its hard lessons? If so, we canprevail.
It's all about us.