FDD

Dispatches from the Danger Zone: "America Has Lost a True Patriot"

My old friend Smith Hempstone, the swashbuckling and adventurous writer and blunt-talking diplomat, died the other day at age 77 in Washington.  America has lost a true patriot. 

I became friendly with Smith in Africa about 15 years ago when he was the US ambassador to Kenya and I was ambassador to the Seychelle Islands, 1000 miles out from Mombassa in the Indian Ocean.

I had lunch with Smith a few times at Nairobi’s legendary Muthaiga Club where we would kill a couple of bottles of South African wine gabbing at a table near a stuffed moth-eaten lion in a glass case. Smith had a short, white beard and a face like red shoe leather.  He was witty and hard-drinking and, in his safari vest and khaki trousers, seemed like a character from Kenya’s past; more a white hunter chum of Denys Hatton Finch than a swallow-tailed diplomat. 

Walid Phares Media Roundup

In the Front Page Magazine Walid Phares writes about the terrorist assassination of Pierre Gemayel. "The assassination of Lebanese Christian politician Pierre Gemayel this Tuesday has revealed that the Tehran-Damascus axis remains busy with terror activities across the Fertile Crescent." In Washington Times he states:  "Al Qaeda and its advisers around the world want to provoke an "American Madrid." Portraying the United States as a bleeding bull in disarray, the war room projects its wish to see America's will crippled." In HS Today November Issue Walid Phares has a cover story "Education Versus Jihad". In the San Francisco Chronicle Phares was quoted on U.N. investigation of the last year murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus ."Any indictment of any Syrian official ... any implication of any Syrian intelligence officer will basically lead to indicting morally and politically the regime," Phares said".

Cold War Reheating? (CM)

Bret Stephens writes that it’s time to view Vladimir Putin’s Russia as an enemy of the United States. Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy, he writes, has become openly hostile to America.

Some examples: Last summer, Russia signed a billion-dollar arms deal with Venezuela; Hugo Chávez wasted no time fantasizing aloud about using the weapons to sink an American aircraft carrier. Last week, Russia began deliveries to Iran of highly sophisticated SA-15 anti-aircraft missiles, at a value of $700 million. Russian Defense Minister Igor Ivanov claims the missiles will "have no influence on the balance of power in the region." But the purpose of the missiles is to defend Iran's nuclear sites, which do threaten the balance of power. Mr. Ivanov also says he is "absolutely sure" the billion-dollar Bushehr reactor that Russia is building for Iran could not be used to build nuclear weapons. This is false, and Mr. Ivanov must know it: The spent plutonium from the reactor can easily be diverted and reprocessed to produce as many as 60 bombs.

At the United Nations, Russia has consistently opposed U.S. efforts to sanction Iran and North Korea for their nuclear programs and diluted the effects of the resolutions that were passed. The Russians say they oppose the use of sanctions because they "don't work." It's an odd claim coming from a government that in October brusquely imposed trade, travel and postal sanctions on neighboring Georgia.

More here.

Baker Commission (BM)

The Iraq Study Group (a.k.a the Baker Commission) is preparing its final recommendations to the President on what course to take in Iraq.  Naturally, there's much speculation as to what they might be (or whether it was even a useful exercise).  The Washington Post's Robin Wright queried a number of experts enlisted to make recommendations to the 10-member panel, including FDD President Clifford May.  The story is here.

Walid Phares: Crushing a flower of the Cedars Revolution

The assassination of Lebanese Christian politician Pierre Gemayel this Tuesday has revealed that the Tehran-Damascus axis remains busy with terror activities across the Fertile Crescent.

When UN Security Council resolution 1559 passed in 2004, reaffirming Lebanon's political independence and calling for the withdrawal of the Syrian occupation army and the disarming of Hezbollah, Syria's Ba'athist regime pledged heavy retribution against those Lebanese who would dare join the international campaign for freedom triggered by the U.S.-led War on Terror.

Damascus has kept its promise. In the fall of 2004, a former minister from the Druze community, Marwan Hamade, was targeted with a car bomb. While Hamade survived, Rafiq Hariri, the former Sunni Prime Minister of Lebanon, was not so fortunate. On February 14, 2005, he was killed in an explosion orchestrated by highly trained terrorists.

Al Qaeda Wants an "American Madrid"(WP)

Published in The Washington Times November 22, 2006

The latest audio by al Qaeda's Iraq commander -- posted 48 hours after the midterm elections -- sends a clear signal to the readers of the jihadi strategic mind: Al Qaeda and its advisers around the world want to provoke an "American Madrid." Portraying the United States as a bleeding bull in disarray, the war room projects its wish to see America's will crippled. The video attempts to do the following:
1. Convince the jihadists that the United States is now defeated in Iraq and beyond. While no reversal of the balance of power has taken place on the ground, the jihadi propaganda machine is linking the shift in domestic politics to a withdrawal from Iraq. It projects the change in Washington as a crumbling of the political process in Baghdad and America's foreign policy. Interestingly, others in the region are also "announcing" the upcoming defeat of America in the war on terror. Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah declared: "The Americans are leaving, and their allies will pay the price."

Response to the Terrorist Assassination of Gemayel (WP)

Removal of Lahoud and Chapter VII

The Terrorist assassination of Minister Pierre Gemayel in Beirut is another war crime against the democratically elected Government and Parliament of Lebanon, and another strike in the Terror War waged by the Syrian regime and its allies against the Cedars Revolution and Lebanon's democracy. Hence, the response should be at the hands of the international community, starting from the United Nations' Security Council to the various countries worldwide concerned with democracy and human rights.

Pierre Amin Gemayel was elected a member of parliament in June 2005 after the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon in April of that same year. He was one of the leaders of the Cedars Revolution and the minister of industry in the Seniora Government. Gemayel was an active advocate against the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, for the implementation of UNSCR 1559 and calling for the disarming of all militias, including Hezbollah. The young leader has been calling for the resignation of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud and for prosecuting the assassins of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. In short, Pierre A. Gemayel was one of the pillars of the political resistance to the Syrian and Iranian regimes in Lebanon. He and his colleagues were calling for the disarming of Hezbollah and the inclusion of moderate Shiite leaders in the political process.

Phares to Hezbollah: Disarm to join the democratic process (WP)

Commenting on the speech by Hezbollah's leader I made the following remarks to Mashreq Radio and the Kuwaiti daily as Siyassa on November 20,2006.

First: M Nasrallah asked the Lebanese Government to either form a so-called "national unity government" or to resign and organize early legislative elections. Otherwise, M Nasrallah will wage a campaign of streets protests to bring down the Seniora cabinet. In fact, if Hezbollah's leader wishes to make a massive change in the democratic political process in Lebanon, he will have to call for an all out halting to this process as is, and go back to square one. For if Hezbollah has accepted the process back in May 2005, and obtained seats in the Parliament and the Government, then withdrew, it means that he has been using this process. If they believe the process must stop, then Hezbollah should hold an emergency congress and declare the following:

Notes & Comments (DW)

This week's Notes & Comments are posted on the FDD website.

On Iraq: Listen Carefully to General Abizaid (WP)

Published in the World Defense Review

As the debate in the United States is still raging on the Iraq War – and as many believe that the last legislative elections were a message from the American public to change the course in that conflict – the question remains, how.

American politicians and their academic and activist advisors are rushing in all directions to search for that magic answer with most of the debaters parroting basically two main theses advanced by very few authors.

One militant doctrine – connecting the radical left and the isolationist right, to (ironically) the Jihadists around the world – calls for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, let alone from the War on Terror. The radical ideologues do not discuss a rational policy in the region they essentially want no U.S. policy at all. So, we'll discount their position.

Iran, Hizballah Making Moves to Topple Lebanon, Expert Says

Recent quotation from CNSNews article by Julie Stahl reads:

The recent Democratic takeover of the U.S. Congress emboldened Syria, Iran and Hizballah (Iran's proxy) because they view it as the defeat of President Bush, said Walid Phares, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The rest is here

New Push for Fathi's Freedom (BM)

The Washington Post reports that the case of imprisoned Libyan democracy activist Fathi Eljahmi, chronicled often here, is getting renewed attention:

Human rights activists and Western diplomats are increasingly concerned about the welfare of Fathi al-Jahmi, a leading Libyan dissident awaiting a possible death sentence while being held in solitary confinement in Libya, and who is known to have several life-threatening health conditions for which he is receiving little or no medical care. He is charged with having an unauthorized meeting two years ago with a foreign official -- believed to be a U.S. diplomat -- and campaigners are pushing the Bush administration to do more to secure his release.

Let's hope they are successful.  The rest is here.

Hamas' Terrorist Media (BM)

FDD Manager of Research Jon Snow has an op-ed in today's Philadelphia Inquirer showing how Hamas uses its many media properties to support its terrorist operations, including its recent radio broadcasts orchestrating the rescue of scores of terrorists encircled by Israeli forces.

Last month, FDD COO Mark Dubowitz and Jon Snow exposed Hamas' plans to take its terror television broadcast global in this Wall Street Journal op-ed.  A sample:

For a preview of things to come, it's worth looking into the Palestinian terror group's media operations at home. Like Hezbollah, Hamas uses its propaganda network to support terror activities, including recruiting suicide bombers, inculcating hatred, raising funds and providing direct operational support to terrorist operations.

Al Aqsa TV routinely broadcasts Hamas leaders calling for jihad, songs of incitement to murder, and videos of Hamas gunmen. Just like Hamas newspapers, magazines, and websites, Al Aqsa programs typically feature splashy stories glorifying the actions of "martyrs" and assurances that through their sacrifices the "Zionist Entity" will be destroyed.

For more on how FDD's Coalition Against Terrorist Media is fighting the proliferation of terrorist owned and operated media outlets, including Hezbollah's al-Manar and Hamas' al-Aqsa TV stations, please visit www.stopterroristmedia.org.

Pham's Top 10 (BM)

FDD Adjunct fellow Dr. J. Peter Pham has been a lone voice in warning about the Militant Islamist threat in Africa and arguing that the United States can no longer afford to ignore the region.  He has written an illuminating two-part series in World Defense Review in which he lays out his top 10 priorities for U.S. policy in Africa.  Part I is here.  Part II, published today, is here.

Maqdisi's Minions (DW)

West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center released a fascinating study this week. The 382-page report, titled “The Militant Ideology Atlas,” examines the most widely read texts among the thousands of tracts in Al Qaeda’s online library.

It concludes that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, have had a relatively minor influence on the movement’s intellectual foundation.  And while the two Qaeda leaders have released a flurry of video and audio messages to their followers over the past year, the study found that the scholarly work of a group of Saudi and Jordanian clerics — most notably Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a Jordanian — seems more likely to influence the next generation of Islamic militants.

For more on Maqdisi, see my piece for The Daily Standard here.

Diplomacy and Force in Iran

The President yesterday threatened Iran with economic isolation if it continues in its nuclear weapons development.  With Iran now in its third month of openly defying a Security Council resolution calling for a halt to enrichment activities, the talk of sanctions seems to me an increasingly thin reed to hang our foreign policy from.  Several points. 

First, economic sanctions are a bad idea to the extent the target regime serves its own interests at the expense of its people's.  And if those sanctions target oil (the most meaningful) we must take into account that Europe and especially China are far more vulnerable to constrictions in the world oil supply than is the United States.  It is unreasonable to put pressure on allies and partners to go along with a policy that serves our interests more than theirs (as they perceive them) when they have to bear a greater cost than we do.

But in the case of Iran, all this pales in comparison with the larger point: Ahmadinejad is at war with Israel and the United States, and has promised to defeat us.  If allowed to proceed to fruition, Iran's development of large-scale uranium enrichment capabilities would represent so grave a deterioration to our national security, that we should view its continuing advance as strategic aggression.  This dictates not a coercive policy of economic sanctions, but rather an increasingly ostentatious display of force.  Every further step Iran takes in its nuclear program should be met by an opposite and (at least) equal reaction on our part.  So, if they commit a new violation of the nonproliferation treaty, we should march another aircraft carrier strike group into the Gulf.  If they go operational on the commercial-scale Natantz facility, we should start cruising destroyers three miles off their coast.

Systematically increasingly the threat of force, and pinning Iran into the logic of a showdown, is the only thing that will make a negotiated peaceful settlement attractive to the regime in Tehran.  If we really want to give peace a chance, we must be ready to defend it militarily.  Our current posture is an invitation to nuclear terrorism.  The only hope I see for sanctions is if there are pragmatic pro-West elements within the regime who are willing to effectuate a change of course if not a change of leadership—and I don't see much hope for that.

We are within the logic of aggression and self-defense.  America should not be talking about economic sanctions, but about defending its defensive perimeter—and whatever else we may say about that perimeter, a non-nuclear Iran is a vital part of it.  This isn't a risk calibration, hope-for-the-best situation.  If we allow the current leadership of Iran to acquire nuclear capabilities and then begin hiding things from the IAEA, nuclear proliferation will spin out of control, and nuclear terrorism—or at least the ever-present danger of it—will become a fact of life.  If we are not clear that we will go to war to prevent that happening, we may as well fold and stop bothering our friends about economic sanctions. 

Notes & Comments (DW)

FDD's latest Notes & Comments is up on the website. You can see them here.

Hezbollah's Offensive in Lebanon Has Begun (WP)

Published in World Defense Review

According to sources and contacts – as well as statements made in Lebanon over the past few weeks – all analysis indicates that Hezbollah is on the verge of an all out offensive in Lebanon to crumble the "March 14" Seniora Government and to seize strategic control in the country.

Following are few points deserving attention (a more comprehensive analysis will follow later):

1. As predicted since July 12, (and posted on the Counterterrorism Blog), the aim of Hezbollah's summer war with Israel, was to provoke a "strike-back" at the Lebanese Government and reshape the balance of power in Lebanon to the advantage of the Teheran-Damascus axis. Nasrallah and his allies across the sectarian divide aimed at shifting the issue of disarming Hezbollah and militias (according to UNSCR 1559) to crumbling the government, which is supposed to implement this disarming process.

2. By mid-October, Hezbollah and its pro-Syrian allies had begun a political counter offensive aiming at "enlarging" the Seniora cabinet, as a way to paralyzing it further from the inside. The political discussions took longer than anticipated by Hezbollah. Hence, a decision was made in Tehran (and subsequently in Damascus ) to move forward.

Walid Phares on Robert Rabil's new book

The following is the foreword I wrote for the book Syria, the United States, And the War on Terror in the Middle East By Robert Rabil

THE AMERICAN-SYRIAN COLD WAR

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, US-Syrian relations went through different stages and underwent sharply edged changes, in an amazing race between cold but stable relations and rapidly deteriorating ties. The Washington-Damascus web of diplomacy, public policy, and intelligence challenges crossed deserts and jungles: At times, American Foreign policy and Syria’s strategies overlapped, at other times, especially since 9/11, they diverged radically. Since September 2004, the day a US-French sponsored UN Security Council resolution was voted as UNSCR 1559, calling for Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon and the disarming of its local allies in its neighbor, a new cold war started between the two parties: Washington is tightening the pressures on Syria’s Baath, while Damascus is playing its powerful cards on all available battlefields, from Iraq to Lebanon. The questions at hand in 2006 are these: Are we witnessing a renewal of a cold war between a US-led coalition and a Syrian-led axis in the region? How far can the US go in pressuring the Syrian regime and its allies into submitting to a reform in its policies and domestic institutions? And on the other hand, how far can the Syrian regime go in its regional and international involvements, putting itself in the face of US-led policies towards democracy and political change? Which capital will let go of its ongoing agendas and policies first? Is there any chance for a return to the years of accommodations? These and other questions are and will be affecting the present and futures of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, but also America’s foreign policy in the region, let alone the Arab world.

Walid Phares: Al-Muhajir's audiotape: an important salad bowl

On 10 November, the website of the Islamic Renewal Organization, a Saudi dissident group headed by Muhammad al-Mas'ari and based in the United Kingdom, posted several links to a new audio message issued by Shaykh Abu-Hamzah al-Muhajir, AKA Abu-Ayyub al-Masri, leader of Al-Qa'ida Organizations in Iraq.

After listening carefully to the tape, I realized that it is not just about one particular message as it was projected in the international media. Yes indeed, the most striking part was al Muhajir's statements about the results of the midterms elections in the US, and his direct threat against the White House. Without any doubt, to Americans today, this tape falls in the midst of their ongoing political transformations. And on that level, I will (later) provide a special reading of these statements. But the audiotape message included a revealing number of other important Jihadi issues, a real salad bowl. Here are the most salient ones:different concerns have been sawed to each other, with a variety of tones. Moreover, it is easy to realize the initial taping has been edited. His passion would explode mostly when the issues has to do with intra-Jihadist or intra Islamic issues, and his reading is faster when it is about the enemy, the infidels. The speech is a salad bowl from this perspective.

Spy vs. Spy (CM)

Ex-CIA agent (and my fellow ISG advisor) Reuel Marc Gerecht takes a hard look at ex-CIA agent (and ISG principal) Robert Gates.

Key excerpts:

The primary problem in Iraq since May 2003 has not been that Mr. Rumsfeld has been at war with his generals, whose advice he's supposedly refused to listen to. It's been that he and his generals, for sometimes differing reasons, have been in accord. Will Mr. Gates be inclined to reverse the strategy and tactics of Messrs. Rumsfeld and Abizaid? In other words, can he be a general-defying anti-establishmentarian? Mr. Gates's past -- his meteoric rise in the CIA and the National Security Council, his profound loyalty to his bosses, his presidency of the National Eagle Scout Association -- suggests that he doesn't like making waves. …

Mr. Rumsfeld has rightly been criticized for his lack of interest in postwar planning. He brought to this war and to the conflict in Afghanistan, which also isn't going well, a mania for transformational warfare that at its core says you can do more with less.

Mr. Rumsfeld was undoubtedly right, and his Cold War-educated generals were wrong, about the forces necessary to vanquish Saddam's armed forces. But occupying foreign countries and counterinsurgencies, which both demand large numbers of not particularly sophisticated foot soldiers, are cruel to the secretary's transformational creed -- which seems perfectly sensible if America only aspires to blow things up overseas.

Mr. Rumsfeld also brought to our post-9/11 battlefields a particularly conservative notion that nanny-state welfare-ism is bad for people, and that America's occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, if it were to be protracted or profound, would keep both countries from growing up. When applied to Iraq, however, with its enormous potential for sectarian rage, where U.S. military power was essential to keeping order and the thickly intertwined but stressed bonds between the Shiite and Sunni Arab communities intact, this attitude helped produce the conflagration now destroying the country. …

It is a relief to see that Mr. Gates isn't, so far as the public record shows, enamored of the idea that America's ground forces need to be shrunk and "transformed." If Mr. Gates is defined by service to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush -- who never gave up on the idea that the U.S. needed to have sufficient ground, naval and air forces to fight two wars simultaneously -- we can only hope that he'll urge the president to reverse Mr. Rumsfeld's less-is-more doctrine, which could not even handle the insurgency of Iraq's minority, revanchist Sunni community when it was small-scale and the Shia hadn't yet gone on a vengeful warpath. …

As will soon be apparent, the Iraq Survey Group, of which Mr. Gates is a member and to which I'm an adviser, has not discovered any way for the U.S. to exit Iraq -- except under catastrophic conditions. Its recommendations will probably be the least helpful of all the blue-ribbon commissions in Washington since World War II because it cannot escape from an unavoidable reality: We either declare defeat and withdraw completely tout de suite, or we surge troops into Baghdad and fight. The ISG will surely try to find some middle ground between these positions, which, of course, doesn't exist.

If one works through the different scenarios, they all return quickly to a Rumsfeldian position that the U.S. needs to do more in Iraq with less -- a position that has been proven flatly wrong since the spring of 2003. This is why Washington has not been able to draw down even though the president, his defense secretary and his generals have dearly wanted to do so. Any meaningful reduction of U.S. forces is very likely to collapse the Iraqi Army into Shiite and Sunni militias and bring on massive carnage, the likes of which the Middle East has not seen since the Iran-Iraq War. If Mr. Gates signs off on the ISG's recommendations, which will probably be completed before he assumes office, he will be party to a doomed strategy -- and everyone in Washington and abroad will recognize it as a failure as soon as they start to work through it -- before he even sets foot in the Pentagon. It may not be easy for Mr. Gates to recover from this initial flop.

Walid Phares: Most Americans voted on Iraq without hearing Iraqi voices

Baghdad, Prague, Radio Free Iraq; November 9, 2006;

In an interview with the Free Iraq Radio, FDD Senior Fellow Dr Walid Phares: "Obviously with the loss of Congress by the Administration, the only possible future will be discussions and negotiations between the two sides on all main issues. This won't be the first time in American modern history when different parties controlled different branches of Government. There will be many areas of agreements and also other areas of difference between the two sides. However, what most experts believe is that this Congress will play a greater role in the preparation for the Presidential elections of 2008." Addressing the impact of the Iraq issue on these elections, Phares added: "Let's be clear: the voice of Iraqi intellectuals and academics was not heard in the debate that preceded elections. Millions of US citizens voted on Iraq but without hearing the voice of Iraqis. And that will certainly affect future policies on Iraq. (...) There will be pressures applied on the Administration by Congress and on Congress by many political factions and lobbies to withdraw from Iraq faster, and in some cases voices will call for immediate pull out. But, in view of the new balance of power I don't think there will be an immediate abandonment. But the politicians of Iraq must put their utmost efforts to work with this US Congress and convince its new majority of the importance of US support to the new democracy. This is a matter Iraqis leaders haven't been successful with in the past couple years. If the latter are concerned about the return of totalitarianism to Iraq they need to work hard with the new US Congress and have their voices heard among Americans. It is not a secret that there are plans today that are different from before and may not be in the interest of pluralism and democracy in Iraq. Asked about the ideas of former secretary of state James Baker, Phares said "there are many voices in the US and Europe supporting negotiations with the radicals, including Iran and Syria. Iraqi politicians who are supportive of democracy and freedom must be attentive to this reality. If the Iraqi democratic movement has no voice in DC, some pragmatic (but not necessarily attractive suggestions) may well convince Congress and the Administration as a new policy in Iraq. After the last elections in the US, no one can influence the process better than the Iraqis themselves." Listen to the interview in Arabic here Radio Iraq

Rumsfeld's Shadow

An editorial in today's Wall Street Journal has this to say about Rumsfeld:

When the history of this era is written, Mr. Rumsfeld is likely to fare much better than his many critics assert. The secretary has been a convenient political foil -- for Democrats, for generals who didn't like the way he exercised civilian control at the Pentagon, and especially for erstwhile war supporters who wanted to blame the Iraqi insurgency on some individual rather than on the inevitable complications and setbacks of any war.

Everyone now takes for granted the ease with which U.S. forces ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan, so it's worth recalling the many predictions at the time of Soviet-style "quagmire." There was also the speed with which Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, in part because Mr. Rumsfeld's insistence of a light-and-fast strategy prevented what might have been a protracted siege of Baghdad. The military historian John Keegan has called this campaign "the farthest advance at speed over distance ever recorded" in a military operation, and at the time it saved thousands of lives.

Mr. Rumsfeld was also a strong leader inside the Pentagon, insisting that the Armed Services learn to operate jointly, and taking on service chiefs over outmoded ideas and weapons systems. For years American editorialists screamed about Pentagon pork, only to criticize Mr. Rumsfeld for alienating some Army generals when he actually did something about it.

My thoughts exactly.  For me perhaps the best precedent for Rumsfeld is Dean Acheson, Truman's Secretary of State, who was particularly widely hated in his own time.  Interestingly, many of the criticisms of him that were common then collapse on close scrutiny.  For example, he was blamed for supposedly giving North Korea a green light to attack the South by not mentioning South Korea explicitly in his January 1950 "defensive perimeter" speech.  But what really seems to have impressed Kim Il-Sung and the Soviets was the recklessly rapid demobilization of U.S. forces after World War II--showcased by a noisy isolationist backlash in Congress. 

Today, of course, Acheson is widely admired as one of the architects of the Cold War global security structure, just as Rumsfeld will one day be admired as one of the architects of the post-Cold War global security structure.  It was the purpose of transformation to lay down a crucial part of the foundation for that security structure, and his achievements will long survive him. 

The main point, as I write in today's National Review Online Symposium on Rumsfeld, is that what history thinks of people is rarely what was thought of them in their own time.  Whether you think Rumsfeld was good or bad, he will certainly go down as a gigantic figure in American history, on a par with Dean Acheson and Henry Kissinger.  Whatever history has to say about him, it will have lots to say. 

What to do about the UN (AV)

FDD Journalist-in-Residence Claudia Rosett, who has been intrepid in her reporting on corruption at the UN, offers some shrewd commentary on efforts to reform the UN.

Read the full post.

The Future with Democrats

The biggest news of the waning months of this year is the national rout of Republicans, the victory of the Democrats, and the political change about to take place in Washington - -larger in import even than the dismissal of Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense and the hiring of the former CIA Director Bob Gates, a Bush family friend and former career intelligence analyst, to take Rumsfeld’s place at DOD.

U.S. Elections (CM)

What happened on Election Day? It boils down to this:

The Democrats said: “Had enough?”

The Republicans said: “It could be worse!”

The voters said: “Let’s find out.”

Over at the U.N. Republican losses were evidently celebrated (with American tax dollars) and of course Ahmadinejad and his friends must be very pleased. A few days ago, Hassan Nasrallah told Al-Jazeera audiences (translation courtesy of MEMRI):

The Americans will gather their belongings and leave this region - the entire region. They have no future whatsoever in our region. They will leave the Middle East, and the Arab and Islamic worlds, like they left Vietnam. I advise all those who place their trust in the Americans to learn the lesson of Vietnam, and to learn the lesson of the South Lebanese Army with the Israelis, and to know that when the Americans lose this war — and lose it they will, Allah willing — they will abandon them to their fate, just like they did to all those who placed their trust in them throughout history.

One more thing: This election was not all about Iraq, as some observers, at home and abroad appear to believe. Yes, there is enormous frustration across the political spectrum over faulty intelligence, flawed military strategies and tactics, the absence of meaningful metrics, the continuing failure to wage either an effective counter-insurgency or an effective “war of ideas.”

But voters have not sent a message that they want the U.S. to surrender to Saddam loyalists, al-Qaeda terrorists and other assorted thugs. How do we know? By one of the few bright spots last night: Joe Lieberman’s crushing defeat of the left-wing-blogger favorite Ned Lamont.

I would suggest that before too many hours roll by, President Bush should call Lieberman, congratulate him, and tell him that he looks forward to working with him and other Democrats (e.g. Representatives Steny Hoyer and Jim Marshall) who understand what’s at stake in Iraq and in the broader war against Militant Islamism.

Future Terrorism: Mutant Jihads (WP)

The Journal of International Security Affairs, Fall 2006

The Fall 2006 issue of the Journal of International Security Affairs published my article "Future Terrorism: Mutant Jihads." In this piece I attempted to provide a global assessment of the Jihadi threat five years after September 11, 2001. Following are the short introductory paragraphs:

The strategic decision to carry out 9/11 was made in the early 1990s, almost ten years before the barbaric attacks on New York and Washington took place. The decade-long preparations and the testing of America’s defenses and political tolerance to terrorism that took place before September 11th—were a stage in the much longer modern history of the jihadist movement that produced al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers.
Decades from now, historians will discover that the United States, the West and the international community were being targeted by a global ideological movement which emerged in the 1920s, survived World War II and the Cold War, and carefully chose the timing of its onslaught against democracy. Undoubtedly, the issue that policy planners and government leaders need to address with greatest urgency, and which the American public is most concerned about, is the future shape of the terrorist threat facing the United States and its allies. Yet developments since 2001, both at home and overseas, have shown that terror threats in general—and the jihadi menace in particular— remain at the same time resilient and poorly understood.

Global Terrorism Monitor

12 years ago, Argentina was rocked by the worst terrorist attack in that nation's history.  85 people were killed and more than 200 were injured when a suicide truck bombing struck a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires.  Experts have long contended that Hezbollah and Iran were behind the attack, but until now, there has been no serious attempt to go after the Iranian officials that masterminded the attack.

That changed this week when Argentinian prosecutors held a news conference to announce that a multi-year investigation had found Iranian officials directly responsible for the attack and that they would seek the arrest and trial of top Iranian officials, including former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

This story, and many others, are covered in the latest Global Terrorism Monitor.

Somalia's Radical Muslims

I’ve written about Somalia off and on again over the past year, convinced as I am that one of the world’s imminent battlefields in the war on terror will prove to be in the lawless Horn of Africa.

Somalia’s radical Muslims have begun recruiting thousands of young extremists to wage “Jihad” through terrorism against Ethiopia, according to a Reuter’s story from Mogadishu.

One day after claiming to have captured a ranking Ethiopian Army officer in a bloody battle an Islamist spokesman said at least 3,000 men (and some women) had enlisted for “Holy War” with Ethiopia as their target, prompted by anger, they claim, over Ethiopian soldiers who have entered Somalia.

What is Missing in the US Debate is a Free Iraqi Voice (WP)

In my interview with Radio Free Iraq I said that: "Iraq has significant influence on US elections." After the US sent 120,000 military to deploy Iraq for years, and after the thousands of losses and spending billions of dollars; after bringing down Saddam Hussein and opening the path for the Iraqi people to develop pluralism and democracy in a region dominated by authoritarianism, the American people will be asking their Government: what has been achieved?