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Foreign Policy Articles
On November 25, 2001,
a prison uprising outside the Northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif left
approximately 400 Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters dead, under what some
have termed questionable circumstances. As Israel's war on
terrorism drags on, officials in Jerusalem are increasingly worried that
the country will be unable to finance its ongoing military campaign. The
Palestinian insurrection, now in its 20th month, has cost Israel dearly.
Industrial production has fallen, exports have declined, and tourist revenue,
a major source of income for the country, has all but evaporated. Israel's
once vibrant economy is now in the doldrums, adding yet another layer
of concern onto what is already a volatile situation. "On the day that
United Airlines flight 175 and American Airlines flight 11 lifted off
from Boston’s Logan airport, bound for a fiery collision with the
twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, a lone observer watched
from below. That observer was the U.S.S. Constitution, the oldest commissioned
ship in the U.S. Navy and an early witness to the ravages of Middle Eastern
terrorism. When he is not fulminating
over the latest Palestinian terrorist attack against Israeli citizens,
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon must find more than a little irony in the
dilemma now facing the United States in Afghanistan. With Taliban and
al-Qaeda forces on the run, Washington confronts a difficult question:
What should be done with the leaders of these two defeated terrorist organizations
and the thousands of fighters under their command? It is rare for nations to learn from their mistakes. When they do, it can be an ennobling experience, a hopeful sign that perhaps history and experience, after all, have some important lessons to teach. And so it was on November 19 when Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held his regular press briefing. During one exchange with correspondents, Rumsfeld was asked to comment on reports that Taliban troops and al-Qaida terrorists holed up in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz had offered to surrender to northern alliance forces. As a condition of their surrender they asked for safe passage to a third country. Rumsfeld responded,
“The idea of their getting out of the country and going off to make
their mischief somewhere else is not a happy prospect… Any idea that
those people…should end up in some type of negotiation that would
allow them to leave the country and go off and destabilize other countries
and engage in terrorist attacks on the United States is something I would
certainly do everything I could to prevent.” Bravo. Finally, it appears,
the US has learned a lesson lost on so many earlier generations of diplomats.
Showing mercy to a terrorist enemy, bruised but not beaten, is a sure
guarantee he will be back, only next time with a vengeance. With each passing
day, the political landscape across the globe looks increasingly like
August 1914. Then, it took only the assassination of an Austrian archduke
by a Bosnian-Serb nationalist to ignite the First World War. The second
decade of the century was a time of fear and deep suspicion, of secret
alliances and dark conspiracies. Militarism was on the rise and great-power
rivalries dominated world politics. For a young, naïve generation
the promise of modernity was about to collide with the forces of an older,
more-sinister world. It would be a costly fight. Eighty years later, another
assassin is on the prowl. This time he's an Islamic fundamentalist with
dreams of a Middle East free of Western influence. His goal is nothing
less than a resurgent Muslim civilization and a new world order that no
longer includes the United States at its helm Holding nations accountable
for their actions in this war is the only way we can begin to control
the threat. Demanding less of countries simply because it may be politically
comfortable only will prolong the fight and cast doubt on its ultimate
success. This is not a risk-free conflict. The United States is right
to expect all those it helps to bear some of the burden. During the Persian
Gulf War the United States collected about $65 billion from its allies
to pay for the war. Today it is Washington that is footing the bill "A reconciliation,
it seems, is impossible between East and West until the Muslim world comes
to terms with its own past; it must recognize that what it finds so dishonorable
in Western society it also should find dishonorable in its own tradition.
This is a tall order, one not likely fulfilled with a few days of bombing.." "The goal of
America's leaders should be to ferret out the planners, the inspirational
leaders, and the complete support system upon which terrorists depend.
Beyond closing training camps and seizing property, the U.S. must threaten
tribal leaders, humiliate clan chieftains, target clerics who preach violence,
disrupt the dissemination of hateful literature, and punish businessmen
who channel funds to terrorists or establish companies behind which they
operate." "Putin's offer
of assistance is Russia's fig leaf, a way to appear helpful at a time
when the Kremlin is looking for more Western aid to prop up its failing
economy. The global recession has cut hard into the already low Russian
standard of living. When the dust settles, Putin does not want Russia's
opponents in the U.S. to say he was completely unhelpful." "If you want
to fight a group as elusive as bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization, you
need a force as nimble and flexible as it is hard to detect - military
units that can subsist off the land, survive on what they carry, observe
by day and hunt by night. These were the stealth tactics employed so effectively
by Britain's former Gurkha regiments as recently as the Falklands campaign." "If politics
makes for strange bedfellows, then the specterof the United States aligned
with some of the world's most nortorious terrorist states is an oddity
indeed. What has occasioned this bizarre association is the Bush administration's
desire to build a global coalition against terrorism, one that includes
countries with a long and nefarious history of hostility, even violence,
toward the United States?" "With no apparent
threat to its territorial integrity, Cairo seems poised for war. Its political
and military leaders had said repeatedly they would not stand idly by
if Israel mounted sustained operations inside Palestinian-controlled territories.
This, despite a 2-year peace treaty with Israel, and a pledge to resolve
all bilateral disputes non-violently." "Something is
amiss in U.S.-Israel relations. Its origins appear to stretch back to
Oct. 12, 2000, and the terrorist bombing of the U.S.S. Cole as it sat
anchored in Aden harbor. From that day to the present, no vessel of the
U.S. Sixth Fleet reportedly has made a port visit to Haifa, the U.S. Navy's
principal repair and resupply station in the Eastern Mediterranean." "One powerful
suggestion is for the United states to extend to Israel a package of military
loan guarantees in the amount of $10 billion to $20 billion. The guarantees
would be provided in a fashion similar to the manner in which Israel received
$10 billion in humanitarian loan guarantees a decade ago to help cover
the cost of resettling refugees from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia.
It is an idea of proven success, conveying mutual benefit to both parties."
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