• Pakistan Planning to Push into Tribal Areas
• Conflicting Views of the Utility of More Troops in Afghanistan
• Afghan Opium Sector Makes Gains

• Bush Administration May Leave Al Qaeda Entrenched
• Terrorism Becomes Routine in India
• Concerns that Funding for DHS is Leaving Others Short
• Jihadist Training Camps in Pakistan

• UK Planning Withdrawal from Iraq
• Mullah Rahim Surrenders, Abdul Rasaq Killed
• George H.W. Bush and Former Advisers Warn Against Threats to Iran

• In Jordan, Construction as Anti-Extremism
• Shifting Policy Toward ‘Axis of Evil’
• Buses Bombed in China
• Limited Food, Water Forcing Tough Choices in the Middle East, North Africa
• ETA Bombing in Spain
  
• UK Can No Longer Rely on US Assurances on Torture, Panel Reports

From the NYT: Comment Stings Iraqi Leader on Eve of Obama Visit

This is the second time that the Bush Administration has pressured the Iraqis to “clarify” what seems to be a pretty clear sentiment.  They want us to set a timetable for withdrawal, a timetable that looks an awful lot like that which is being proposed by Senator Obama.  Once the Iraqis made their views clear, the matter ought to have been settled, but the Bush Administration does not seem to want to accept it.  Why?

The strategic argument is flawed.  At this point, there is nothing more to achieve militarily.  The Iraqi military is not a particularly effective force, but it is certainly capable enough to deal with the residual threat posed by the remains of al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent groups.  The Iraqi army is not capable, however, of disarming all the large sectarian militias.  But that is a political task and not a military one, and it is in any case not a task that the United States ought to assist in.  There is no benefit for the United States in being a kingmaker among domestic Iraqi factions.  If we aspire to any  role in Iraqi politics, it should be as an honest broker.  But the honest broker role is not a military one and does not require military force.

The safety of the troops argument is flawed.  Some worry that withdrawing American forces too rapidly will threaten the safety of American troops.  It is true that in military operations, redeployments are particularly risky times.  But those are cases where there is an opposing force ready to take advantage of it.  At this point, our forces are not taking casualties due to the concerted efforts of enemy army, they are taking casualties from opportunistic attacks on roads and mortar attacks on fixed facilities.  Our casualties in Iraq are now purely a function of time spend on the ground.  The longer we stay, the more casualties, the faster we get out, the fewer.  This does not mean by itself that we ought to leave faster of course, but it does suggest that there is no good troop-safety argument for an even slower withdrawal than in being currently proposed.

Ultimately, the case for not setting a timetable has to do with the end goal.  The Administration and its allies believe that a long-term American presence in Iraq would stabilize the region and help contain Iranian influence.  They don’t want a timetable because they don’t want to leave.  Ever.  That is a naive position, as it is both politically untenable and strategically vacant.  And yet, it is, in fact, the current policy of the United States.

• EPA Warns Warming a Threat to Human Health in Coming Decades
• Websites Attracting New Al Qaeda Recruits
• Pentagon Expects New GI Bill to Help Recruit Numbers
• American Diplomatic Post in Iran Under Consideration

• Gates Warns Against Increasing Militarization of US Foreign Policy
• Congressional Investigators Report Homeland Protection Programs In Disarray
• US Sends Envoy to Talks with Iran

• Guantanamo Video Released
• Enemy Combatant Can Challenge Designation, Court Decides
• 300 Militants from Various  Terrorist Organizations  Meet in Pakistan

• Taliban Benefits from Control of Quarry in Pakistan
• Commentary: Education, Not Aggression, Makes Inroads Against Extremism
• Commentary: The Misunderstood, Overstate Jihadist Threat

There was an interesting op-ed in the Washington Post this weekend (Overstating Our Fears) by a retired CIA officer with many years of experience working on transnational threat. The author, Glenn L. Carle, essentially argued against overstating the threat. He argues,

We do not face a global jihadist “movement” but a series of disparate ethnic and religious conflicts involving Muslim populations, each of which remains fundamentally regional in nature and almost all of which long predate the existence of al-Qaeda.

and

Al-Qaeda remains capable of striking here and is plotting from its redoubt in Waziristan, Pakistan. The organization, however, has only a handful of individuals capable of planning, organizing and leading a terrorist operation. Al-Qaeda threatens to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, but its capabilities are far inferior to its desires. Even the “loose nuke” threat, whose consequences would be horrific, has a very low probability.

and finally

No other Islamic-based terrorist organization, from Mindanao to the Bekaa Valley to the Sahel, targets the U.S. homeland, is part of a “global jihadist movement” or has more than passing contact with al-Qaeda.

Okay.  Let’s disentangle some of this.

First of all, it is absolutely true that we do not face a unified enemy with a clear command and control structure and a definable order of battle.  There are furthermore, few, if any places in the world where jihadists are likely to overthrow an existing government and establish a jihadist terrorist state.  There is no chance of a new caliphate being established, and the notion that the United States might someday be defeated and forced to live under sharia law is laughable.  It is important to make these points at some level because unfortunately they are common arguments in some parts of the Conservative blogosphere and talk-radio community.

Second, what makes AQ and some other groups a threat is not their unity, but their disaggregated capacity.  Certainly, a loose nuke scenario has a very low probability of occurring, but what was the probability of highjackers seizing four aircraft simultaneously and crashing them into buildings in Washington and New York?  That was a low probability as well.  It was also a relatively low cost operation.  There are many, many groups around the world that could today launch attacks on the scale of the Madrid or London bombings, and certainly some that might aspire to 9/11-like events.  The threat is not monolithic, but it is not necessarily less significant for its diversity.  There is a nearly endless supply of would be “martyrs” and ultimately probability is not a shield against groups that are perfectly willing to pay the price of failure in pursuit of their goals.

Third, the fact that many groups that are loosely affiliated with the “global jihadist movement” predate AQ and are based on local grievances is a cause of concern, not of source of comfort.  It suggests that the roots of this violence are deep and likely to persist for an extended period of time.   The fact that groups all around the world with little or no overlap in membership, limited contact, and dramatically different motivations all find some common cause in supporting and plotting violent attacks against the United States or our interests abroad is precisely the most frightening aspect of the threat.

I am sympathetic to the author’s concerns about using the “war on terror” as a key strategic construct, but unfortunately, this is very much a good news/bad news situation.  Each element that demonstrates how the threat has been overstated in some ways illuminates a key element of the threat’s ultimate durability.