An Alternative Strategy for the War on Terrorism · 3.2.2. Some dominos ... page 8 Further, the...

AN ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY FOR THE WAR ON TERRORISM

LAURENT MURAWIEC

December 11, 2002

An Alternative Strategy for the War on Terrorism

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Table of Contents

1. WHAT ARE WE AT WAR WITH?............................................................................................... 3

1.1. THE ARAB CRISIS ................................................................................................................... 4 1.2. TODAY’S WAR ...................................................................................................................... 19 1.3. TERRORISM: THE SUPER-PROXY ............................................................................................ 21

2. WHAT IS TO BE DONE?.......................................................................................................... 27

2.1. THE GEOSTRATEGICS OF THE WAR......................................................................................... 28 2.2. CONCEPTUAL MAPPING ......................................................................................................... 36 2.3. CULTURAL MAPPING.............................................................................................................. 46

3. A ROADMAP........................................................................................................................ 53

3.1. GRAND STRATEGY................................................................................................................ 53 3.2. WAR STRATEGY................................................................................................................... 56

3.2.1. Iraq: bring down the “Republic of Fear” ...................................................................... 57 3.2.2. Some dominos ............................................................................................................ 59 3.2.3. Not in a vacuum: political warfare............................................................................... 63 3.2.4. Other Arab countries................................................................................................... 68

Taking Saudi out of Arabia ............................................................................................... 68 The Palestinians ............................................................................................................... 73 The frightening case of Egypt........................................................................................... 74

4. CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................... 76


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1. WHAT ARE WE AT WAR WITH?

How interesting that in the present war we should have to raise the question of

our opponent’s identity! This indicates that this first “postmodern” war is unlike

the wars in our experience and memory. While it borrows from past wars and ef-

forts, it is a war sui generis.

War is like a duel, writes Clausewitz: it can be boiled down to the confrontation of

two opponents. We know ourselves – but, do we know our enemy? In war, strat-

egy depends on the enemy: his nature, his situation, his capabilities, his strategic

intent. What are his strengths, his weaknesses? What are ours?

Who is our enemy? Terror groups, rogue states, or some nebulous, unfathom-

able maze of evil men? Dubbed a “war on terrorism,” what makes it special is

that our foe is a composite rather than a well-defined, well-circumscribed entity.

What has been called an Axis of Evil is itself a composite: it is a complex, shifting

coalition, a cluster of dissimilar forces and entities whose motivations and actions

vary. Our strategy must start from the nature and modus operandi. of the com-

posite, not from the name that it goes by, or from a type of actions it has carried

out.


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It may be convenient to designate it with a highly-charged label, but the name of

“terrorism” defines neither the real enemy nor the war. “Terrorism” is a technique,

it is neither an ideology nor a program. If the “Axis of Evil” uses terrorism, it can

by no stretch of imagination be defined as terrorism.

Who is it, or what is it, that waged war against the United States? To what ends?

1.1. THE ARAB CRISIS

The short answer is: while al-Qaeda fired an opening salvo, this war at a deeper

level is an expression of a historic, systemic crisis that has gripped the Arab-

Moslem world. Today’s Arab elites, oblivious to the self-made, home-grown na-

ture of their own crisis, believe that they must suppress what they believe has

caused their great distress. Modernity, which subverts Islam and lays bare its

weakness, is identified as the cause of the distress. Since modernity is Western,

the lead Western nation, the United States, is identified as the chief carrier of the

trouble. It is therefore singled out as the enemy. If the pain is to end, the U.S.

must be destroyed, or minimally cut down to size. In that sense, the Arab-

Moslem world’s crisis is being exported out of its original breeding ground, the

Middle East.


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There is a context: the present configuration of the Middle East is the product of

the decomposition of the Ottoman Empire and the post-1918 recasting of the

former imperial, protectorate and mandatory areas. To replace Pax Ottomanica,

the British and the other, lesser players redrew the map of the region. Out of the

old Ottoman vilayet, the new Pax Ottomanica created new entities: a “Lebanon,”

a “Syria,” and “Iraq,” a “mandatory Palestine,” a “Transjordan” and so on. They

were carved out and stitched together from existing ethnic, tribal, clanic, regional

or administrative entities. When Anwar Sadat’s confidante Taher Mohsin stated

that “in the Middle East, there are no nation-states, only tribes disguised with

flags,” he was inclusively commenting on this arrangement, which fitted, or misfit-

ted, traditional tribal formations and Ottoman administrative units into makeshift

States.

It is an often-repeated mistake to believe that a Pax Americana of any form or

description was substituted after 1945 for the retreating European imperial and

mandatory powers. Whatever influence it gained, the United States inherited but

did not alter the fundamental design of the region: as a powerful external he-

gemon, it inherited the map, the design, the entities that are the operative units of

the design; it inherited the overall geostrategic situation, with its dilemmas and its

pitfalls. All of it fell onto the lap of the rising power. Contrary to Europe which the

U.S. reshaped – through NATO and through its support for European efforts to

unify – and to Asia – which the U.S. largely remolded by its reshaping of Japan,

its presence in South Korea and its protection of Taiwan, etc. - the U.S. just “fell


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into” the Middle East. Securing oil and keeping it out of Soviet reach were the

first, initial drivers of policy. But in no way may it be said that the region was un-

der a Pax Americana, or that it has ever been.

As a result, the deeply-flawed design of the Pax Ottomanica (a design appropri-

ate to a stagnant, archaic, pre-industrial and agrarian-based empire, but unable

to face the challenges of the modern era, the realities of the industrial revolution)

provided the framework within which all the players, native to the region or exter-

nal, were compelled to play. The framework itself has strongly determined or

predetermined much of the action taken by the players. Typically, the local elites

mobilized large masses of the populace on behalf of the independence struggle.

This struggle was placed under the auspices of gaining “national” independence,

while the motivations of the participants leaned far more toward an Islamic rejec-

tion of Christian powers’ domination. Thus, impulses that were ab initio at odds

with each other tended to define the different entities that were born out of the

independence struggles. Respectful of borders delineated by Western powers,

they became separate national entities while the motif underlying their emer-

gence was that of the Umma, the community of the Arabs and the Moslems. In

turn, the Umma was perceived either as a ‘Socialist’ and secular one (Nasserism,

Baathism, etc.) or a religious one (Wahhabi). Not unexpectedly, the result was

dysfunctional.


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After decades of unending domestic strife and equally unending external instabil-

ity, the dysfunctional framework is now fraying at the seams, as are the dysfunc-

tional entities it is made out of. It negatively constrains the region. It impels many

players into insensate actions and modes of operation. The fitting, or misfitting, of

ethnic, tribal and religious entities and sub-entities, into supposed nation-states

has infallibly resulted in the brutal appropriation of each by a sect or a clan which

ruthlessly protects its new property from real, potential or imagined challengers.

The winner-takes-all-nature of political power in each and all is what makes them

go wrong. Instead of an imperial power able to arbitrate between the competing

claims of rival ethno-religious groups, monopolistic predators, unregulated, cha-

otic warfare pitting all against all.

Absent exceptional factors, this without fail dictates disastrous course of actions.

Since 1945, the Middle East as a whole has had little else to show but wars and

civil wars, despotic government and internal strife. The region as a whole has

been as swallowed by a maelstrom: this alone indicates that the design is faulty.

The faulty design has contributed in generating an uncontrolled crisis. The rea-

son the design is faulty is not particularly that Mr. Sykes and Monsieur Picot drew

the wrong lines at the wrong places, though. No redrawing of the map per se will

be able to solve or improve anything. The entities conjured up in the aftermath of

World War I are, most of them, inherently incapable of advancing anything else

but despotic, predatory, tribal governance.


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Further, the conflicts and contradictions inherent in the design have been multi-

plied by the inability of most of the region’s governments and elites to carry out

constructive domestic policies, not to mention their external action.

Given the proper environment, polities that by and large are organized with a

view to fostering prosperity and regulated governance tend to generate wealth

and stability. The Arab states as they were constituted and as they operated dur-

ing the more than a half a century that has elapsed since independence, fostered

neither and resulted in neither. In turn, the acute lack of prosperity has under-

mined the very foundations of any form of domestic stability – to the point that

population growth not only outstripped but overwhelmed the resources devoted

to economic growth. In perverse feedback loop, this aggravated domestic insta-

bility has worsened inter-state relations: the regional environment bristles with

counter-incentives.

For nations and peoples in the region the oil manna, far from being a blessing,

has proven to be a curse. It has ruined traditional social and mental structures,

hierarchies of values and of rank. The old mores have been overwhelmed. They

have not been replaced by stable practices, by self-sustaining institutions or by

reliable sources of identity and loyalty. To maintain viability, the new mores re-

quire continued inflows of huge amounts of petroleum cash; they operate like an

addiction. The relative drying up of the cash flow due to immense squandering of


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resources and lower relative oil prices has sharpened internal tensions in the oil-

producing countries. The result is not unlike the shattering disruption of the feu-

dal world mores of Medieval Europe by the rise of monetary values and the

bourgeoisie. The difference is that here the process came from the outside, not

from the inside, and rather than being stretched over centuries it was com-

pressed within people’s own lifetime: the greater the shock.

Out of that came an acute degree of anomie, the loss of essential bearings by

large segments of society. Established forces and institutions lost their ability to

hold people’s loyalty and offer them a sense of identity. On the loose, former al-

legiances that anchored loyalties released powerful emotional forces: this always

defines pre-revolutionary situations. This is, as it were, the demand-side of the

political process. Once this kind of ferment bubbles up to the surface, nations

may be impelled into widely diverging pathways. What is on offer is the supply-

side: the suddenly-released bundled-up energies will then take shape in the form

of religious, social or political movements and take different roads, reform, civil

war, or aggression toward the outside world. The latter two have been heavily

favored in the region.

Such being the internal drivers of trouble, let us examine how they translate on

the international scene.


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After independence, the Arab countries acquired a disproportionate influence on

the world stage, especially Saudia, Egypt, Iraq and Syria. Their newly-gained

weight was not owed to what usually constitutes major factors of international

strength, population, productive powers or military prowess.

(1) The wealth accruing from petroleum was the first cause of their new

specific weight in the international arena, and their ensuing margin for ac-

tion. It was wholly artificial: foreign demand for a commodity that was ex-

tracted by foreign companies solely through their efforts, investment and

technology, in order to power foreign countries’ industrial demand. This

was a first form of strength-through-rent for Arab countries.

(2) A second cause was the Cold War. Both rival blocs were courting the

Arabs, if only to prevent the opponent from grabbing them. From the con-

tenders the Arabs drew a strategic “rent”, which magnified their apparent

power, and yielded dividends in the form of aid, armaments, technological

support, etc. This boosted their diplomatic clout in turn (like in pre-Islamic

times when the Byzantine and the Sassanid empires were vying for the al-

legiance of the petty Arab kingdoms that inhabited the space between the

rivals).

A nadir in foreign policy, the Suez affair of 1956 displayed the way the

“strategic rent” accrues. The Eisenhower Administration bailed out Gamal


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Abdel Nasser from the consequences of his own follies, only to be spat

upon by the ingrate who intensified his love story with “non-alignment” and

the latter’s Soviet Godfather. The lurid demonstration had been adminis-

tered that the act of balance between the two blocs could yield handsome

dividends from both. The ensuing Eisenhower Doctrine only enshrined the

misguided U.S. policy and confirmed the region in its belief in American

gullibility: a powerful, dangerous, but pusillanimous giant.

The parvenu regimes generally veered toward the Soviet Union – Nas-

ser’s Egypt, Baathist Syria and Iraq, Qaddafis’ Libya, the Sudan, Yemen,

Algeria – they all owed their existence to some degree of mass mobiliza-

tion - whereas established regimes – the monarchies – retained partner-

ships with Western countries, notably view a view to preserve themselves

from the predatory instincts and practices of their radical neighbors. The

usurpers needed added legitimacy which “socialism,” the might and pres-

tige of the Soviet bloc. Embracing Soviet-style Socialism in the guise of

“Arab Socialism,” meant that there existed a form of modernity that was

not rooted in Western culture. In fact the Soviet pseudo-modernity many

Arabs eagerly emulated was positively anti-Western: one could adopt it

without a break with one’s own traditional identity, in the same way as

German National-Socialism and Italian Fascism were espoused by radi-

calized Arabs, starting with Baath founder and ideologue Michel Aflaq.


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The Soviet-style caricature of modernity embraced by the Arab world al-

lowed it to project to itself and the world a spurious image of modernity

which allowed the Arab polity to retain its essential traits – despotic,

predatory, tribalist – while handing out to them the new administrative and

ideological techniques of regimentation and mobilization of the populace

and intrusion into wider and wider walks of life1.

The point has been made repeatedly by Prof. Bernard Lewis: after making

a strategic living out of playing the various European imperialists against

one another - the French against the British and the Americans against

the Russians - the Arab countries have been facing a novel situation.

There is only one superpower unrivalled: try as they may, the EU is in no

situation to match the U.S.: there is no playing two Barbarians against one

another, to use a Chinese image, or two infidels.

But the striking fact remains: Since the fall of the Omeyyad Caliphate in

the 8th century, and the successful power grab of the Turkic mercenary

troops in the 10th century AD, and their takeover of the Abbasid Caliphate,

the “Persian” Caliphate, the region – the Arabs writ large - has never gov-

erned itself indigenously. An external hegemon has always been needed

to hold sway and stem the anarchy endemic to fractious Arab tribes, even 1 The Arab world knew simple, traditional despotism, one bounded by limited administrative and technological capabilities on the part of rulers: hence a relatively stable social contract based on well-known and accepted rules.


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before the modern era: Romans and Persians, Byzantines and Persians,

and, after Islam’s conquests, the Turks, the Mongols, the Europeans –

there ever were non-Arab overlords. Left to their own restless devices, the

locals collapse in internecine wars. Even regimes intrinsically remote from

the Socialist shibboleths used the rhetoric and leveraged it, the Shah of

Iran, the Emir of Kuwait, the Saudi king and his retinue, were all heard

mouthing anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist slogans with the greatest elo-

quence and sincerity.

The strategic weight of the oil-based Arab world came within the context of

the liquidation of the European empires. As Britain and France pulled out

of the region, they were not effectively replaced by the United States,

which relied on the Shah’s Persia and Saudi Arabia to guard the Gulf, and

Egypt to stabilize the rest. The “Afro-Arab Bloc” at the UN., the Soviet-

allied “spirit “ enshrined at Bandoeng, Habana and other places, neutral-

ism, Third-Worldism, intimidated a guilt-ridden West increasingly unsure of

its own legitimacy. Conversely, the Arab world acquired after 1956 the cer-

tainty that it was untouchable: it was protected by the looming presence of

the Soviet Union. Proof came abundant, no matter what insult and what in-

jury were inflicted upon the West. The same scenario unfolded with the

absolute impunity with which the West greeted acts of terrorism committed

against it since the early 70s in particular.


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The strategic weight of nations is not based on purely objective factors.

Fishes and birds, animals in general display bright and frightening colors,

outsize membranes and make-believe weapon-like parts of themselves to

awe their predators and keep them at bay. The protective device works,

as long, but only as long, as the hunter believes in what he thinks he sees.

This can switch from strength to vulnerability on two accounts: first, the

Arab world has come to believe in the distorted image of itself they could

behold in the mirror of international affairs (and the obsequiousness of

much of the West). Second, the make-believe image is liable to fracture in

case of great crisis – as after 9/11. If instead of the aggrandized version of

the Arab world, we input in our strategic calculus a properly downsized

image, its supposed strength is likewise deflated – without its erstwhile

beneficiaries necessarily perceiving it, which increases in turn the danger

of miscalculation.

(3) The Arab countries’ third strategic asset was a skillful, direct or indirect,

use of terrorism. Their authority, revolutionary or traditional, was uniquely

suited to keep the “Arab Street” quiet. Their intelligence services were

uniquely able to penetrate or manipulate terrorist organizations. Syria

made itself much larger than life by becoming a haven for and a hub of

terror, and so did Libya, and so did Algeria, and so did Yemen. To Iran

and by Iraq, terror was a major force multiplier. Saudi Arabia, both by de-


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sign and by accident, and as a by-product of its broader policies, became

party to terror. And the PLO was the incubator and cadre-school of terror,

as the collectively-owned joint-stock company of most Arab states. The

Palestinian movement never had autonomy from the Arab countries,

which sought from the start to grab and instrumentalize it. Each Arab intel-

ligence service inserted their men and networks into the PLO. It was as

though there was a market in PLO shares where Arab governments and

secret services were trading, buying and selling according to the ebbs and

flows of events. Thus, Syria owned its own PLO faction, As Siyasa, Iraq its

own, Egypt and Saudi Arabia each owned a chunk of Fatah, etc., while the

KGB, the Stasi, the Securitate, etc, also had shares in the PFLP, the

PDFLP, etc. The Saudis and others purchased religious-oriented chunk of

the Palestinian movement. The PLO was a beggar for money anywhere it

could find it – the factionalism inside the PLO reflected the fractiousness

of the Arab world. Once again, the PLO was the Arab world’s life-size

grand experiment that demonstrated the ways and means, the viability

and the efficacy of terrorism.

Even those Arab states that did not directly foster terrorism had a use for

it: they argued that they were uniquely suited to understand it, to restrain

it, to subdue it. To bring terrorism under “control”, the West only had to be

very friendly with its shareholders.


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In the 1950s, the center of gravity of Arab politics had been close to Nasser’s

brand of national Socialism à l’Arabe. In the wake of the general movement of

decolonization, Soviet-style organization was the wave of the future, and the

choice for the present. Egypt was emulated by Syria and Iraq, by Yemen, by Al-

geria. “Socialist” forces were on the rise in the Palestinian movement, in the Su-

dan, even in Tunisia (Neo-Destour) and Morocco. Only the monarchies kept So-

cialism at bay in the Gulf. Nasser’s stinging defeat in 1967, in which the Syrian

and Iraqi regimes shared, largely discredited his doctrine. In the ensuing vacuum,

a return to basic values was nearly inevitable. It took the form of a return to Is-

lam. Islamists had been both rivals and companions to Nasserists. The latter’s

downfall gave them the required opening. At any rate, Arab political-intellectual

history through the 19th and 20th century has forever been an oscillation between

an Umma grounded in pan-Arabism and an Umma grounded in pan-Islamism.

After 1967 and even more after 1973-1978 the center of gravity of Arab politics

shifted toward the Wahhabi. This had been prepared from the mid-‘60s by King

Saud and Crown Prince (later King) Faisal’s relentless and well-funded campaign

that extended throughout the Moslem world to rally Islam against Israel, on the

basis – to make a long story short – of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. By

1970, Faisal pulled the biggest coup in his campaign, gathering virtually all the

Arab heads of states at a summit conference held in Rabat and devoted to the


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destruction of Israel. The outbreak of the Islamic Revolution in Iran moved the

dial farther away from the pseudo-“secular” toward the religious.

At first, it seemed that Khomeini’s militant Islam would win the day and establish

its leadership over Islam, but the stigma of its Shiite birth prevented its wider

spread in the Sunni world. Only Hezbollah in Lebanon successfully followed the

Ayatollahs’ model. Still, the triumph of a religion-based Islamic movement, albeit

in its execrated Shiite form, was an extraordinary incentive. Additionally, the

Saudi-Wahhabi nexus had been challenged and galvanized by Khomeiny’s chal-

lenge. The 1979 siege of the Great Mosque in Mecca added urgency to the is-

sue: the Saudi regime tried to run faster than the pack. To do so, it became the

leader of the pack.

For Arab discontent, Wahhabism provided a coherent outlook, backed it up with

unlimited money and resources, and a home base. Throughout the Arab world,

the Radicals’ ideology, even where it did not take over, became the point of ref-

erence and the “strange attractor.” It provided the dominant paradigm: the scale

of values, interpretations of vice and virtue, the favored and the despised human

type, etc. The process was not dissimilar to the spread of Communism after the

Bolshevik victory of 1917 and the spread of Italian Fascism and German Na-

tional-Socialism: strong, victorious, vibrant ideologies with a powerful appeal to

revolutionize and take over. Whoever had felt in the 1920s and ‘30s that only

radical solutions could do was led to adopt one or the other of the totalitarian ide-


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ologies, or a combination. Likewise in the post-1973 Arab world, religious ideolo-

gies of any shape and form became the vehicle and the adopted vessel for radi-

cal sentiment, energies and ambitions

Over more than a decade, the non-radicals (e.g., Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, etc.)

and their traditional values have been on the defensive. The Wahhabi-Saudi

nexus has ridden the tiger, being itself part-predator, part-consenting victim of a

protection racket.

Let us sum up: twice in the contemporary era the Arab world has believed in its

own renascence: at independence, after 1945, and as a result of the oil wealth

after 1973. The reality was endemic instability, dysfunctional societies and end-

less wars. After the expected benefits of both aborted resurgences faded away,

the reality emerged of a historic and systemic crisis.

In a first period (1945-1970) Arab countries were the theater of coups, civil wars,

wars and terrorist devastations, but the crisis was largely confined to its original

breeding ground, without directly impinging upon the rest of the world.

The next phase, 1970-2000, saw the crisis make forays into the outside world, in

the form of international terrorism – Palestinian hijackings from the ‘70s onwards,

Qadhafi’s adventures, early ‘80s Iranian killings abroad, etc. – and the two oil cri-

ses of the 1970s which shook the entire world.


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With 9/11, the crisis has hugely extended its radius: it was a phase-change. Hith-

erto limited to terrorism and to its home terrain, the Middle East crisis turned into

war and a world-wide reach.

“Terrorism” as such is the Arab Moslem world’s choice weapon. It has developed

in the modern era over a period of thirty years. It is based in a complex arrange-

ment of state, infra-state and non-state entities that operate in loose chains and

configurations. This must be the basis of our study of capabilities and strategic

intent, of strengths and weaknesses.

1.2. TODAY’S WAR

Changed parameters

The Middle East’s road to imagined salvation and power went through making

itself indispensable to the external powers that needed to be manipulated: our oil,

our role against the Soviets, our ability to prevent the bad radicals from taking

over. These three strategic assets increased the region’s traction in international


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affairs. This may have now started to change. Past strengths may become future

weaknesses. And reliance on them: strengths are addictive, especially if they are

imagined.

1. Oil dominance remains a strategic asset as long, and only as long, as oil

remains the swing factor in the West’s energy economy. Without delving

into such issues as the hydrogen economy, alternative sources of oil, in-

creasing efficiency and forms of conservation, the issue at hand is not ab-

solute quantities and prices but what quantities and prices are swing fac-

tors on the world energy markets. A friendly Iraq, an Iran freed of the aya-

tollahs, greater Caspian output and other factors will reduce the swing fac-

tor nature of the Gulf’s oil.

2. The Arab role between two rival superpowers has come to an end, and no

third party will show up to replace the Soviet Union.

3. The terrorist factor has become all the more important as the second fac-

tor waned, and as the rut in which the Arab world found itself was deepen-

ing.


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1.3. TERRORISM: THE SUPER-PROXY

The largely fictitious power wielded by the Arab countries, as we have seen, had

taken substance by the credence given it amongst those who believed in it. Once

they are revealed as imaginary, imaginary quantities that once were part of the

strategic calculus, play a much more limited role. Therein lies the grand-strategic

weakness of the Arab world. True strategic depth is generated by great economic

or military power. The Arab world has none of these. As we have seen, the

events of the 20th century endowed the Arab world with an aura of strength that

can now be dispelled: it was not in-depth strategic strength, it was ephemeral

and tactical only.

Lower down the food chain, the chief vulnerability of the opponent is precisely

what has been a strength of the anti-Western policy emanating from the Arab

world: the terrorist nebula has been deniable, arm’s length, unofficial – it has

been decentralized – all the while acting as the super-proxy for strategic policies

that were in effect common to much of the Arab world.

To wit: let us conjure up a vision of terrorism as a cloud, or a swarm of insects

that may coalesce and de-coalesce according to opportunity, but are fed on a

semi-permanent basis by states, state agencies, sub-state and para-state (“chari-


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ties” etc.) organizations2. Let’s continue the image of a swarm of insects and

consider the terrorists as insects that rally around beehives; the beehives have

bee-keepers, the bee-keepers have clients and supply-chains. This metaphor is

useful to illustrate the modus operandi of the terrorist guerrilla war against the

West.

The swarm of insects has operated as a super-proxy on behalf of much of the

Arab world, as a force multiplier.

Further, there is a parallel between the way the Kremlin entrusted many of its ex-

ternal operations to the Komintern and the local Communist Parties and a maze

of Communist Party-controlled “NGOs” and the deniable, “private” entities that

often do the dirty work on behalf of Saudia, or rent-a-murderer terrorist organiza-

tions which are hired for specific actions or make themselves available for the

same. Abu Nidal’s outfit typified this manner. In totalitarian (or highly despotic)

countries, nothing important, nothing organized on a grand scale, gets done “pri-

vately” without the involvement and the participation of the powers that be. In a

country where the state and a large royal family and its enormous retinue are in-

tertwined to the point of being undistinguishable, there is no distance between

the ones and the others, save the distance of deniability. When some groups

within the ruling elites do not initiate, or even approve, of such relationships, they

are held to acquiescence by the dictates of tribal and institutional self-

2 States and terrorist organizations are interlinked: terror groups, terrorist chain (logistics, re-cruitment, etc.), Quangos and NGOs, State agencies, etc.


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preservation. “Am I going to reveal Prince Turki’s business with bin Laden?” The

argument is strong since even those who did not desire terrorism made them-

selves complicit, if not by commission, at least by omission or silence.

Terror groups have been able to inflict serious damage to the U.S. and the West

by being mobile, nimble, elusive, by being able to choose the timing, terrain and

form of their attacks – by waging a “global” guerrilla – and by using their enemy’s

own way of life and instruments: from technologies to liberal laws and mores. In

that sense early tactics, e.g., the PLO’s early hijackings, Arafat’s deniable and

arm’s length “Black September” organization, etc., proved successful. They were

gradually evolved into strategic tools. PLO terrorism was the “crucial experiment”

that demonstrated the efficacy of terrorism. Scale, frequency and complexity

were enhanced. The lack of response, or of serious response, that had greeted

the proliferation of terror attacks over an entire generation had created a double

calculus:

- for the terrorists and their sponsors, the price-earning ratio of terrorism

was extremely favorable: price (risk of retaliation) was very low, earn-

ing (self-image, propaganda, resulting fundraising and general support

and recruitment) was very high; the 1983 slaughter of the U.S. Ma-

rines in Beirut exemplifies that ratio and its increasing values.


page 24

- for those under attack, the price (damage, loss of prestige, ensuing

fearfulness, policy paralysis) was very high, the earning, in case of at-

tempted retaliation, feeble, elusive, questionable. Anti-terrorist opera-

tion that never went after the brains, but, if at all, against the fingers or

at best the hands, were costly and their outcomes fraught with uncer-

tainty: the counter-incentives were strong.

As long as this double calculus exists and determines policy in the terms posed

by the 30-year terrorist offensive, it becomes self-fulfilling. Within that framework,

there is no escape from the devil’s alternative posed to the U.S. and the West.

Conversely, breaking this double bind is a key to changing it – waging the war:

increase not only the transaction costs of terrorism – by making it far costlier to

all links in the chain.

History presents us with many a case of a lower-level culture successfully attack-

ing, ruining and taking over higher-order cultures. One of the clearest examples

is Djinghis Khan’s Mongols: on a scale of human culture and society plotted by

complexity and productivity, the nomadic pastoralist warriors represented a much

lower stage than the refined Chinese culture they devastated, than the Northern

India they pillaged, than the Abbasid caliphate in Bagdad they destroyed and the

Persia they ruined. Nonetheless, they repeatedly spilled out of the Central Asian

steppes to assail the sedentary (agrarian) civilizations around them, and were

essentially unbeatable until the advent of firearms.


page 25

The Mongol warriors leveraged their strengths and played against the corre-

sponding weaknesses of their preys. Expert at horse-riding and archery. They

succeeded, notably on account of their clever exploitation of the weaknesses of

the sedentary cultures.

The latter’s lack of mobility, tying of working capital to fixed investment in human

as well as material terms and difficulty in instantly mobilizing large military power

upon threatened points, were the weaknesses. On the other hand, clever use of

their own competitive advantage – their mobility, their precision and their cohe-

sion, made the Mongols unbeatable for three centuries.

They were however incapable of establishing durable political entities of their

own. In some cases, they dissolved themselves into sedentary civilizations, like

the Yuen dynasty in China, or their own conversion to Islam in the Middle East

and India. Here is a significant paradigm to illustrate and understand how supe-

rior cultures – the sedentary, agrarian cultures of China, India, Persia and Europe

– were repeatedly beaten by an inferior form of culture, the nomadic warriors, un-

til the latter’s inherent weaknesses and the former’s inherent strengths were

brought to bear. There are lessons concerning the violent encounter of superior

and inferior cultures.


page 26

The rise of the musket, field artillery and other fire-arms, returned battlefield pre-

dominance and initiative to the foot-soldier, at the expense of the mounted

archer: the Russian armies beat the Golden Horde. Technology made the differ-

ence. The same fixed investment which had been the root of the weakness of the

more advanced societies, as it created exploitable vulnerabilities, turned out to

be the key to generating the instruments of victory.

In short, mobility, precision, nimbleness, the ability to inhabit and move through

the dark corridors of today’s world, which seem to characterize the enemy’s

weapon of choice, terrorism, may not be absolute weapons. As long as the war is

one where an enemy plays his strengths against our vulnerabilities (Mongol nim-

bleness against sedentary cultures’ fixed assets), he wins. As we play our

strengths against his vulnerabilities, we turn the tables on him.


page 27

2. WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

The strategy for the war must distinguish between several levels of action: grand

strategy, strategy for the war, campaign strategy.

(a) Grand strategy: the ultimate aim of the “war on terrorism” is – has to be -

to bring the Arab Moslem world into the modern world.

In order to be won, World War Two could not be limit Allied war aims to

merely defeating the aggressors’ armed forces: victory implied transform-

ing the vanquished so that they would no longer pose a threat to their

neighbors and to the world at large. In that sense, this war is of the same

nature as the war against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. There are

two basic differences: (1) the distance between Germany and modernity

was much smaller, and it was endowed with rich internal (historical, cul-

tural and practical) references allowing it to re-access it promptly, In es-

sence, the Allied victory allowed Germany to complete the “Bourgeois

Revolution” it had repeatedly failed to accomplish in the course of the 19th

and early 20th century. (2) Japan was far more distant, but its culture was

highly adaptive, able and willing to absorb innovations from the outside

and assimilate them. There again, at least parts of a “bourgeois revolution”


page 28

were implemented after 1945. Neither of those cases apply directly to the

Middle East. Still, the strategic aim of war must be to bring about some

modicum of Rule of Law to the region. Remember that on December 8,

1941, the conscious and the stated war aims of the United States was not

the thorough reshaping of the world order. The war was imposed upon the

U.S. Strategy and war aims gradually evolved, dictated to a large extent

by by the very requirements of the war.

2.1. THE GEOSTRATEGICS OF THE WAR

(b) War strategy: our target is what has been dubbed above “a complex ar-

rangement of state, infra-state and non-state entities which operate in

loose chains and configurations.”

To use a crude metaphor, the states are the ‘infrastructure,’ the non-state

entities (NGOs) the ‘superstructure’ and the infra-state entities (QUAN-

GOs) the conveyor belts.

They nonetheless share some basic values and attitudes. The Middle

Eastern policy spectrum, with very few exceptions, centers on an anti-

American, anti-Israeli and anti-Western stance. Some still want to use the


page 29

United States, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia: they play a double game

between two opposite poles. For reasons of global strategy, support (aid

or military), they find it expedient or necessary to stick to the U.S. in ap-

pearance and in some areas, while actively or passively undermining and

attacking the U.S. in other areas. Some others find it indesirable to even

display the appearance of interfacing with the U.S., as they regard their

anti-American niche a more rewarding position: this is the case of Iran and

Syria. Some do not feel it expedient to offend the U.S. too much or overtly

or in a way that would upset the apple cart, some have upset it already.

The policy spectrum can be defined as:

The more a country lever-ages U.S. power, the least it tries to overtly offend the U.S., and conversely

0 Offending the U.S. 100

100 using the U.S. 0


page 30

The center of gravity of of the policy spectrum must be forcibly removed

from the “anti-U.S.” segment: anti-Americanism must stop being the dead

center and the defining center of Arab politics.

We must inflict a series of overwhelming defeats upon the self-conception

of those who wage war on us.

A hierarchy must be designed in the targeting:

1. Iraq is the tactical pivot of the war: nothing significant will be achieved in

the region until and unless we do away with Saddam Hussein and his re-

gime. Any other course will instruct the entire region that we have chosen

make-believe in lieu of acting. This is the chief military component of the

war at this stage. Taking out Saddam changes not only key parameters: it

changes the rules of the game. Saddam’s Iraq is the keystone of the dying

Pax Britannica that holds the region in deadly thrall. Its destruction opens

the way to – is the necessary precondition for – the reorganization of the

region. The matter, then, is both one of credibility and one of efficacy.

2. Saudi Arabia is the strategic pivot of the war: Saudia is the beating heart,

the financial center, the ideological core, the religious focus of the war.

Once Iraq were taken care of, an ultimatum should be issued to “Saudi”

Arabia with a view to radically cut off private and public, royal and com-


page 31

moner Saudi help, financing and participation in anti-U.S., anti-Western

and anti-Israeli ideological and religious incitement, terrorist or any hostile

activity, including schools, publications, sermons, etc. Non-compliance,

the ultimatum should make clear, would entail (1) a direct threat on Saudi

assets, (2) the destruction of either the regime, or the country itself, with

the Hashemites and the Shiites from the Eastern province key compo-

nents of what would replace the regime.

3. Iran is presently wobbling. Massive support under all possible forms

should be lent to the forces of change, in order to facilitate the domesti-

cally-based overthrow of the ayatollahs’ regime. For two decades Iran has

been a leader in the systematic use of terror as a means of external ac-

tion. Its wholly-owned subsidiary the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah was a

pioneer in terrorist action against the U.S. and Western countries, hos-

tage-taking, massive-homicide bombings (the two 1983 Beirut attacks

against the U.S. Marine Corps and the French Marines), transcontinental

terrorist coalition-making (the 1994 Buenos Aires bombing against the Ar-

gentine Jewish community, carried out with the support of Nazi networks

within Argentine police and intelligence service), systematic assassination

carried out abroad (against Kurdish and opposition leaders) and bombing

campaigns abroad (the bombing spree in Paris). Hezbollah actions were

remote-controlled by the Ministry of Intelligence, the Islamic Foundations

and the Pasdarans. Hezbollah is likewise poised to launch a fierce assault


page 32

against the U.S., U.S. interests and citizens in the event of an American

attack on Iraq. While the utter discredit that attends the Ayatollahs’ regime

within Iran should rule out American military action against them, action

must be taken to deter and preempt Iranian action: they must be put on

the defensive rather than allowed to choose the timing and terrain of their

attacks. The Ayatollahs know that they are playing for the highest stakes,

regime survival.

4. The impact upon the terrorist states, Syria in the first place, would be

enormous. The Syrian minority (Alawite) regime needs to create an aver-

sive international environment – hostility to Israel – to maintain its terror

grip on the population and keep Lebanon in captivity. In order to do both it

requires a continued state of belligerence in the region, which it contrib-

utes to maintain by means of fostering the Rejection Front. Otherwise,

Syria is a small, backward, bankrupt country (with a grand total of 3,000

internet users!) seething with hatred and self-destructive passions.

Funded by the stingy largesses of the petro-monarchies, the drug trade

and the looting of Lebanon, Syria has relied upon on its alliance with Iran

to survive in the troubled regional waters. Once the Iranian pillar of its

strength, and the second pillar of Syrian strength, pusillanimity of U.S. pol-

icy (e.g. Secretary of State W. Christopher’s humble waiting times on the

tarmac at Damascus airport, Clinton’s humiliating Geneva meeting with


page 33

Assad Sr.) are removed, the presence of U.S. forces in neighboring Iraq

must provide a catalyst for regime change there too.

Turkey’s decisive action of massing armored Army units poised to invade

Syria if Assad Sr. failed to shut down the terror operations of the Kurdish

PKK (which it had harbored for decades) and expel PKK chief Ocalan was

an exemplary masterpiece – minimal, if decisive, use of force, or the

credible threat of force.

5. This cascades in turn upon such forces of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Palestin-

ian Hamas, etc. One important by-product would be to force Syrian out of

Lebanon, thus redressing one of the horrific consequences of the 1990-91

Gulf War coalition: the final awarding of Lebanon to Syria, a sell-out which

did so much to convince the region that the United States was feckless,

manipulable and able to sacrifice its friends and dependents. Reversing

the cause will reverse the effect. But the ripple effects would not be limited

to a country: they would send a remarkable message of encouragement to

those Arabs who are not inclined toward despotism. For the first time

since Arab independence, the United States would be punishing tyranny

and encouraging undespotism!

6. The changing of the rules of the game played for more than a half a cen-

tury in the Middle East, and the changing of key parameters in the situa-


page 34

tion (fait accompli toward Iraq, and such) is the “environmental” factor that

sets off changes in the minds and the policies of opportunistic leaders: the

entire incentive structure has been transformed. This eminently applies to

Egypt, but also bears upon such nations as Algeria, or, farther afield,

Pakistan.

(c) campaign strategy: As far as terrorist entities are concerned, the image of

Hercules defeating the Titan Antaeus comes to mind: as the latter’s

strength was replenished every time his feet touched earth (his mother the

goddess Ge), Hercules held him up in the air preventing his feet from

reaching the ground. Antaeus lost his strength, weakened and died. Ter-

rorists prevented from “touching the ground” of sanctuaries, of major intel-

ligence services and governmental agencies, of government-backed chari-

ties, etc., will lose their strength and revert to being “simply” terrorists

rather than proxy weapons in a war. They will revert to sub-strategic lev-

els. As developed above, terror depends (a) on sponsor and supporting

countries and (b) on related chains of support: ideology, indoctrination,

cadre-training, finance, logistics, etc. If the terror groups are elusive, the

chains of support, or much of them, have to be located above-ground and

are easier to spot: they represent the relatively-fixed assets of terrorism,

the stationary targets without which the moving targets, the terrorist them-

selves, cannot exist for long.


page 35

No strategy in the “war on terrorism” is possible that does not first and foremost

attack the sponsor and supporting countries. The very nature of contemporary

Arab and Moslem terrorism dictates it.

State sponsors (and their agencies)

Terrorist groups (NGOs) linked to state sponsors, state-sponsor agencies (QUANGOs) through facili-tators

Terrorist facili-tators

Terrorism as a system: state sponsors, state sponsor agencies (QUANGOs), fa-cilitators (the entire chain), terror groups (NGOs) operate as a system. Since there are many states involved, there is no central command, but a dense fabric of shifting mutual relationships, as opportunity and local hatred and interests beckon.

Iran

Syria

Saudi

Iraq PLO-PA


page 36

2.2. CONCEPTUAL MAPPING

The operational infrastructure of terrorism and its capabilities must be chal-

lenged, whatever else is being done at the level of grand strategy.

“The threat is diffuse, decentralized, amorphous”: the vexed question of targeting

has not been resolved – to my knowledge at least – even if the successful attack

on a primary beehive of terrorism, the Afghan sanctuary, should correct the mis-

taken view quoted above. But further prosecution of the war forces us to work on

some form of a conceptual mapping of the global terror net.

Methodologies employed to date to analyze terrorist groups and activities gener-

ally start from terrorist groups; the groups are categorized according to labels

(which tend to reflect the policy-outlook of the analyst) which are supposed to be

clues and indices of the level of threat represented by the group at hand: big or

small, single-issue or multi-issue, local or international, with specific grievances

or without a policy agenda, anti-American or not, seeking WMD or not, etc. The

result is a crassly static and nominalist understanding of the level of danger

posed by those groups3. Elegant two-by-two or two-by-three matrices are gener-

3 The absurd definitions of terrorism then plunge the analysts who use them into impossible conundrums: thus, the Lebanese Hezbollah is treated benevolently as “it never attacked Americans or American interests, or at least not in a long time” (!). Another ludicrous argu-ment claims that “today’s terrorist is tomorrow’s freedom fighter” which allows wondrous dia-


page 37

ated and printed on glossy paper. In truth, what is being measured and described

is the interrelation of labels attributed to the groups by the analyst, not the groups

themselves.

The second, fatal flaw in this style of analysis is that “terrorism” as described and

purportedly measured is analytically divorced from its state sponsors and state-

based environment: the analysis operates as if states and governments were

some accidental, peripheral adjuncts, sometimes relevant, sometimes not, to

some aspects of terrorism. Thus suitably cut off from its most important factor,

from its generative level, “terrorism” becomes an entity floating in its own, unique

universe – it becomes essentially impossible to analyze, except at ground-level:

as a result, there has been very little strategic analysis of terrorism, while tactical-

operational analysis have flourished. Deprived of their higher level of state spon-

sorship, those are dangerously inadequate and misleading. This analytical fallacy

is like claiming to understand World War I or World War II by extrapolating from

the analysis of localized, tactical engagements4. It is as if we tried to analyze a

boxer’s style from studying the anatomy of his fingers.

How does this global net of terror operate? Let us first disabuse ourselves en-

tirely of the fashionable notion that some form of “netwar” is at work, that either

lectical minuets: ultimately, the politicized definition of terrorism is: whoever it suits us today so to label, as distinct from tomorrow’s creative labeling – not to mention moral relativism. 4 There is of course a political reason for this analytical folly: once the analyst includes state sponsors, his entire analysis changes from a “law and order” approach to a strategic one – pre-cisely what has been politically-incorrect for most of the past decade. “Since we have diplo-matic relations with them, they could not possibly…”


page 38

Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda or other terrorist organizations work according to

the organizational and operational rules of networked organizations in the sense

of ultra-modern “distributed” or “virtual” corporations and organizations. The fact

that they use the Internet, e-mail communications, etc., is only of significance for

the group’s communications, but of no importance to understand the fundamental

mode of operation of the terrorists.

Rather they operate along the centuries-old structures and procedures of the

Brotherhoods which oppositional forces in the Arab and Moslem world had for-

ever found to be the only effective form of self-organization in polities from which

open dissent is banned. Clandestine structures designed to minimize exposure in

case of discovery are an efficient form of organization in this context. Decentraliz-

ing and flattening one’s structure just makes sense for any secret organization

desirous of reducing its signature.

What is needed, then, for the conceptual mapping, is a clear sense of who are

the individuals who connect the bees and the beehives, the beehives and the

beekeepers, the beekeepers and their suppliers, etc. The individuals are the op-

erative nodes without which nothing will work, the connecting links which create

the coherence and functionality of a decentralized terror apparatus. In a central-

ized organization, the weak link is the head (and its downward links). In a decen-

tralized organization, it is the connecting joints that maintain its coherence.


page 39

This conceptual mapping could operate by using a methodology similar to that of

chess computers, itself based on Alan Turing’s study of chess algorithms. In its

evaluation function, the computer’s calculus integrates

1. the intrinsic value of each piece’s: IBM’s Deep Blue ascribes a value of 1

to a pawn and a value of 9 to the Queen

2. the relative value of each square: the central squares, d4, d5, e4, e5 are

given a higher value than outer squares, e.g., a3, a4, a5, a6 or h3, h4, h5

or h6

3. the positional value of the presence of each piece on each square

- with respect to friend: the value of an isolated, unprotected pawn lo-

cated out of range of its potential protectors, whether pawns or pieces,

is inferior, even if it sits on a positionally-important square, to that of a

more eccentrically-located pawn that is part of a protective chain

- with respect to foe: what is the offensive power or simply the blocking

potential of the foe’s grip on that particular piece or pawn, and the

square it is sitting on, and the squares it might reach?)


page 40

4. the vulnerability of the King to check, of the Queen to the opponent’s ma-

neuvers

5. the importance of the piece or pawn with respect to ongoing operations or

strategies on either side: this piece is crucial to a given strategy – its

elimination would cripple that strategy. It is therefore of high positive or

negative value, etc., whereas its relative lack of relevance or importance

to the main thrust of the player’s strategy lessens its value. It may just be

there to constitute a passive potential threat that nails enemy forces just in

case.

All positional and relational situations are thus reduced to numeric values. The

computer calculates moves and strategies on the basis of the numeric values.

A delicate problem to solve is that of the weight attributed to all parameters: the

weighing, Turing proposed, should be guided by mobility and number of potential

interactions in combination with position. In order to evaluate a move and a posi-

tion, a chess grand-master uses trained intuition, his vast comparative memory

bank, he uses pattern recognition – and correlates them through some form of

fuzzy logic, In the realm of warfare and strategy Clausewitz had labeled it the

coup d’œil, the flash of lightning of higher intuition which in an instant orders all

factors in proper hierarchical order. There will be equivalents in the intelligence


page 41

mapping, all of which answer the traditional computer programmer’s notion, gar-

bage in, garbare out, GiGo.

In actual intelligence work, the mapping may proceed along lines of this sort:

Attribute to every discerned function within the global terror map, a certain nu-

meric value according to a scale of importance and effectivity. This provides us

with an organizational index number.

Financier, paymaster, logistician, operative, coordinator, propagandist, spiritual

(religious) operative, liaison, recruiter, senior officer, staff job, local support, etc.,

each will be ascribed a given number. The evaluation of the relative value of

each function can be based on a number of parameters:

- scarcity value of the function: not everyone is or can easily be trained

into a good artificer, or paymaster, or planning officer

- marginal utility of the function: related to the above. How many such

individuals are available for deployment, at what cost, etc.

- man/hours required on average to operate the function, and ability to

deploy how many individuals to do so


page 42

Based on operational record, attribute to individuals identified within actual terror

groups and supply chains, including charities, government agencies, religious-

ideological groups, royal families, etc., another numeric value which allows us to

determine whether the function also has an operational importance. For instance,

a government intelligence chief receives a very high value number as far as “or-

ganizational index number” is concerned. Should his name pop up often in direct

connection with terror groups, e.g., when prince Turki of Saudi Arabia negotiated

personally with Osama bin Laden, his operational index number, the second nu-

meric value, will be high.

Other parameters of iteration will be (a non-exhaustive list):

- skills

- proficiency

- frequency of appearance, in organizations, in operations, in overlaps

- participation in significant operations

- second-order value as measured by frequency of contact with other

high-value individuals


page 43

- personal connections into aristocratic and ruling circles as well as

leading religious circles

In order to tally all the different index values, some algorithms will be required

(correlation and integration). The integrated total of an individual’s index values

should aptly describe his operational significance in the overall game. This will

supply us with a first target list.

The methods developed by social network analysis, and those derived from

MI5’s classic traffic analysis, will be helpful to measure the value of relationships,

to identify clusters, spider web centers, etc. These are already in use in intelli-

gence analysis. They need to be cross-gridded against the results of our “chess-

game” evaluation. There again, individuals, bankers, propagandists, intelligence

service officers, arms dealers, must be scrutinized through the lenses of traffic

analysis.

Our mapping will thus take numbers of connections and some qualitative index

values into account. Suffice it to say that the aggregate numeric values enable us

to construct a map of the global terror stage, where various individuals appear as

“peaks”: they are the essential nodes of terrorism, or so the hypothesis would

run. The individuals so described can be made to appear on computer-generated

three-dimensional visuals where a relatively important individual takes the shape

of a “peak” while low-level operatives are stuck in “valleys.”


page 44

The “peak” individuals are those whom we need to put under the microscope,

whose connecting links we have exhaustively to follow and document, they are

ultimately the individuals we need to eliminate. As developed in part I of this re-

port, this can under no circumstances be directed at “terrorist groups” only: “no

strategy in the “war on terrorism” is possible that does not first and foremost at-

tack the sponsor and supporting countries.” The mapping and the action derived

from it concern the entire chain of terrorism. Attempts at eliminating only seg-

ments of the chain allow their easy reconstitution, since the surviving segments

can regenerate the missing links. The partial method would resemble attempts at

eradicating only discrete areas of tuberculosis infection without tackling neighbor-

ing areas. The result is a strengthening of the strain which has become resistant

to antibiotics.

Part of the mapping process therefore has to identify the entire chain segment by

segment, and define the segments whose destruction will block regenerative

processes, and those segments whose destruction would not inhibit them. This

supplies us with a second target list.

The method is one of least action and maximum leverage: the capture of foot-

soldiers of terrorism is beneficial. The elimination of their “beekeepers” and the

beekeepers’ keepers is far more effective. In that sense, our targeting method

bears comparison with Col. John Warden’s method of nodal targeting, itself a


page 45

highly Clausewitzian concept: maximum leverage created by minimal amount of

power and applied where it will have maximum impact.

The very structure of Middle East terrorism has given it a considerable edge in

the last three decades: being decentralized and federated, being able to swarm

together and dissolve into component units, this very fluidity has made it excep-

tionally hard for Western agencies to “see,” to understand and to track. The re-

verse may also become true that this past advantage now turns into a flaw: such

structures are mightily dependent on their “joints,” on their connecting links.

Take a regular military unit: taking out the lieutenant, or the captain, may cer-

tainly weaken it: the loss of a charismatic officer will have an impact on the unit;

but the power of drill, of learned and trained and internalized procedures ensure

to a large extent the continued ability to fight, to call for, receive and process

supplies, to locate itself within a broader hierarchical and operational framework

and act accordingly.

An irregular unit may remain self-sufficient intellectually and operationally within

the narrow confines of its area of operations: the unit may maintain its tactical

abilities. But if it is cut off from a sense of being part of the wave of the future, of

being a victorious vanguard, if it is cut off from sources of supplies, of recruit-

ment, of broad social support, etc., it will rapidly degenerate into being a local-

use only unit, and even less. Irregular units (or terrorist networks) that are hinged


page 46

on individuals whose prestige, charisma, and tribal-clanic importance gives them

exceptional value in the organizational scheme, will be all the more vulnerable to

their disappearance.

A terrorist unit cut off from its higher-level contacts should react likewise.

2.3. CULTURAL MAPPING

In his 1999 piece “Why Arabs Lose Wars,” Colonel Norvell De Atkine, U.S. Army

(ret.) studied some cultural determinants of Arab military defeats in the recent

era5. He develops the following main themes:

- “Arabs husband information and hold it especially tightly… Having

learned to perform some complicated procedure, an Arab technician

knows that he is invaluable so long as he is the only one in a unit to

have that knowledge; once he dispenses it he is no longer the font of

knowledge and his power dissipates…” while officers [do] not want

enlisted men to have an independent source of knowledge.” “Special-

ized knowledge… brings prestige and attention… In military terms,

very little cross-training is accomplished… not understanding one an-

other’s job also inhibits a smooth functioning crew.” 5 Middle East Quarterly, December 1999, on line at http://www.meforum.org/article/441/


page 47

- Education problems: “unimaginative” training, “cut and dried and not

challenging,” “because the Arab educational system is predicated on

rote memorization, officers have a phenomenal ability to commit vast

amounts of knowledge to memory” which generates a “diminished abil-

ity to reason or engage in analysis based on general. Thinking outside

the box is not encouraged: doing so in public can damage a career.”

The paranoid psycho-cultural environment prevents an easy flow of in-

formation.

- Officers-vs.-soldiers: enlisted soldiers are treated “like sub-humans.”

But while “the militaries from the Fertile Crescent enforce discipline by

fear… in countries where a tribal system still is in force, such as Saudi

Arabia, the innate egalitarianism of the society militates against fear as

a prime motivator, so a general lack of discipline pervades.” An addi-

tional feature is the total lack of a solid NCO corps.

- Decision-making and Responsibility: decisions are made vertically with

little lateral communication, in a highly centralized manner. “As in civil-

ian life, conformism is the overwhelming social norm.” Further, “trust by

delegation is rare.” Looking for scapegoats is the norm in the face of

failure.


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- Security and Paranoia: a ludicrous “security” obsession, basically

sheer paranoia, is universal.

These traits are pertinent to describe conventional military establishments. But,

are they sufficient or adequate to describe terrorist organizations? Do the specific

features of terrorist organization (extreme compartmentalization, “water-proofing”

of units, strict need-to-know, strict security discipline, etc.) accentuate or attenu-

ate these characteristics?

All of the traits analyzed by De Atkine can be summed up: Arab armed forces

studied over the 1945 to 1991 period exhibited as principal features “overcen-

tralization, discouraging initiative, lack of flexibility, manipulation of information

and the discouragement of leadership at the junior leadership level”6.

As we live, we go to war. All key organizational and often operational features of

a military (or para-military) establishment resemble, mimic or parallel to a great

extent the main features of the society they serve, albeit through the constraints

and transformations imposed by the kind of activity they represent. To wit, the

Japanese Imperial Army resembled Japanese society. The Italian Army resem-

bled Italian society. Arab armies mirror Arab societies.

6 De Atkine quotes the results of a study by Kenneth Pollack.


page 49

Arab societies are characterized, among other principal features, by excessive

centralization at the top, steep hierarchical ordering of relations, high viscosity in

information flows, massive disincentives to initiative, rote learning, enormous dis-

connect between public statements and actual sentiments, group-based identity

and loyalty (family-clan-tribe-sect) as opposed to larger identification and loyalty

(e.g., state, nation), low trust. All make for an intensely paranoid form of society,

where the inside-outside dichotomy is a chasm: one type of behavior prevails on

the inside (“us”) and another on the outside (“them”).

Arab societies are essentially organized as hierarchically-ordered self-enclosed

“bubbles” (or social monads) defined by some variation of family, clan, tribe and

sect. See the well-known saying “Me against my brother, my brother and I

against our cousins, our cousins and us against the rest of the world,” which well

illustrates it.

There are countervailing factors. Special forces in some Arab countries, such as

Egypt, De Atkine reports, exhibit patterns of behavior that significantly attenuate

the saliency of the characteristics features of Arab societies: officers tend to care

for their men, there is more sharing of information, etc. Al-Qaeda and other ter-

rorist organizations may share more in the latter than in the former. It is highly

doubtful, though, that they could change their nature to the point of exonerating

themselves from the general sociology of Arabdom. Still, al-Qaeda, just as the

Lebanese Hezbollah, has displayed a high degree of professionalism and techni-


page 50

cal competence, a real ability for long term planning and consistency in execution

and an ability to maintain a high level of security.

It seems likely that only the small size of al-Qaeda has allowed it to transcend

some of the cultural traits inherent to Arab cultures: its unusual degree of cohe-

sion, coherence, motivation and mutual solidarity are typical of a restricted

“brotherhood,” of the type described by ibn Khaldoun to characterize Bedouin

sociology, asabiyya, that is, esprit de corps.

Let us assume that the model for, e.g., al-Qaeda, with its deep Saudi roots, de-

rives out of conscious or unconscious design from Abdelaziz ibn Saud’s Brother-

hood of fanatical Bedouin fighters, the Ikhwan which between 1900 and 1932

was the shock troop of the Saudi empire’s spread and victory. Indeed, amongst

them, the traditional egalitarianism of tribal mores prevailed; “discipline” was a

function of religious-tribal loyalty - and expected booty. The problem with their ilk

is that of maintaining discipline and adherence to a goal over a long period of

time: without success, without booty, loyalty fades away.

At least at the beginning, an organization like al-Qaeda seems to have been

forged in the brotherhood of Afghan battles. In most cases, shared hardship and

battlefield experience tend to bring leaders and followers even. Was the battle-

bonding that occurred in Afghanistan carry over into the Jihadi organizations?

Strong historical-sociological trends tend to reassert themselves as the original

bonding event recedes. This certainly is one invariant lesson in Arab history:

short of institutionalizing the band of warriors in the form of a state, they revert to

the native fractiousness and anarchy that ibn Khaldoun saw as the nature of the


page 51

Bedouin7. Just as the lofty ideals of early, conquering Islam soon gave way to

traditional Bedouin patterns of belief and behavior, and yielded to the non-Arab

mores of conquered peoples, we must assess if possible how the ebbs and flows

of victory and defeat influence al-Qaeda from that standpoint. A typical pattern of

behavior of the Bedouin is the tendency rapidly to cluster around a victorious and

well-endowed, booty-rich emir: troops and loyalties flock to a winner, but they

conversely come unstuck and flee as the leader fails to deliver more. Losing

makes for a lonely life, and a short one too.

Could we then derive a notion of a life-cycle of a terrorist organization? The hy-

pothesis may be advanced that in the Middle East more than elsewhere, terrorist,

guerilla and high-fanaticism organizations have a shortened life-span: unless

they “become” a state or a quasi-state – the Baath Party in both Iraq and Syria,

the Free Officers in Egypt, Hezbollah in Lebanon – the culturally-ingrained frac-

tiousness will overwhelm the ‘bonding’ and make the organization vulnerable.

Unless they are nurtured by sponsoring states, they tend to wane.

In the twilight world of Islamic terrorism, only the paranoid survive. To survive in

the jungle-like world of Arab and Islamic infighting, the permanent civil wars, the

luxuriating conspiracies which define the Arab polities, paranoia is a honed skill

of the highest value8.

How do we shatter the cohesiveness of the terrorist groups?

7 Often even the incarnation into a state does not prevent the fractions tendency from reas-serting itself. 8 But the case of the Abu Nidal organization shows, paranoia may be an important protective device, it also is a potentially fatal weakness.


page 52

As the case of the Abu Nidal organization shows, paranoia may be an important

protective device, it also is a potentially fatal weakness. Not that Islamist organi-

zations and cells cannot be penetrated (as per the testimony, inter alia, of former

CIA operative Bob Baer).

Middle Eastern terrorism, further, has been lionized and turned into the delu-

sional “revenge” of supposedly “humiliated, frustrated and enraged” Arab

“masses.” Osama bin Laden himself has made himself into a pseudo-redemptive

icon, a Mahdi-style figure with strong millenarian connotations. A lion that roars is

worshipped. A castrated lion in a cage attracts other, less flattering comments. It

is trite to say that victories are the best recruiters. But it is a fundamental pattern

in Bedouin life and outlook to flock in numbers to the victorious shaikh, who has

loot, glory and power to offer, and to desert him at the merest suspicion of defeat.

This can reduce groups such as al-Qaeda to their isolated hard-core. Enthralled

supporters will calculate afresh the risks and benefits of being associated to a

loser, in the eyes of a more powerful enemy.


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3. A ROADMAP

Part I of this report, “What Are We At War With?” analyzed the causal roots of the

present war. Part II, “What Is To Be Done?” sketched out a design for waging the

war. Part III, “A Roadmap,” will go one level down in the implementation of the

war strategy. It will try to outline more concrete ways of going about it at the dif-

ferent levels of action, grand strategy, war strategy, operational and tactical level.

3.1. GRAND STRATEGY

Even more than World War II, no less than the Cold War, the war on terrorism

must be a war of grand strategy: the very lack of clearly-delineated fronts, of

clean-cut army corps and divisions on the enemy side, the multifaceted nature of

the conflict, demand that especial attention be paid to grand strategy. Skir-

mishes, battlefield events, campaign plans, must of course be prepared and

fought. But this war encompasses the cultural and the diplomatic sphere, the

work of police and intelligence agencies, psychological warfare and other dimen-

sions. In the aftermath of September 11, the response inevitably was ad hoc, it

was reactive action. But as the war proceeds, the extraordinary complexity of the

task ahead demands an overarching concept: that supplied by grand strategy.

In the first place, war aims must be stated and proclaimed. In 1943, Franklin D.

Roosevelt and Winston Churchill issued the Charter of the Atlantic and directed it

to the populations of the Allied powers, and to the world at large. The Charter

stated their intent, it averred the values for which the war was fought, it outlined

the general design of the future world the Allies intended to build. It was a pro-

gram of action and a document of record. It provided a visible, articulate concept:


page 54

nations and individuals were invited to determine their course accordingly; the

document defined what it meant to join the “united nations” fighting the Axis.

Likewise today, a “manifesto,” a program of that kind should be issued. It should

address the American people, and the world at large, and address Arabs and

Muslims. In essence, it should state (in terms probably more diplomatic than

those used here):

The fanatics of militant Islam are only capable and desirous of de-

stroying, of killing, of banning. They not only want to destroy the

West, they also are a force of destruction for the Arab world. Their

order is that of silence, an order of fear, of razed cities, of silenced

people. Like the Mongols, they know only devastation.

But the Arab world itself, far from reaping the fruits of independence

and the oil wealth, has been sinking into a morass of misery and

tyranny. Under the rule of tyrants of all kinds, it has failed to find its

place in the sun.

The Allies are intent on defeating the destroyers. But the war we

have waged goes much further.

No more shall the Arab Moslem world be excluded by its misrulers

from the wave of modernization that has swept aside totalitarian re-

gimes and tyrannical rulers in Eastern Europe and the old Soviet

Bloc, in most of Asia, Latin America and in parts of Africa.

Modernization does not mean disregard from the high marks of cul-

ture and civilization that has been achieved in the history of the

Arab world. Modernization may have started in the West, but it has

spread to non-Western peoples, and has been welcomed by Japa-


page 55

nese and Koreans and by Chinese in Taiwan, by Russian and by

Turks.

One principal aim of the present war is to help the Arab Moslem

world into the modern world. It is to include the Middle East in the

sphere of prosperity and stability that has gradually been enlarged

with the end of the Cold War.

The United States, and the “coalition of the willing,” are committed

to eradicating the scourge of terror, and will use all means at their

disposal to win a complete victory in this war, until the world is safe

again from the religion-clad totalitarianism that militant Islam repre-

sents. But the Allies also commit themselves to supporting the Arab

Moslem world’s transition to modernity, non-despotic government,

and economic growth.

This alliance will not condone or accept the mere replacement of

old tyrants by new, of tired autocracies by new ones. The Allies are

convinced that the Arab Moslem world cannot and should not be

isolated from the rest of the world by a wall of archaism, of paro-

chial denial and delusion.

The military phase of the war is necessary. It is not sufficient. The

outcome of World War II turned erstwhile enemies into friends and

allies because its military phase was only the necessary prelude to

reconstruction and transformation.

This should be the basis of individual countries’ membership in the Grand Alli-

ance – rather than tactical acquiescence with some vague point in a laundry list

of good will. Conversely, there is no point in recreating some pactomania a la


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John Foster Dulles. We don’t need a CENTO or a Baghdad Pact. We need a

warfighting alliance.

The manifesto should reflect a new understanding on our part of what it is that

we are doing. We are not only fighting terrorists, while we are fighting them. We

are fighting what gave birth to them, what gives them energy, the mens rea which

causes the actus reus. We are fighting to transform the crucible where the crime

is generated every day where the Arab world turns into a hellhole, into a replica

of the Hundred Years’ War or the Thirty Years’ War, and consequently spreads

the pathology to the rest of the world.

Contrary to territorial and dynastic wars of old, which aimed at quantitative ag-

grandizement of territory-based power, the aim of victory in modern war, as it

came into being with the War of Independence and the Wars of the French Revo-

lution, is to turn the vanquished foe into a simile of the victor, to spread the vic-

tor’s system over the vanquished foe’s nation. World War II and the Cold War

conform to that rule9. So does the present war.

Grand strategy thus demands to pivot everything not on the tactical requirements

of the war, but on its strategic purpose: what will advance the purpose of mod-

ernization of the Arab Moslem world while contributing to its necessary tactical

defeats? Contradictions between the two requirements must arise and recur as

we go along.

3.2. WAR STRATEGY

9 In that sense, World War I may be considered a throwback to more ancient forms of war.


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A “cascade” strategy was outlined above in this study (see especially 2.1). It will

be specified here in greater detail.

3.2.1. IRAQ: BRING DOWN THE “REPUBLIC OF FEAR”

The war must begin with the assault on Iraq. The fundamental reason for this

(besides weapons of mass destruction, the Saddam-al Qaeda connection, terror-

ism in general as practiced by Bagdad, liberating the Iraqi people) is that the war

will start making the U.S. the hegemon of the Middle East. The correlative reason

is to make the region feel in its bones, as it were, the seriousness of American

intent and determination.

An optimal war plan starts from the nature of the regime, its strengths and its

weaknesses. The regime keeps the country in its grip with two methods: it wields

an highly efficient terror apparatus, which terrifies and terrorizes the populace,

and it keeps concentric circles of stakeholders interested in its preservation. The

inner circle of stakeholders is the Takriti tribe with its role in all leadership func-

tions and as prime beneficiary of the regime. Outer circles include the non-Takriti

(but Sunni) and secret police organization, the top levels of the state bureauc-

racy, the military (especially the Special Republican Guard, SRG), the Baath

Party, etc. The more distant they are from the core, the smaller the stake in re-

gime survival. Intelligence reports from Iraq indicate that a permanent purge is

bloodily spreading the terror to all possible circles, at the top no less than

amongst the outer circles. The greater the terror, the least the stake.

The war must target the terror apparatus at its weakest point: the culture of im-

punity enjoyed by the butchers, and the oppressed populace’s certainty of being

at their mercy. How is that done?


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As U.S. forces spring into action, as an air artillery assault begins to smash the

centralized apparatus of power, the “Republic of Fear” starts losing its grip. As

U.S. forces put their boots in the mud, the stranglehold starts loosening, just as it

did in 1991, leading to the Kurds’ and the Southern Shiites’ insurrections. The

U.S. would be well advised to send in teams to help support and organize the re-

volt. They are sorely needed, and their mere presence will be a crucial indication

for the locals that the Americans mean it, and will not betray them – this time.

As U.S. intervention progresses, the calculus of power and impotence, of arro-

gance and victimhood, starts changing. Less compromised officials defect or be-

tray their master and hinder the implementation of his orders, and the ability of

his minions to move and act. Fear starts gripping the inner circles. The tempta-

tion of betrayal and defecting grows with every blow suffered by Saddam. So

does preemptive terror action (“pour encourager les autres”) on the part of the

regime, which further alienates its servants.

We do not need 250,000 or 100,000 troops to do that. Whether we need 50,000

is not clear. In order to fight us, the SRG would have to mass its forces, and thus

become a target for lethal precision. If it dispersed it would lose its fighting ability.

Saddam will want to lure U.S. forces into urban warfare. But he has to assume

that the local inhabitants will be either supportive of his forces or able to be co-

erced by them into supporting him. This gameplan omits the shift in the calculus

of fear. It also largely assumes more or less intact chain of command (eletronic in

particular) along which the loyalties are tested and preserved. Isolated Generals

(or Colonels) may well be liable to kill their political (and Mukhabarat) minders to

escape their clutches and be able to make their own deals with the U.S. Urban

warfare is a definite possibility, but with much of the populace and breakaway

parts of the state and military apparatus on our side.

Priming the pump of treason and defection is therefore of great importance. The

relevant people must be allowed to mull over the price/earning ratio of their own


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actions ahead of time (this holds especially true of those in charge of whatever

WMDs are deployed). The “e-mail to Haitian military leaders” used a few years

ago comes to mind. The greater the number of defectors, the greater the number

of channels open into potential defectors and traitors. For the U.S., this is a win-

win game: if they are reached, they may jump. If they don’t they might fall under

suspicion and become the targets of Saddam’s usual methods of pre-emptive

retribution. We would not be compromising innocent lambs anyway.

Rendering Saddam blind, deaf and dumb, and isolating units from the center, is a

crucial task in the air artillery offensive.

The Kurds and the Southern Shiites are clearly the first candidates for the proc-

ess of slicing off chunks of the power structure. If the Southern Shiites as well as

the Kurds and others are integrated in a national compact, as the Iraqi National

Congress hopes, the latter becomes able credibly to turn to the Sunni minority

and issue guarantees that it will not have to pay for the misrule of its Takriti com-

ponent. Defections can be sped up and broadened.

The combination of political warfare, as sketched out here, and air artillery as-

sault, paves the way for the action of ground forces, mostly light and lighter ar-

mor in the first waves.

3.2.2. SOME DOMINOS

The overall impact of the Iraqi campaign is dual: it galvanizes our worst enemies

who understand that they are fighting for their life. The hard-core of Iran’s ayatol-

lahs around Khamenei et al., the Alawite regime of the Assad family in Syria, the

joint venture of both, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the PLO and Hamas, the Saudi re-

gime, to name but the most important, all understand the meaning of the event:

Pax Americana is on its way, which implies their annihilation.


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They respond accordingly. We must expect from Hezbollah, al Qaeda and

Hamas a wave of terrorist actions targeting America and Israel, perhaps (but not

necessarily) Europe.

The prime target is Hezbollah in Lebanon. It may well be the world’s most profi-

cient terrorist organization. It bears responsibility for the humiliation of the United

States, the slaughter of its Marines, the American skedaddle out of Lebanon, the

kidnapping of American hostages, and uncounted terrorist acts elsewhere. In

case of a U.S. assault on Iraq, it poses by its own reckoning an acute danger of

war on Israel’s northern border. Now, Hezbollah is not an autonomous power but

a fully-owned subsidiary of Iran, especially of the extremist wing of the regime. It

is an arm of Iranian foreign policy. It is an ally of al Qaeda, to which it gives suc-

cor and shelter. The American account with Hezbollah is replete with casus belli.

While Hezbollah is an Iranian venture, it is critically dependent on Syria: the en-

tire logistical chain of Hezbollah’s armament, the thousands of rockets it aims at

Israel today in the first place, come from Tehran but transit through Damascus

airport. Our first move must be to cut off Hezbollah’s lifeline, to stop the flow and

strand the planeloads of weaponry it receives from Iran. How do we achieve

that? The Syrian regime is weak. As has oftentimes been stated, Syria is a small,

poor, semi-bankrupt country run with an iron hand for more than one generation

by a small sectarian-tribal minority, the Alawites, who are hated by the Sunni ma-

jority. To survive Syria has needed Saudi largesse and the control of lucrative

traffics in and out of Lebanon. Syria’s apparent diplomatic strength has come

largely from Western, including American, willingness to court it in the name of its

supposed strategic role in the solving of the Palestinian affair.

Once the latter is seen as derivative and not central, Syria’s role accordingly

fades into relative insignificance. As soon as the Palestinian affair ceases to be

seen as the prime mover and principal problem of the Middle East, and is seen


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for what it is, a predicate of the Arab regimes’ refusal to change and modernize,

an instrumentalized local conflict. As far as Syria is concerned, its leadership of

the Rejection front has until now allowed the regime to collect, harbor and deploy

terror groups which in turn have endowed it with formidable blackmail power.

Western pusillanimity (Warren Christopher patient wait on the tarmac of Damas-

cus airport, Clinton’s humble kowtow to the ailing Assad Sr. in Geneva, and Ba-

rak’s endless propitiation of the same, is what gives Syria strength.

Syria must be threatened with the full might of the United States: e’ finita la

commedia! must be the motto. Syria must be coerced into cutting off Hezbollah.

American entreaties will be more convincing if proferred from Bagdad. Once inci-

dental advantage would be to terminate Damascus as a source and haven for

the destabilization of the new Iraqi regime.

There is a model for this: in October 1998, after years – decades – of Syrian

support for the terrorist PKK and its leader Abdullah Ocalan, Turkey massed

troops and armor on the northern borders of Syria and threatened immediate in-

vasion unless the PKK operation was shut down instantly and Ocalan expelled.

Lo and behold! Hafez al-Assad, the terror of the Middle East, the bugbear of the

diplomatic community, the implacable dictator, gave way immediately and meekly

complied with the ultimatum.

Today, Assad père is no more. To his iron grip has succeeded the much less as-

sured rule of his son Bashar, who is still surrounded by his father’s minions. The

hold that the Elder had upon the country was for sure based on the terror appara-

tus, but also on his careful cultivation of a network of local and regional vassals,

tribal chiefs and elders: he always decided, but always consulted, bribed and

bought his way. Bashar does not and cannot. In the feudal hierarchy of Syria, he

is relatively isolated. His weakness can be exploited.


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Syria must be coerced into cracking down directly on Hezbollah – something As-

sad père did numerous times, when it suited him. Whenever he chose to

squeeze Hezbollah, he did so effectively. Syria after all is the occupying power in

Lebanon, and a highly effective one. It controls the Beqaa Valley, it controls the

main roads, it controls what law and what order prevail in Lebanon. This is the

price of regime survival, it must be told. In its all-but-certain conflict with the

threatened Hezbollah, it may count on some form of American support. Hezbol-

lah must be deprived of any resupply from Iran. It must be disarmed and de-

fanged. This is a worthy task for the Syrian Army and Mukhabarat in Lebanon.

Forcing the Assad regime to do so has the added strategic benefit of driving a

wedge between Syria and its closest ally, Iran. Iran’s ability to run interference in

the Arab Middle East is largely predicated upon its partnership with Syria. Once

the one is gone, the other goes too.

Will Syria comply? Assad, Jr. will weigh the contradictory factors of his survival:

facing down the wrath of Iran and the Hezbollah killers, or facing the wrath of the

United States and the latter’s precious ally, Turkey. With the demise of its hated

Iraqi twin brother, Baathist Syria loses any strategic depth: it faces utter isolation.

The Iraqi campaign must thus be followed with the issuance of an ultimatum to

the Syrian regime: shut down Hezbollah, expel and/or hand out those terror or-

ganizations that have made Damascus home over the last decades, break with

Iran.

There are other byproducts to the defanging of Syria and the isolation of Hezbol-

lah: the danger of war with Israel recedes, the backbone of Arafat’s insurgency

against Israel is broken. Arafat’s Palestinian Authority faces isolation. Further, the

weakened Syrian regime cannot hope to keep Lebanon under its boot. Just as

America’s flight out of Lebanon in 1982-83 gave a strong impetus to the collapse

of the region into hell, America’s return to the region should free Lebanon and


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trumpet the return of American power and the reconstruction of the regional or-

der.

3.2.3. NOT IN A VACUUM: POLITICAL WARFARE

“Battles are won by slaughter and manoeuvre. The greater the general, the more he contributes in manoeuvre, the less he de-mands in slaughter… Nearly all the battles which are regarded as the masterpieces of the military art… have been battles of manoeu-vre in which very often the enemy has found himself defeated by some novel expedient or device, some queer, swift, unexpected thrust or stratagem. In such battles the losses of the victors have been small. There is required for the composition of a great com-mander, not only massive common sense and reasoning power, not only imagination, but also an element of legerdemain an original and sinister touch, which leaves the enemy puzzled as well as beaten… There are many kinds of manoeuvre in war, some only of which take place upon the battlefield. There are manoeuvres in time, in diplomacy, in mechanics, in psychology; all of which are removed from the battlefield, but react often decisively upon it, and the object of all is to find easier ways, other than sheer slaughter, of achieving the main purpose”10.

Sir Winston Churchill, 1933.

Of course, the sequence of actions outlined in the previous sections is fraught

with considerable dangers, not the least of which is the political destabilization of

a parlous Arab Middle East. That is what is often referred to with the misleading

expression “the Arab Street.” While this misnomer often represents a convenient

alibi for dictators’ blackmailing of the West, it nonetheless reflects a problem that

must be dealt with. We are not operating in a vacuum where each step in the se-

quence could be taken regardless of events in other countries in the region.

10 Winston Churchill, The Great War, Vol. 1, p. 498, London, 1933.


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Iran, for one, cannot be expected to watch the unmaking of its own strategic

cobweb in the Arab world without unleashing a furious response, in the form of

terror attacks against American, and Israeli, targets. The beleaguered regime is

besieged from within, and would need a mobilization of the faithful to arouse en-

ergies against American imperialism, and shut up the forces challenging it inter-

nally in the name of Islamic and national defense. On the one hand, this creates

serious dangers for us. On the other hand, it sharpens the antagonism and hostil-

ity between the reactionary clerics and the rest of Iran’s social-political forces.

It is all the more important, then, to afford all possible support to those forces op-

posing the regime. They need vociferous American support, financial and propa-

gandistic support, public diplomacy on their behalf. The establishment and action

of anti-regime media is crucial.

We must take a leaf, or several, from the book of World War II, and singularly the

British way of war. We need a political warfare executive, like the WWII PWE and

its American counterpart, the Office of War Information. The action of the

“PWE/OWI Outline Plan for Political Warfare,” as it was called, was meant to

“cause the people of the Satellite countries to sabotage the German war effort,

bring pressure upon their governments to get out of the war, or overthrow their

governments if they resist such pressure.” Political warfare itself was rooted in

Churchill’s own view, as quoted at the beginning of this section.

A crucial instrument of the psychological and political warfare we must deploy is

Arabic-language media. The Arab world traditionally has been characterized by

tight state control and stringent discharge of censorship: one Umma, one Rais,

one radio, or TV. The everlasting repetition of lies does not turn a lie into a truth,

but it bounds the horizon of the listeners to lies only: truth disappears from the

world, as shown in Vaclav Havel’s penetrating analysis of totalitarianism, and the

lie becomes common knowledge. The advent of al-Jazeera and Internet has

somewhat altered this situation, by introducing a form of pluralism, or by divest-


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ing governments per se of their exclusive ownership of news, and their ability to

lock their borders tight to any party line that was not theirs. The problem is that

al-Jazeera has slanted its contents in a way that is not government-sanctioned,

but tilted toward militant Islam. As a result, the situation has worsened.

The United States needs to create a “Radio Free Arabs,” and a satellite television

channel with the same calling. What was done toward the Soviet Union and the

populations of the satellite countries must be repeated, albeit sui generis, in the

direction of the Arab (and Moslem) world. An “objective” presentation (e.g., Voice

of America) is not enough. The radio and television discussed here must be part

and parcel of the overall political warfare. It also means that, in keeping with

Churchill’s view, the resources of imagination must come to serve the task of

subverting the existing order in the Arab world.

To that effect, the contents of the programs should target the weaknesses of our

enemies: the archaism of the societies, the autocratic nature of the regimes, the

absence of pluralistic debate. Three crucial examples will illustrate the point:

- Women: a large proportion of airtime should be directed at the most

oppressed part of the Arab population, and work for empowering them

toward their male masters. Once unleashed, womanpower can ac-

complish much in subverting the archaic structures and mentalities of

Arab societies. This should not be underestimated: sociologically, the

place of women is the structuring element in Arab society. Once sub-

verted, the way is open for change.

- intellectual-political debate: typically, debates (i.e., pluralistic discus-

sions) should be aired on important subjects, from the latest pice by

Fouad Ajami or Kanan Makiya, to the recalling of Cairene life at the

time of the Nahda in the late 19th or early 20th century. Civilized de-


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bates between, e.g., Shiites and Sunni – debates where people do not

scream but show respect for the other

- jokes and satire: young Arabic writers should write biting satire about

their rulers, but also about bin Laden, etc. There is a rich tradition in

Arab history and literature of satirical texts that poke fun at the honor

(or lack thereof), the pretensions, the foibles of the mighty. Let us turn

that and ridicule bin Laden and the fundamentalists in general. An end-

less stream of jokes and stories in the same vein played an important

psychological role in the de-legitimizing of the Soviet rulers. They can

become a focus of formation of a public opinion in the Arab world.

There are other topics, but the point should be clear: while we attack Arab socie-

ties at their weak point, we also convey the strong points of our society to the

Arab population. Arab kids may be attracted to rock music, scantily-clad pop

stars and other icons of popular culture, but America has more to offer than just

that. Radio Sawa can and should continue its work, but “Radio Free Arabia,” the

television, and the print media that should follow and complete its work, have an-

other role to play.

This gives us a capability to intervene in the internal affairs of our supposed ally

Egypt, for instance. Direct interventions in the public debate in Egypt, such as the

U.S. Ambassador’s recent open letter to the intelligentsia, cannot but be few and

far between. More mundane, but daily programs manifest our unwillingness to let

the government get away with bloody murder every day. We create points of

pressure on the government.

As part of political warfare, task forces concerned with individual Arab countries

should be set up. They should bring together U.S. government officials, Arab in-

tellectuals and dissidents and American non-government figures and be tasked


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to elaborate programs and policies, educational and propaganda contents, to be

injected into the national situation.

The idea that new institutions should be created to fight this war is not novel: the

requirements of World War II caused the establishment of OSS, of OWI and

many other organizations. This war is so specific, so different in many ways from

“normal” wars, that it requires its own forms of organization.

Much useless ink has been devoted to notions of a “Marshall Plan” for the Middle

East. Shimon Peres’ attempt at putting the cart before the horse in his economic-

based “New Middle East,” has shown a contrario how impossible it is to put the

political factors as if in parentheses and hope that economic affairs will be a sub-

stitute. Decades of so-called “aid” to the Third World have equally shown how

useless it is to pump economic aid into countries not equipped institutionally to

receive, distribute and use it.

The “Marshall Plan” idea, though, has some non-economic merit: it points to the

usefulness of establishing specific, new institutions in the concerned countries

and areas. One example: if we assume, as will be developed in the next section,

that Saudi Arabia may not survive the war in its present form, and further assume

that the oil-rich Eastern Province of Hasa may be detached from the current

kingdom. Many reasons would militate in favor of some form of a protectorate or

mandatory status, which would allow the local population, mostly Shiites, to reap

the benefits of the oil resources, from which they have been barred by the al-

Saud. But it would make no sense to allow them to be the sole beneficiaries of it.

For one, they would have to be protected against all sorts of regional predators.

Further, one could consider establishing a regional board in charge of managing

the oil resources and distributing the proceeds to the entire Arab world, or even

to the entire Middle East. The International Gulf Oil Board, if we must give it a

name, would then give non-oil Arab states a big stake in the outcome of the po-

litical-military campaign.


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The reshaping of the political order and of the geography of the Arab world will

thus require the establishment of new institutions, new states, even.

3.2.4. OTHER ARAB COUNTRIES

TAKING SAUDI OUT OF ARABIA

Saudi Arabia is at the heart of the terrorist problem, and of the war. For reasons

developed elsewhere in this report, the kingdom both found itself and propelled

itself into that situation. The problem is that it is barely possible to disentangle the

religious ideology from the political structure, Wahhabi from al-Saud, to un-

scramble the imperialist spread of Wahhabism from the development of a “terror-

ist international,” to separate the regulated form of jihad advocated and sup-

ported by the Saudi Royals from the unregulated form of jihad practiced by bin

Laden. The Siamese twins share one body but have to heads. Attempts to sepa-

rate them would result in the death of both.

Bin Laden’s operation is the spearhead of the general jihadi set of ideas, of prac-

tices and of organizations that emanate from Saudi Arabia, from its dominant,

institutional, reactionary ulama, and are largely shared by the Royals. The differ-

ence is tactical: the ulama only deal with pure ideology, the Royals have to deal

with some of the complexities of international affairs. The Royals have lost opera-

tional control over bin Laden a long time ago – Saudi Arabia as such has not lost


page 69

overall strategic control of the jihad. The relationship is somewhat akin to that be-

tween the Soviet nexus of Party and Government, on the one hand, and Ko-

mintern and mass movements on the other, Stalin’s “NGOs,” in a manner of

speaking: deniability, arm’s length status, lower signature. The difference lies

with the level of development: the tribal totalitarianism of Saudi Arabia is much

looser than the bureaucratic totalitarianism developed in Russia. As a result, the

Komintern had much tighter operational control and much fewer rogue or simply

impatient units. Bin Laden is an impatient Crown Prince Abdullah.

The utter unwillingness manifested for fifteen months now by the Royals to do

anything serious against terrorism in their midst, their clear refusal to join the war,

and the campaign against Iraq, are only the straws that finally break the camel’s

back.

An ultimatum should be issued to the Saudis. In a way, it resembles that issued

in July 1914 by Austria to Serbia: executing the terms would be committing na-

tional suicide. Rejecting them would precipitate war. The great merit of the ulti-

matum in question is to clarify the problem down to its simplest expression: are

you with us or against us? If with us, purge yourselves thoroughly, at great risk to

yourself. If against us, we’ll purge you, at total risk to yourselves. The sudden

emergence of a “Gorbachev” empowered and willing to cleanse the kingdom and

allow it to come clean is highly unlikely, but must not be discounted, if only for

diplomatic reasons.

The ultimatum should demand that the kingdom as such

- stop the generation, the spread and the export of Wahhabi doctrines

except for private purposes and of jihadi doctrines, of incitement and

instigation against the West, America and Israel;


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- that school books, “educational” material, school and academic curric-

ula, that audio, video and print propaganda, that correspond to the

henceforth-banned doctrines, stop being produced and disseminated;

- that no sermon of that type pronounced wheresoever and in whichever

part of the kingdom, no predication of any sort, be allowed, and that

any attempt in this direction be harshly dealt with; that the relevant

predicators and missionaries be arrested and dealt with;

- that all the missionary organizations devoted to the international

spread of Wahhabism be immediately dissolved, their assets im-

pounded, their leaders arrested;

- that whosoever has been involved in incitement and instigation be ar-

rested and surrendered to the American authorities;

- that all “charities,” financial institutions and other channels used to fund

the Wahhabi imperialism and jihad be dissolved, their assets seques-

tered, their top managers brought to trial, a number of them surren-

dered to U.S. authorities;

- that the files of the Saudi intelligence service relevant to the Wahhabi

jihad be surrendered to U.S. authorities;

- that all international funding of mosques, madrasas, “cultural” centers

and religious organizations, be terminated;

- that all individuals who have been in relations with bin Laden, al-Qaeda

and related operations, be surrendered to U.S. authorities, however

high and exalted their standing within Saudi society – including former

chiefs of the intelligence service.


page 71

Compliance with the terms of this ultimatum are fairly easy to monitor: in most

cases, we are not seeking unknown quantities and fumbling in the dark. Failure

to comply would trigger active measures on the part of the United States. A real

threat is one which threatens something dear to the object of the threat. In this

case, control over the oil, the money, the Holy Places and the state.

- The occupying of the oil fields is not a difficult military task; contin-

gency planning is at the ready; the Saudi Army is a joke. To dispose of

them, there might be a case to involve the inhabitants of Hasa, the

Eastern province where the oil fields are located, most of them Shiites.

Further, we might want to propose an international protectorate to keep

predators away, with a Middle Eastern Oil Authority in charge of man-

aging all aspects of the oil economy, and distributing the proceeds in a

way that benefits all Middle Eastern countries – a good way of giving

especially Arab countries a stake in this solution. Similarly, a number of

leading U.S. oil companies could be told that they would retrieve part

of their former ARAMCO positions, without the al-Saud, that is, which

might incite some of them to shed their loyalties to the House of Saud.

- Existing legislation enables the U.S. government to sequester enemy

assets in wartime. They were applied to Iran after 1979. They should

be applied in this case. Granted, the Saudis have placed considerable

investments in the U.S. Not all of those are liquid. For the Saudi finan-

cial managers, pulling out the liquid part – short-term deposits, stocks,

Treasury bills – may be less easy than meets the eye. A large part

would flow back to the pool in any circumstance, which would not harm

the U.S. (e.g., CDs pulled out of Chase and placed with Deutsche

Bank: the latter would immediately purchase the equivalent amount in

U.S. T-bills). Stocks could suffer – automatic NYSE triggers should al-

low supervising authorities to stop the outflow as a politically-motivated


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menace to national security. At any rate, the regime and its component

parts must be deprived of their financial means of action.

- The al-Saud became the Guardians of the Haramayn, the Holy Places,

eighty years ago. After we deprive them of that religious legitimation,

there are two possibilities to replace them: either a traditional Arabian

family, such as the Hashemites, or an international Muslim collegium

entrusted by consensus to oversee Mecca and Medina, and the hajj.

Muslim authorities – al Azhar, the Zitouna, the great Islamic universi-

ties and institutions, the communities around the world – could be

called upon to designate their trustee.

- The “Saudi” state is no intangible affair. To this day, the Hijazi resent

and loathe those whom they call “occupiers” and “usurpers,” the al-

Saud. Hijazis, part of the international trade routes connecting the Ori-

ent to the Mediterranean, were ever more advanced than the Nedji

Bedouins. The idea of their independence is not fanciful. Whether the

people of Asir, in Arabia’s Southwest, would want to be independent or

join the Yemen, should be left up to them. The Shiites of Hasa should

get their independence. Just as Mehmet Ali’s son Ibrahim dismantled

the first Saudi empire 170 years ago, the second empire should go.

The Saud family would then be freed of the burdens of oil, money, ter-

ritory and state, and free to worship as they wish, provided this is lim-

ited to the Nedj desert and its oases.

Removing the Saudi regime from the scene results in the unshackling of the Ar-

abs and the Muslim world at large. As such, it is not sufficient to attain victory in

the war, but it certainly is the fundamental precondition.


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THE PALESTINIANS

Nowhere will that be clearer, perhaps, than with the Palestinian movement: as

long as it feels itself the “delegate,” the proxy for the rest of the Arabs, in accom-

plishing what is supposed to be the central task and mission in Arab life, the de-

struction of Israel, and as long as lavish funding comes from the Arab countries,

Saudi Arabia in the first place, it will only be a force for chaos and destruction.

The Palestinian movement, PLO, Fatah, P.A., Hamas, has historically been the

matrix for Arab and Moslem terrorism. It also is one of the main hubs in interna-

tional terrorism. Cutting it off from Iraq, from Syria, from Hezbollah, from Saudi

Arabia, is to smother this giant terror hub. Deprived of the terror option, the Pal-

estinian scene suddenly looks very different. Not that the hundreds of trained

homicide teenagers will disappear: they will persist for some time, just as the

thousands of operatives and foot-soldiers that went through al-Qaeda’s training

courses and camps.

Once the focus of Arab life shifts from the obsessive fixation on destroying Israel

to some notion of reconstruction, the chief instrument used for more than half a

century to consume and possess Arabs away from the modern mission of nation-

building and economic growth, i.e., the Palestinian “cause,” is finally cut loose

from the obsession. Terrorist organizations become fishes out of water. The

stranglehold enjoyed by Arafat and the rest of the terror apparatus starts waning.

The way becomes freer for genuine Palestinian reformers, and the democratic-

minded Palestinian leaders called for by, e.g., Natan Sharansky, can show their

faces in public with less certainty of being killed. The Palestinian problem returns

to its real, derivative and secondary status: it becomes tractable.

It is incumbent upon the United States to give extensive support to Palestinian

reformers and democratically-minded leaders. Financial support, media expo-

sure, diplomatic and public assistance must be forthcoming, as well as help to


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rewrite schoolbooks, to establish obsession-free media, to create political parties

and civil society organizations.

THE FRIGHTENING CASE OF EGYPT

Historically, demographically, intellectually and to some extent religiously, Egypt

is the fulcrum of the Arab world. After the assassination of Anwar Sadat, Hosny

Mubarak set a single-minded principle for his dictatorship: he would not be killed

like Sadat. As a result, his policy has forever been one of balancing out the cen-

trifugal forces of Egyptian society, and the forces at play in Arab society at large.

The terrible legacy of more than twenty years of his rule lies in two aspects: what

he has done – give a much freer rein to Islamists in the public, academic, corpo-

rate, religious and intellectual spheres while ruthlessly repressing Islamists when

they use violence – which has demoralized, subverted and rotted Egyptian soci-

ety and public life – and what he has not done – devoting the country’s resources

and energy to economic growth, investment, infrastructure, education, etc. Egypt

is overwhelmed by its demographic growth. It has become a Malthusian basket

case. The result is an explosive mix. Traditional Moslems and modernist Arabs

have been marginalized, hounded out of the public scene, while the virulent

press endlessly incites hatred and violence against Israel and the U.S. Fifteen of

the nineteen hijackers of 9/11 were Saudis, the remainder were Egyptians.

Mubarak’s ability to gyrate with the prevailing winds offers us the temptation of

relying on his opportunism: why not let him crack down on the Islamists once we

have terminated their power elsewhere, and benightedly allow him to stay in

power without policies being changed – isn’t he our friend after all? That would

be a sure recipe for disaster. The pivot of the Arab world is the most important


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one to transform in depth. Iraq may be described as the tactical pivot, the point of

entry; Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot; but Egypt, with its mass, its history, its

prestige and its potential, is where the future of the Arab world will be decided.

Egypt, then, in the new Middle Eastern environment created by our war, can start

being reshaped.

From our standpoint, though, Egypt has to come up at a later stage of the strate-

gic course presented here: it cannot and should not be tackled prior to the fall of

Saddam, the cracking of Syria and Hezbollah, and the abasement of the Saudis.

It will become possible to tackle the essential issue – that of a useless, dysfunc-

tional tyranny – once the above have been successfully carried out. In the mean-

time, pressure must come down hard on Mubarak and his regime to stop pander-

ing to militant Islam, notably in the abominable Egyptian media. The 41-part tele-

drama “Horseman Without A Horse,” based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

and spread to the entire Arab world, is part of the terrorist assault on the West.

NOTE: BEYOND THE ARAB WORLD This report has examined the principal breeding ground of international terrorism,

the Arab world. A more complete study should examine the case of Pakistan, in

particular, a non-Arab Moslem nation whose evolution has been powerfully reori-

ented by Saudi-Wahhabi intervention over more than three decades.


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4. CONCLUSION

If Arab and Moslem terrorism is to be eradicated, the Middle East must be thor-

oughly transformed. To bring to an end the threat of endless and increasingly

devastating terror strikes against the continental United States, the economy,

American influence and interests in the world, there is no other way – no more

than the Nazi threat could be appeased or circumscribed, or the Soviet threat

passively allowed to fade away. Our vulnerability is that of a complex organism

that pays its greater efficiency by greater immediate vulnerability. Our strength is

our ability to mobilize ourselves to compensate for our vulnerabilities, and our

willingness to go to the offensive. One vulnerability is our desire for quick fixes,

and our reluctance to accept a mission of reshaping a region, a culture, a relig-

ion. That is nonetheless the price of victory.

The Treaties of Westphalia in 1648; the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15; the se-

ries of treaties that flowed from the Versailles deliberations; the post-1945 re-

drawing of the world map: seen in historical perspective, this is what the outcome

of the “war on terrorism” has to be. The vast Arabic-speaking world will be

brought into “the West,” surprising though this may sound: it is the only way for it

to be saved from chaos, lest that chaos engulfs us as well. The period of great

turmoil ahead resembles the process Dean Acheson called “Creation.”

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