Monthly Archives: April 2004

The Daily Star, April 21 , 2004

From Morocco to Indonesia to Muslim emigrant communities in Europe and America, madrassas, in this case schools for religious teaching, are a major source of radical influence on the thinking of the world’s 1 billion Muslims.

Most madrassas teach a relatively benign brand of fundamentalist Islam. However, a significant minority acts as recruiting centers for violent radicals who not only reject the West but also seek to attack it by whatever means possible. The US has included madrassa reform in its agenda for change in the Muslim world. It assumes that taking out religious hatred and violent opposition to modernity from the curricula of religious schools would dampen the fervor of militancy that seems to be sweeping many Muslim countries.

As a young boy, I attended a madrassa in my hometown of Karachi. On one of the walls, someone had hand-written a hadith, or tradition of the Prophet’s sayings and actions: “Seek knowledge even if it takes you as far as China.” Across the road from one of the radical madrassas spawned by the Afghan war was scrawled another hadith: “Paradise lies under the shade of swords.”

The remarkable global spread of madrassas during the 1980s and 1990s owed much to geopolitics and sectarian struggles. Madrassas in Pakistan, in particular, were used as places to enroll mujahideen trained by the American and Pakistani intelligence services to fight the Soviet Army then occupying Afghanistan.

The influence and staying power of madrassas worldwide derive from deep-rooted socioeconomic conditions that have so far proved resistant to change. In some ways, the madrassas are at the center of a civil war of ideas in the Islamic world. Westernized, usually affluent Muslims often lack an interest in religious matters while the ulama, or religious scholars, marginalized by modernization, seek to assert their relevance by insisting on orthodoxy. A regular school education costs money and is often inaccessible to the poor, but madrassas are generally free. The poor students attending madrassas find it easy to believe that the West, allied to their own uncaring rulers, is responsible for their misery and that Islam, as practiced by its earliest exponents, can deliver them.

Madrassas have been around since the 11th century, when the Seljuk Vizier Nizam-ul-Mulk Hasan bin Ali Tusi founded a seminary in Baghdad to train experts in Islamic law. Islam had become the religion of a large community, stretching from North Africa to Central Asia. But, apart from the Koran, there were no definitive theological texts. The dominant Muslim sect, the Sunnis, did not have a clerical class, leaving groups of believers to follow whomever inspired them in religious matters. Sunni Muslim rulers legitimated their rule through religion, depending primarily on an injunction in the Koran binding believers to obey the righteous ruler. Over time, it became important to seek religious conformity and to define dogma to ensure the obedience of subjects, as well as to protect rulers from rebellion. Nizam-ul-Mulk’s madrassa was intended to create a class of ulama, qadis (judges) and muftis (jurists) that would administer the Muslim empire, legitimize its rulers as righteous and define an unalterable version of Islam.

The dogma adopted for this new madrassa, and the tens of thousands that would follow, was defined by the 9th century theologian Abu al-Hassan al-Ashaari in several polemical texts, including The Detailed Explanation in Refutation of the People of Perdition and The Sparks: Refutation of Heretics and Innovators. It rejected any significant role for reason in religious matters and declared that religion be considered the focus of a Muslim’s existence. The madrassas adopted a core curriculum that divided knowledge between “revealed sciences” and “rational sciences.” The revealed sciences included study of the Koran, the Hadith, Koranic commentary and Islamic jurisprudence. The “rational sciences” included Arabic language and grammar to help understand the Koran, logic, rhetoric and philosophy.

Largely unchanged and unchallenged, this approach to education dominated the Islamic world for centuries, until the advent of colonial rule when Western education penetrated countries previously ruled by Muslims. Throughout the Middle East, as well as in British India and Dutch-ruled Indonesia, modernization marginalized the madrassas. Their graduates were no longer employable as judges or administrators as the Islamic legal system gave way to Western jurisprudence. Muslim societies became polarized between economically prosperous Western-educated individuals attending modern schools and colleges and madrassa-educated mullahs. But the poor remained faithful. The failings of the post-colonial elite in almost all Muslim countries paved the way for Islamic political movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world, the Islamic Party (Jamaat-e-Islami) in South Asia, and the Nahdatul Ulema (the Movement for religious scholars) in Indonesia. These movements questioned the legitimacy of the Westernized elite, created reminders of Islam’s past glory and played on hopes for an Islamic utopia.

In most cases the founder of Islamic political movements were religiously inclined politicians with a modern education. But the rank and file was sometimes provided by the madrassas. Madrassas proliferated through the provision of zakat, or tithes, and financial assistance from the Gulf states. More often than not today, madrassas are tied to Islamist political movements.

Most Muslim countries allocate insignificant portions of their budgets to education, leaving large segments of their growing populations without schooling. The madrassas fill that gap, especially for the poor. The poorest countries, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Somalia, Yemen and Indonesia, have the largest madrassa enrollment.

An estimated 6 million Muslims study in madrassas around the world, and twice that number attend maktabs or kuttab (small Koranic schools attached to village mosques). An overwhelming majority of these madrassas follow the quietist tradition, teaching rejection of Western ways without calling on believers to fight the unbelievers. But the few that teach violence drill in such beliefs firmly. The militant madrassa is a relatively new phenomenon, the product of mistakes committed in fighting Communism in Afghanistan. But even the quietist madrassa teaches a rejection of modernity while emphasizing conformity and a medieval mindset.

The Muslim world is divided between the rich and the powerful, often aligned with the West, and impoverished masses that turn to religion in the absence of adequate means of livelihood. This social reality makes it difficult for the madrassas to remain unaffected by radical ideas, even if the militancy introduced during the last two decades is taken away. Cutting off outside funding might help, but because of their modest expenses, madrassas can survive without assistance from oil-producing states.

Western involvement in the rekindling of Jihadist ideology during the war in Afghanistan led to the growth of radical movements throughout the Muslim world. Any attempt by the US to “reform” the madrassas could, similarly, have unforeseen consequences. The Muslim world needs to be encouraged to embrace modern education and undertake ijtihad (mental exertion to find solutions to problems) on its own. Proposals such as adding the learning of science and mathematics to the theology of conformity taught at traditional madrassas are hardly solutions to the Muslim world’s knowledge deficit.

Indian Express , April 19 , 2004

During her testimony before the 9/11 commission, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice explained that President Bush was ‘‘tired of swatting flies’’, which is how he saw dealing with terrorism one attack at a time. He wanted a counter-terrorism strategy that was part of a ‘‘broader package of strategies’’. He wanted the evil of terrorism eliminated once and for all.

Judging by the developments of the last three years, one wonders if US counter-terrorism strategy has gone from swatting flies to stirring hornets’ nests. America’s enemies are conscious of America’s awesome military strength. They know that the US can deploy more effective and efficient weapons against enemies challenging the US in conventional warfare. For that reason, terrorist groups in general and Al-Qaida in particular seek to draw the US into several theaters of confrontation, hoping in the process to increase the human and material cost of such engagement.

Counter-terrorism researchers at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) have drawn attention to a 42-page Arabic document called ‘‘Jihadi Iraq: Hopes and Dangers’’. Posted on an extremist Islamist website supportive of Al-Qaida around December 2003, this document appears to be a strategy paper intended for the Islamist resistance within Iraq. Its significance became apparent after the terrorist attacks in Madrid, just days before the Spanish election in March. The Jihadist strategy paper had recommended ‘‘painful strikes’’ against Spain specifically around the time of the Spanish elections, aimed at weakening Spain’s resolve to stay in the coalition in Iraq.

The Jihadist document was ostensibly prepared by the ‘‘Media Committee for the Victory of the Iraqi People (Mujahideen Services Center)’’. The reference to a ‘‘Services Centre’’ (markaz al-khidmaat) echoes the ‘‘Services Bureau’’ (maktab al-khidmaat) established in Peshawar, Pakistan during the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan. Al-Qaida grew out of the Peshawar Mujahideen Services Bureau in the late 1980s and the resurfacing of a Service Centre for Jihadists in Iraq indicates that the war in Iraq has created a new focal point for militant Islamists instead of being a step towards their destruction. The new Mujahideen Services Centre was possibly conceived by Saudi Jihadist Yusuf Al-Ayiri, who was reportedly killed by Saudi security forces in May 2003.

Al-Qaida’s objective in attacking American targets on 9/11 was to convince its recruitment base in the Muslim world that the US was not invulnerable, thereby creating opportunities to expand its terrorist Jihad. A surgical military operation against Al-Qaida, as well as its financiers and supporters, would have denied the terrorists a wider international audience for radical Islamism. The war for regime change in Iraq, even if well intentioned, has had the opposite effect.

Al-Qaida and its extremist supporters know that America cannot be coerced to leave Iraq by military or political means alone. But according to the authors of ‘‘Jihadi Iraq: Hopes and Danger’’, the Islamist resistance can succeed by making the occupation of Iraq as costly as possible for the US. One of that document’s most important recommendations is to attack American allies present in Iraq ‘‘because America must not be allowed to share the cost of occupation with a wide coalition of countries’’. The goal of the Jihadists is ‘‘to make one or two of the US allies leave the coalition, because this will cause others to follow suit and the dominos will start falling’’.

The Bush administration’s rush to war in Iraq, and the relative indifference towards forging a coalition with traditional allies, is apparently fulfilling the best case strategic scenario envisioned by the Jihadists. In addition to the Spanish, personnel from Ukraine, Germany and Japan have been targeted in Iraq. Terrorist attacks around the world have also become more frequent, as if fulfilling a strategic design for wider mayhem. Instead of dismantling the networks of terror cell by cell, the US is trying to dissuade terrorism by demonstrating its greater military might. The number of terrorist cells is, however, continuing to multiply.

Historically, terrorism flourished in the chaos of the wars in Lebanon and Afghanistan. Iraq is now evoking memories of Lebanon, with the added feature of American military presence. The American military presence is large enough to attract charges of occupation but not so big that it can keep the place fully under control. By waging war in Iraq to topple an evil regime that was not directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks, the US has run the risk of over-extending itself militarily. The Shiite uprising in most of Iraq, for example, is not a necessary element of the war against terrorism. It is, however, antagonising Shiite Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere and creating potentially active enemies for the US where none existed before.

Al-Qaida and other extremists know the Muslim mind and seem also to have some understanding of the Bush administration’s approach. They attract massive American military retaliation through violent acts, such as the murder of American civilians in Fallujah, because the collateral damage of military operations adds to resentment of US occupation. The administration’s sledgehammer approach loses America critical goodwill of existing and potential allies.

Adnan Pachachi, a senior member of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, described the retaliatory operations in Fallujah as ‘‘mass punishment for the people of Fallujah’’. ‘‘It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah’’, he said and added that he considered ‘‘these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal’’. Two Iraqi governing council members have already resigned in protest over the wider violence. Such chaos in governance and law enforcement in Iraq seems hardly reflective of the well thought out ‘‘broader package of strategies’’ Rice says have been evolved in response to terrorism.

Iraq is not the only area where the administration’s policy seems adrift. The US appears also to be ineffective in untangling the knots that made Afghanistan a safe haven for Al-Qaida. According to Rice, ‘‘Al-Qaida was both client of and patron to the Taliban, which in turn was supported by Pakistan. Those relationships provided Al-Qaida with a powerful umbrella of protection, and we had to sever them’’.

While the Taliban have been toppled from power, the administration’s policy towards Pakistan has been to embrace its military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf. Rice describes this as a new ‘‘carrot and stick’’ policy towards Pakistan. A $600 million a year aid package for five years helps General Musharraf retain power, and his military and intelligence services periodically nab and hand over Al-Qaida figures to the US in return. But the flipping of General Musharraf can hardly be described a policy achievement. Pakistan obviously had strategic reasons of its own to back the Taliban, and for turning a blind eye to Al-Qaida. Those reasons are unlikely to change without a change in Pakistan’s leadership or system of government.

Rice has a similarly optimistic view of Saudi Arabia, another source of non-state support for Al-Qaida. But the Pakistani military retreated in a recent showdown with Al-Qaida supporters in its tribal region bordering Afghanistan and the Saudis can hardly be expected to suddenly clamp down on the extremist Jihadist ideology they have espoused for several decades. All this points towards an ad-hoc flexing of muscle throughout the Muslim world rather than a comprehensive strategy to root out extremist ideologies, promote democracy and eliminate terrorism.

Indian Express , April 12 , 2004

In the 30 months since President Bush’s declaration of war against global terrorism, the US and its allies have ostensibly detained or killed 70 per cent of Al Qaeda’s senior leaders. But the frequency of terrorist acts worldwide attributed to Al Qaeda has increased, compared to the pre-9/11 period. Baby Al Qaedas are being spawned in new regions of the world and a new generation of terrorists is stepping up to take the place of those killed in Afghanistan or detained in Guantanamo. Is the US under-estimating the enemy and not paying sufficient attention to Al Qaeda again? Or is the war in Iraq, and the grandiose scheme to democratise and reshape the Middle East it represents, distracting the administration from the pursuit of the perpetrators of 9/11?

The State Department’s counter-terrorism coordinator, J. Cofer Black, testified last week before the House Sub-committee on International Terrorism, Non-proliferation and Human Rights. In his testimony, the 28-year veteran of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations listed ‘‘some important successes against the Al Qaeda organisation’’ resulting from the coordination of US efforts with those of its allies. Al Qaeda had been deprived of ‘‘a vital safe haven’’ in Afghanistan, most of its known leadership had been decapitated and it had been ‘‘separated from facilities central to its chem-bio and poisons development programmes.’’

But according to Black, ‘‘a new cadre of leaders’’ and ‘‘relatively untested terrorists’’ has started to emerge. ‘‘Al Qaeda’s ideology is spreading well beyond the Middle East’’ and ‘‘has been picked up by a number of Islamic extremist movements which exist around the globe… Some groups have gravitated to Al Qaeda in recent years, where before such linkages did not exist’’ — something that ‘‘greatly complicates our task in stamping out Al Qaeda.’’

Iraq was described by the State Department’s senior counter-terrorism official as the emerging ‘‘focal point for the foreign Jehadist fighters’’. According to his testimony, ‘‘Jehadists view Iraq as a new training ground to build their extremist credentials and hone the skills of the terrorist’’. In short, the war in Afghanistan struck a severe blow to terrorism but the war in Iraq may have resuscitated them. The US will prevail against terrorism eventually but the problem is with us for the foreseeable future. The administration’s desire to proclaim ‘‘mission accomplished’’ rather quickly might actually have prolonged the war against terrorism.

US politicians and analysts have said much about how the war against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan should have been finished before starting another war in Iraq. But the conduct of the war in Afghanistan itself has been insufficiently scrutinised. The decision to commit fewer troops to the Afghan war and ‘‘outsourcing’’ the hunt on the ground for Al Qaeda to the Northern Alliance and Pakistan probably enabled Al Qaeda operatives to disperse instead of waiting to be destroyed by US bombardment from the air. The only reason the US feels it has destroyed 70 per cent of known Al Qaeda leaders is that its knowledge of Al Qaeda operatives was limited to begin with. Less known veterans of the anti-Soviet jehad started slipping out of Afghanistan soon after the US started bombing Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Pakistan did not deploy significant numbers of troops along its border with Afghanistan until December 7, giving Al Qaeda trainers almost two months to slip and spread out. These individuals have most likely served as midwives of the baby Al Qaedas the US now confronts from Morocco to Indonesia.

The core assumption of the US strategy in Afghanistan was that terrorists cannot operate without state sponsorship. Once the Taliban regime in Afghanistan had been dislodged, and Al Qaeda’s safe haven destroyed, Osama bin Laden’s organisation was expected to wither away or at least decline in significance as a source of threat. There was little contingency planning for Al Qaeda’s ability to evolve in new ways, operating without state sponsorship in remote parts of insufficiently governed countries. It is true that Al Qaeda no longer has the elaborate training camps it had while the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. But these camps were partly needed to train soldiers for conventional war in defence of Taliban control of Afghan cities. With no cities to protect, Al Qaeda no longer needs conventional military training. Suicide bombers can be easily trained in the caves of south and eastern Afghanistan and Northwestern Pakistan, the jungles of Mindanao in southern Philippines and in basements of homes in the Sunni triangle in Iraq.

Ideological motivation for young men to join its ranks is now more important to Al Qaeda than a state sponsor. That motivation has been provided by the haste to war in Iraq. Officials in several Muslim countries have noted a rise in recruitment to extremist groups and even US officials (including Black) acknowledge that ‘‘there are literally thousands of Jehadists around the world’’. These extremists have added anti-Americanism to their local causes, which in the past only involved local separatist wars in remote parts of the world such as Chechnya and Kashmir.

While Osama bin Laden remains at large in Afghanistan or its border region with Pakistan, far more troops and resources have been committed to Iraq than to Afghanistan. There are only 13,500 US troops in Afghanistan, compared with 150,000 in Iraq. 50 countries promised a total of $8.2 billion in aid to Afghanistan at a donor’s conference in Berlin last week after President Hamid Karzai warned that his country could slip back into being ‘‘a haven for drugs and terrorism.’’

The US has promised to double its aid to Afghanistan, raising it to $2.2 billion over the next two years but that is a drop in the bucket in comparison with US spending in Iraq. Afghanistan has massively resumed harvesting opium and now accounts for 77 per cent of global opium production according to the last annual report of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. 28 out of 32 provinces in Afghanistan now produce the drug crop, up from 18 provinces in 1999. Drug revenues, estimated at $2.3 billion annually (obviously more than US aid commitments) now finance local warlords and terrorists, including some Al Qaeda affiliates and the resurgent Taliban.

The US and its allies have frozen $130 million in terrorist assets worldwide since 9/11 but that figure pales against the readily available drug money that can continue to finance terrorism for years. If terrorist recruitment is up, Al Qaeda has morphed into something different but equally deadly and terrorist financing continues to increase, victory in the war against terrorism is far from imminent.

Indian Express , April 10 , 2004

In the 30 months since the US President George W. Bush’s declaration of war against global terrorism, America and its allies have ostensibly detained or killed 70 per cent of Al Qaida’s senior leaders. But the frequency of terrorist acts across the world, attributed to Al Qaida, has increased, compared with the pre-9/11 period.

Baby Al Qaidas are being spawned in new regions of the world, and a new generation of terrorists is stepping up to take the place of those killed in Afghanistan or detained at Guantanamo Bay.

Is the US under-estimating the enemy and not paying sufficient attention to Al Qaida again? Or is the war in Iraq, and the grandiose scheme of democratising and re-shaping the Middle East it represents, distracting the administration from the pursuit of the perpetrators of 9/11?

The State Department’s counter-terrorism co-ordinator, J. Cofer Black, testified last week before the house Sub-committee on International Terrorism, Non-proliferation and Human Rights.

In his testimony, the 28-year veteran of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations listed “some important successes against the Al Qaida organisation” resulting from the co-ordination of US efforts with those of its allies.

Al Qaida had been deprived of “a vital safe haven” in Afghanistan, most of its known leadership had been decapitated and it had been “separated from facilities central to its chem-bio and poisons development programmes”.

But according to Black, “a new cadre of leaders” and “relatively untested terrorists” has started to emerge.

“Al Qaida’s ideology is spreading well beyond the Middle East” and “has been picked up by a number of Islamic extremist movements which exist around the globe. Some groups have gravitated to Al Qaida in recent years, where before such linkages did not exist” – something that “greatly complicates our task in stamping out Al Qaida.”

The State Department’s senior counter-terrorism official described Iraq as the emerging “focal point for the foreign Jihadist fighters”.

In short, the war in Afghanistan struck a severe blow to terrorism but the war in Iraq may have resuscitated them. The US will prevail against terrorism eventually but the problem will be with us for the foreseeable future.

The administration’s desire to proclaim “mission accomplished” rather quickly might actually have prolonged the war against terrorism.

US politicians and analysts have said much about how the war against Al Qaida in Afghanistan should have been finished before starting another war in Iraq.

But the conduct of the war in Afghanistan itself has been insufficiently scrutinised. The decision to commit fewer troops to the Afghan war and “outsourcing” the hunt on the ground for Al Qaida to the Northern Alliance and Pakistan probably enabled Al Qaida operatives to disperse instead of waiting to be destroyed by US aerial bombardment.

The only reason the US feels it has destroyed 70 per cent of known Al Qaida leaders is that its knowledge of Al Qaida operatives was limited to begin with.

Less known veterans of the anti-Soviet jihad began slipping out of Afghanistan soon after the US started bombing the country on October 7, 2001.

Pakistan did not deploy significant numbers of troops along its border with Afghanistan until December 7, giving Al Qaida trainers almost two months to slip and spread out. These individuals have most likely served as midwives of the baby Al Qaidas the US now confronts from Morocco to Indonesia.

The core assumption of the US strategy in Afghanistan was that terrorists couldn’t operate without state sponsorship. Once the Taliban regime in Afghanistan had been dislodged, and Al Qaida’s safe haven destroyed, Osama bin Laden’s organisation was expected to wither away or at least decline in significance as a source of threat.

There was little contingency planning for Al Qaida’s ability to evolve in new ways, operating without state sponsorship in remote parts of insufficiently governed countries.

It is true that Al Qaida no longer has the elaborate training camps it had when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. But these camps were partly used for training soldiers for conventional war in defence of Taliban control of Afghan cities.

With no cities to protect, Al Qaida no longer needs conventional military training. Suicide bombers can easily be trained in the caves of south and eastern Afghanistan and North-western Pakistan, the jungles of Mindanao in southern Philippines and in basements of homes in the Sunni triangle in Iraq.

Ideological motivation for young men to join its ranks is now more important to Al Qaida than a state sponsor. That motivation has been provided by the haste to war in Iraq.

Officials in several Muslim countries have noted a rise in recruitment to extremist groups and even US officials (including Black) acknowledge that “there are literally thousands of Jihadists around the world”.

These extremists have added anti-Americanism to their local causes, which in the past only involved local separatist wars in remote parts of the world, such as Chechnya and Kashmir.

If terrorist recruitment is up, Al Qaida has morphed into something different but equally deadly and terrorists continue to raise funds through illicit means such as drug trafficking, victory in the war against terrorism is far from imminent.

Center for American Progress, April 9 , 2004

Condoleezza Rice stated the obvious when she told the 9/11 Inquiry Commission, “there was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks.” She is also right when she says that “America’s counterterrorism policy [has] to be connected to our regional strategies and to our overall foreign policy.” U.S. counterterrorism policy and the foreign policy to which it is connected are still flawed. That may be the reason why the number of terrorist attacks worldwide has actually increased, instead of decreasing, after the Bush administration launched the global war against terrorism.

According to Rice, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the United States opted to fight “a broad war against a global menace” instead of seeking “a narrow victory.” Under President Bush’s leadership, she claims, “the United States and our allies are disrupting terrorist operations, cutting off their funding, and hunting down terrorists, one by one. Their world is getting smaller.” But the post 9/11 world has witnessed terrorist attacks against Americans and their allies in places where there had been no such attacks before. Civilians in Spain, Indonesia, Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey, to name a few countries, have been targeted by Islamist militants. U.S. officials have acknowledged the emergence of a new generation of previously untested terrorists. The deteriorating situation in Iraq also indicates that the war against terrorism is not going according to the administration’s plan.

In his book, “Against All Enemies,” Richard Clarke expressed regret that “America, alas, seems only to respond well to disasters, to be undistracted by warnings. Our country seems unable to do all that must be done until there has been some awful calamity that validates the importance of the threat.” The problem, if I understand Clarke right, is not always failure to obtain intelligence but rather hubris that leads to ignoring “minor” players. The U.S. national security and foreign policy establishment is geared towards dealing with the global system of states. Russia, China, Europe or even India occupies its attention rather than non-state actors such as al Qaeda or for that matter, the Al-Mahdi army of “minor” Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr in Iraq. Terrorists and militias, it is assumed, need state sponsors. Deal with the sponsors and you can bring terrorism or an insurgency under control.

But the 9/11 attacks, and now the challenge facing American troops in Iraq, proves that the threat to global security no longer comes exclusively from states or state sponsored terrorists. In fact, in case of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, it was a non-state actor (al Qaeda) that was sponsoring the government of a failed state, turning the concept of state sponsored terrorism on its head. The village mullahs running the Taliban regime most likely had no clue about al Qaeda’s global plans, including the 9/11 attacks.

Any strategy to deal with this new threat should have had at least three crucial components. First, it should have focused on concerted efforts to locate and liquidate terrorist cells about which intelligence could be obtained. Second, funding and recruitment for terrorist organizations should have been choked off. And third, the ideology and hatred that attracted members to the terrorist groups should have been neutralized.

The war in Afghanistan was meant to eliminate al Qaeda but instead it dispersed several hundred, if not thousands, of its members to Pakistan and Iran, and from there to several other countries. In recent testimony before Congress, the state department’s counterterrorism coordinator, J. Cofer Black, spoke of anti-terrorist operations in 84 countries and admitted that there were “thousands of Jihadists” in the world. This dispersal of al Qaeda after the war in Afghanistan was made possible by the small number of U.S. troops committed to that theater of operation. Even before the war in Afghanistan was over, the administration was planning the much larger military operation in Iraq. The war of choice was receiving more attention than the war of necessity.

The hunt for al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden was delegated to unreliable Afghan warlords and later to Pakistani paramilitaries. The performance of the relatively small U.S. contingent in Afghanistan (10,000 troops and Special Forces, recently augmented by 3,000 Marines) was influenced by political decisions. USA Today reported on March 29 that the 5th Special Forces group, which specializes in the Middle East, was pulled out of Afghanistan in 2002, to be replaced by soldiers with expertise in Spanish cultures. That explains the discovery by National Geographic Adventure magazine’s Robert Young Pelton of resentment against Americans among Pashtun tribesmen along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border for “disrespecting” their culture.

Despite the toppling of the Taliban regime, Afghanistan remains unstable, controlled largely by warlords and drug traffickers. Its remote provinces are still a safe haven for Taliban and al Qaeda remnants. Admittedly many of these terrorists are restricted by their lack of access to modern means of communications and have only limited opportunity of travel but they cannot be counted out until they are either detained or eliminated. The flourishing heroin trade in al Qaeda’s regions of influence means that terrorists are unlikely to run out of money any time soon. Bank accounts frozen so far for links to terrorists account for only $130 million and probably include some wrong leads. Afghanistan’s heroin trade yielded an estimated $2.3 billion last year.

In addition to according a relatively lesser priority to the hunt for bin Laden and al Qaeda members dispersing out of the camps in Afghanistan, the march to war in Iraq has also had the effect of replenishing the ranks of terrorists. The sentiment that the Bush administration is waging war against the world’s over one billion Muslims seems to be growing. The latest poll by the Pew Research Center in several Muslim countries indicates that Osama bin Laden’s favorable ratings are on the rise. This figure is high even in countries whose governments are allied to the United States. Sixty-five percent of Pakistanis, 55 percent of Jordanians and 45 percent of Moroccans view bin Laden favorably. Disapproval of the United States is increasing.

International relations might not be a popularity contest but hatred for the United States feeds into terrorist recruitment and in that sense is a security issue that must be resolved. But the current U.S. administration’s unilateralism, and its refusal to take opinions in other countries into account, is probably aggravating the global threat of terrorism instead of mitigating it. Even if people hated the United States for no fault, addressing that hatred should have been an important component of U.S. policy.

The administration’s proclaimed intention of promoting democracy in the Arab and Muslim world could have helped in dealing with the ideological dimension of terrorism had it not been tied to the war in Iraq. Part of the reason for Muslim anger against the United States is the perception that U.S. support maintains authoritarian Muslim rulers in power. President Bush and his ideological supporters have made the case that by toppling one of the Middle East’s worst dictators, Saddam Hussein, and by establishing democracy in Iraq they would change the region. The argument, however, has not been bought in the region. Critics ask, “Why did the United States choose an oil-rich country with a regime that had defied America as its model for Arab democracy? Why were regimes in Egypt, Uzbekistan or Pakistan not earmarked for transformation into democracies?” The lack of progress in reform in several countries allied to the United States erodes Washington’s credibility as a promoter of democracy.

Muslim moderates, who have been working on their own for political reform and religious reformation in the Muslim world, have also suffered a setback in credibility due to the impression that changing the direction of the Muslim world is now an American project.

As the 9/11 Commission of Inquiry investigates what went wrong prior to that tragic incident, the American people must start examining the mistakes that are currently being committed. The attacks on the United States were made possible by policy failures and not just the failure of intelligence.