A study in pragmatism

  Uzi Arad

The 9/11 Commission Report is an impressive body of work. Submitted by a bi-partisan commission comprising ten distinguished Americans, chaired by Thomas Kean, and supported by a powerful staff of specialists directed by Philip Zelikow, it is the product of prodigious research, investigations and hearings. The voluminous final report totals 567 pages, complemented by a 26 page executive summary. The commission was mandated by law to investigate the "facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001". The commission interpreted that mandate to be a sweeping one as it sought to explain how September 11 came to happen, why the United States was caught unprepared, and how such a tragedy could be avoided in the future.

Commensurate with this perception of its mandate, the commission provided a coherent explanatory narrative of the sequence of events culminating in September 11, drawing from it an equally sweeping array of findings and recommendations. Indeed, leading the recommendations is a list of action items grouped under the promising title "What to Do? A Global Strategy". However upon close reading it becomes clear that the report is basically a study in solid and rather cautious analysis, followed by carefully considered and balanced recommendations.

September 11 is described in the report as "an attack by 19 young Arabs acting at the behest of Islamist extremists". This calls for discussing the matter in its proper Arab and Islamic contexts. It is striking to note, therefore, that the report takes quite a narrow view of these contexts. Considering the wide-ranging public debate about root causes of September 11 and the multiple explanations provided in response to that pathetic question "why do they hate us", the report offers a limited yet straightforward definition of the nature of the enemy. It states that "The enemy is not just 'terrorism'. It is the threat posed specifically by Islamist terrorism, by bin Laden and others who draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within a minority of Islam that does not distinguish politics from religion, and distorts both. The enemy is not Islam, the great faith, but a perversion of Islam. The enemy goes beyond al Qaeda to include the radical ideological movements, inspired in part by al Qaeda, that have spawned other terrorist groups and violence."

Such a politically and diplomatically correct focus has the immediate effect of analytically restricting the range of the threat definition. For example, other manifestations of Arab and Islamic anti-American terrorist activities such as Lebanese Hizballah are hardly discussed at all, although in context and methods--such as the propensity for suicide attacks (an operational aspect of the threat largely ignored by the report)--they might have deserved closer scrutiny.

The narrow analytical focus adopted by the report extends into the discussion of al Qaeda infrastructural and state support. Much attention is given to Afghanistan and Pakistan; less to the Sudan, and studious care is invoked with regard to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Here, for example, is what the report recommends in its global strategy under the heading "Attack Terrorists and Their Organizations": "Root out sanctuaries. The US government should identify and prioritize actual or potential terrorist sanctuaries and have realistic country or regional strategies for each, utilizing every element of national power and reaching out to countries that can help us. Strengthen long-term US and international commitments to the future of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Confront problems with Saudi Arabia and build a relationship . . . that both sides can defend to their citizens and [that] includes a shared commitment to reform."

This, of course, is no grand strategy for transformation of the Middle East. The report's measured approach is even more pronounced in its second set of recommendations, under the heading "Prevent the Continued Growth of Islamist Terrorism". Following are the recommendations as they are phrased in deliberately fuzzy language: "Define the message and stand as an example of moral leadership in the world. To Muslim parents, terrorists like bin Laden have nothing to offer their children but visions of violence and death. America and its friends have the advantage--our vision can offer a better future. Where Muslim governments, even those who are friends, do not offer opportunity, respect the rule of law, or tolerate differences, then the United States needs to stand for a better future. Communicate and defend American ideals in the Islamic world through much stronger public diplomacy . . . . Our efforts should be as strong as they were in combating closed societies during the Cold War."

No regime change talk here, though it certainly implies a war of ideas offensive, possibly in the expectation of political change. A similar expectation of desirable consequences is to be found in recommendations that echo the Arab Human Development Report: "Offer an agenda of opportunity that includes support for public education and economic openness." The report's recommendations on how to fight Islamist terrorism suggest: "Develop a comprehensive coalition strategy . . . using a flexible contact group of leading coalition governments and fashioning a common coalition approach on issues like the treatment of captured terrorists", and "Expect less from trying to dry up terrorist money and more from following the money for intelligence, as a tool to hunt terrorists, understand their networks, and disrupt their operations." And, almost as if in passing, comes this all-important recommendation: "Devote a maximum effort to the parallel task of countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."

The effort to strike a middle course between the bravura of those who advocate massive transformation of the Middle East through intensive diplomatic, political, economic and coercive interventions and those who see no point in such efforts, must have led the report's authors to the realization that much would still be needed by way of defensive strategies if the US is to protect itself from future terrorist attacks. Here too, however, the report's recommendations covering counter terrorism, intelligence and management seem to suggest half measures compared to those advocated by grand reformers or by the sheer magnitude of the tasks.

The cautious and calibrated tenor of the report should not, however, be construed as a shortcoming or a failure of the imagination of the kind the report's authors ascribe to those who were supposed to warn of and prevent September 11. Rather, it is perhaps the more realistic course they could propose. In their deliberations they may have judged that this is as much as the still traumatized American public, now engaged in war in the Middle East as a consequence of September 11, can take; that this is as much as the American system can manage. In this sense the report's findings and recommendations, including those aimed at the Middle East, though possibly not the most profound, penetrating or ambitious, seem quite pragmatic. As such they could be sketching the contours of the more plausible course of policies and actions the United States might choose to undertake.- Published 26/8/2004 (c) bitterlemons-international.org

Dr. Uzi Arad is head of the Institute for Policy and Strategy at Herzlia's Interdisciplinary Center. He served as foreign policy advisor to PM Netanyahu, and with the Israeli foreign intelligence service, the Mossad.