President Obama’s speech yesterday which outlined his vision of the future of the fight against al Qaeda and allied groups was a long time coming. You can read the entire transcript here.
There are a number of items in the speech that we can refute, in great detail, but we won’t. The most important issue is that this administration is seeking to withdraw from the fight against al Qaeda and return to a pre-9/11 posture. This should come as no surprise, as Obama has from the beginning of his presidency called for the end of US involvement in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and after the Abbottabad raid in May 2011, touted the death of Osama bin Laden (and, subsequently, some of his lieutenants) as the end of al Qaeda.
The crux of this argument is excerpted below:
Today, the core of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on a path to defeat. Their remaining operatives spend more time thinking about their own safety than plotting against us. They did not direct the attacks in Benghazi or Boston. They have not carried out a successful attack on our homeland since 9/11. Instead, what we’ve seen is the emergence of various al Qaeda affiliates. From Yemen to Iraq, from Somalia to North Africa, the threat today is more diffuse, with Al Qaeda’s affiliate in the Arabian Peninsula – AQAP -the most active in plotting against our homeland. While none of AQAP’s efforts approach the scale of 9/11 they have continued to plot acts of terror, like the attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009.
Unrest in the Arab World has also allowed extremists to gain a foothold in countries like Libya and Syria. Here, too, there are differences from 9/11. In some cases, we confront state-sponsored networks like Hizbollah that engage in acts of terror to achieve political goals. Others are simply collections of local militias or extremists interested in seizing territory. While we are vigilant for signs that these groups may pose a transnational threat, most are focused on operating in the countries and regions where they are based. That means we will face more localized threats like those we saw in Benghazi, or at the BP oil facility in Algeria, in which local operatives – in loose affiliation with regional networks – launch periodic attacks against Western diplomats, companies, and other soft targets, or resort to kidnapping and other criminal enterprises to fund their operations.
And a bit later:
Lethal yet less capable al Qaeda affiliates. Threats to diplomatic facilities and businesses abroad. Homegrown extremists. This is the future of terrorism. We must take these threats seriously, and do all that we can to confront them. But as we shape our response, we have to recognize that the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11.
As we have said many times in radio interviews and during debates: What we are witnessing with respect to al Qaeda’s operations today in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa is very similar to what we witnessed in the decade prior to 9/11– attacks on US embassies and military facilities, jihadists fighting local insurgencies, attacks on and kidnappings of Westerners, etc. Except that, prior to 9/11, al Qaeda’s footprint was far, far lighter than it is today. In the 1990s, al Qaeda was active in Afghanistan; its operatives were participating in the insurgencies in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Southeast Asia; and the group maintained a network throughout Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
Today, al Qaeda continues to operate in Afghanistan (claims that al Qaeda has been defeated in Afghanistan fall apart when you look at Kunar and Nuristan, for starters); it has an extensive network in Pakistan and has metastasized within the plethora of jihadist groups there; it is conducting active insurgencies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Mali, Algeria, Nigeria, and Somalia; and it maintains networks in all of the areas where it existed prior to 9/11.
As al Qaeda’s network has expanded, it now has more resources to draw upon to conduct such attacks. And even though al Qaeda hasn’t successfully executed a major attack on US soil since 9/11, the operatives it selects to conduct such attacks will come from more diverse backgrounds. For instance, if, 11 years ago, someone had said that individuals from Belize or Niger could be used to attack the US, the suggestion would have been ridiculed. When Umar Farok Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, attempted to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009, the reality set in that al Qaeda isn’t merely an Arab phenomenon.
This administration assumes that local insurgencies will remain local and that their efforts will be focused on the “near enemy,” or the local governments they oppose, vs. the “far enemy,” most notably the United States. But this is a major misunderstanding of al Qaeda, its guiding philosophy, and how it has operated historically. Al Qaeda has always focused most of its efforts to fight the near enemy, and has culled certain operatives from this cadre of seasoned fighters to plan and conduct attacks against the West.
Just as al Qaeda’s network has expanded, the US is now seeking to pull back from the war. For instance, the drone strikes, which have killed some of al Qaeda’s most senior ‘legacy’ leaders, will be reduced considerably, despite the fact that al Qaeda is replenishing its leadership cadre with experienced jihadists, some from Pakistan. Also, Obama touts that he has ended the war in Iraq and will do the same in Afghanistan. But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will not end as US forces are withdrawn; only US involvement in those wars will end. Iraq is returning to a pre-surge state of violence; al Qaeda in Iraq is resurgent, and its affiliate in Syria, the Al Nusrah Front, is a potent force. Few people believe that the Afghan government can prevent the Taliban, which remains closely allied with al Qaeda, from retaking some areas it controlled as late as 2009.
Ultimately, this administration, like the last, has no comprehensive policy to deal with the threat posed by al Qaeda and its allied groups. There is no strategy to deal with state sponsors of terror groups (primarily Pakistan, Iran, and Syria); al Qaeda’s and allied groups’ ability to exploit the situations in ungoverned spaces; and finally, and most importantly, the radical Salafi jihadist ideology that remains attractive to a small but consequential segment of the Muslim world.
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28 Comments
It takes a cession of hostility from both sides to end a war. The president can say hes ending the war, but the Salafists will continue to actively attack american interests regardless of what he says. He can change the name of the conflict and change who’s doing the actual fighting, but at the end of the day the war will still be there.
I wonder what the Syrians in Raqqa would say about President Obama’s assertion that Al-Qaeda is on the path to defeat, considering they now live under AQ administration where as last year they did not.
Wow, so what do you expect us to do? Strike Pakistan and Yemen with drones everyday for all eternity? I seem to recall you saying yourself that al-Qaeda in Iraq was defeated.
https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/07/al_qaeda_appoints_ne_1.php
If this was a Republican administration, you’d be making a different tune.
how quaint. President Truman has oft been characterized as the President who “lost China.” President Obama will be recognized by ‘many’ as the President who “lost the Middle East” if ‘it’ continues along its present ‘trajectory.’
Nice try alex. If this was a Republican administration, Tom & I would have written the exact same thing. Bad policy is bad policy, regardless of whether there is a R or a D next to the president’s name. You should take note that in this same piece, we said the Bush admin also had no policy to deal with al Qaeda. See here:
“Ultimately, this administration, like the last, has no comprehensive policy to deal with the threat posed by al Qaeda and its allied groups.”
I guess that wasn’t clear enough for you?
I’ve said that AQI has taken serious blows since the surge, but has regenerated. You really should look closely at what I’ve written.
It would be nice to find and kill Ayman Zawahiri before we close the books on 9/11.
Bill, I’ve been following the LWJ for years now, and I’m an absolute patriot, my son fought in OIF and OEF, and I’m no dove. I’m also not a party partisan, so I look at issues objectively.
That said, I will say that we will never really go back to a pre-9/11 posture. That posture was uncoordinated, intelligence blind, apathetic, and threat unaware. I think our eyes will remain wide open and alert for the foreseeable future in our lifetimes. That is a crucial difference between pre-9/11 and what we are moving towards now.
I think we must reasonably recognize the limits of what is possible and what is sensible for us to undertake. I do not necessarily think we can seek out and kill every last AQ member, every last AQ sympathizer, every last affiliate group, etc, all over Africa, the middle east, and Asia, for the next one hundred years.
So I do think we need to narrow our focus onto those who would plot to attack our homeland or overseas assets (embassies, bases). We can also help friendly governments defend themselves from these AQ types if needed (Afghanistan, for example, will need some robust support for some time to come.)
So the bottom line for me is that I do not really see this as a surrender or retreat. I see it more as an evolution, but with no sleeping this time – eyes wide open, ready to preemptively strike to defend the homeland whenever and wherever.
@alex
go back to your Code Pink rally
@Scott J
“That said, I will say that we will never really go back to a pre-9/11 posture.”
Nice try. The Obama Administration is ‘adopting’ the same posture as the Clinton Administration.
“So the bottom line for me is that I do not really see this as a surrender or retreat.”
That might be your “bottom line” but its not the one of the Obama Administration. Consider his latest Publicity Stunt nothing than a de-evolution. What President Obama has done is worse than a retreat ‘its’ called “giving in.” Or as ‘they’ say in sports parlance “throwing in the towel.’
Scott,
We are already heading back to “uncoordinated, intelligence blind, apathetic, and threat unaware”, because slavish attempts to the application of US internal law to external threats. The level of proof needed for actionable intelligence before the act and demanded of legal proof after the fact are too far appart for the later to be substituted for the former ro protect us as is proposed. The need to avoid contaminating evidence for a later legal case already restricts the intelligence being passed on law enforcement agencies, and continues to decrease as evidense is thrown out and verdicts nullified because of ‘contamination’.
As a long time reader of LWJ, I think you’ve documented very well the evolution of the so-called Global War on Terror. After two major wars, countless counterinsurgency strikes around the globe, hundreds of drone attacks, thousands of soldiers and innumerable innocent civilians killed or maimed, you say we have an “expanded” and “resurgent” Al Qaeda! Don’t you think it’s high time we reassess?
@Alex: Bill and the rest of the writers at this fine blog are pretty consistent and unbiased in my opinion.
They crap on the policies of both parties equally! (in most cases)
Al Qaeda may have contacts in more places, but I think they have less money & fewer resources than they used to, and have to keep a much lower profile to survive. I’ve always thought the war on terror should look less like “Patton” and more like the end of “The Godfather.” We don’t need the entire military/industrial complex revved up to full speed to fight these people.
“Today, the core of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on a path to defeat.” Bull. AQ is an irreconcilable minority. They will keep killing until they are either killed or obtain their goal. Killing Osama bin Laden was the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end. They will keep trying as with the 2009 attempt and the ink cartridge bomb in 2010. There are plenty of nut jobs ready to bomb Boston or butcher a soldier. Lara Logan says it best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYovcU6vYAI . How or when this War on Terror will end is a complete unknown at this time.
I assume that we’ll keep up our ISR/drone attack wars in places like Yemen and Somalia.
If the GWOT is effectively over, does this then mean that the AUMF that authorizes the war can no longer justify further attacks?
If the GWOT is over, then Congress should have to reauthorize any “non-imminent threat” attacks against our enemies. Alternatively, we should stop our drone wars altogether…
Bob G
From the tone of your comment, you seem to equate “reassess” with giving up.
For those who really believe that the Islamic fanatics (apparently a low percentage of a huge group) hate us only because we are in “their” countries, consider the violence of Muslims against Christians in Egypt and Turkey. All were born there and look alike. The only difference is that they go to a church instead of a mosque.
Our being nice to the fanatics who want worldwide control and kill to get it does absolutely nothing. The only hope I see is convincing “governments” like the Saudis to clamp down on what is taught to their kids with regard to religious freedom. It is only a hope.
We have long since reverted back to pre 9/11. Major Hassan was permitted to spew hate and jihadism publicly for months before he killed 13 people. The FBI had not alerted Mass police to the presence of the Chechen terrorist brothers. We continue to issue visas to young Muslim males from places that are incubators of terror. We were lucky in Times Square and in the Christmas air incident. I fear it is only a matter of time before we are badly hit again. We are so vulnerable…..
Totally disagree with you Bill. It sounds like al-Qaeda will never be decimated to your satisfaction. Scott J is spot on: “I think we must reasonably recognize the limits of what is possible and what is sensible for us to undertake.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
You state that al-Qaeda had a much lighter footprint in the 90s and then you go on to state the numerous fronts where they operated. Operating the Farouq and Derunta camps out of Afghanistan was a light footprint? Afghanistan was a jihadist factory in the 90s that churned out militants who destabilized countries throughout the world. One that you didn’t mention was Algeria. The nature of the threat has changed in the Internet age (and you didn’t even mention the Arab Spring), but the threat was always there. I’ll also add that the group has always been highly diverse.
IMO, it was our understanding of al-Qaeda that was light. Now we know what we’re dealing with and WE WILL NEVER GO BACK TO OUR PRE-9/11 MINDSET. We just can’t go crazy over every attack and go on nation-building sprees. We have to get used to the fact that attacks will happen and we must remain vigilant, but our drones will ensure that those “ungoverned spaces” will most certainly be governed. Al-Qaeda has never been, and will never be, an existential threat to us. That particular threat emanates from China.
I do, however, agree with you that we need to deal with the state sponsors of terrorism.
We cannot kill every jihadist, even just the ones from Pakistan. There are not any easy solutions here, but focusing our efforts is a smart first step to the long-term best interests of the United States of America. We’ve already set a dangerous precedent with the drone war. A precedent that we may very well come to regret.
Tom/Bill,
Feel free to edit my comment for content and tone. Sorry I was so aggressive, but that guy Merlo is ruining your blog. He’s well informed but his political attacks are dragging LWJ down into the swamp of political name calling sites like Hot Air and Breitbart, and it’s a real shame to watch 🙁
Great piece by the way, echoes much of my own thinking. I wish more people on both sides of the aisle saw the treat posture this way…
I’m sure you saw that Inspire 11 was blocked, I wonder what was in it? Any Stage of Weapons of Mass Destruction refs? What are they getting out of Syria!?
Ian
Rather than become resurgent in areas where coalition forces are actively engaged in major operations, Salafists jihadis flock to nations with internal instability and begin campaigns there. For example, many Salafist Jihadis have been flocking to Syria lately rather than heading to the Af-Pak theater. While certainly in some areas Al-Qaeda is declining in its power projection capabilities, in others its expanding rapidly (such as in Syria and the Sinai).
We haven’t fought 2 major wars. We’ve been fighting 1 war on several fronts. The enemy has understood that from the start, but somehow our population can’t get around the rhetoric. Application of Law Enforcement policies have steadily filtered into our ROE. While this isn’t new, it is (on the battlefield) detrimental to our ability to resist the Salafists.
Unlike most of our previous enemies, this enemy is going to keep coming. We aren’t in a little insurgency here and there, we’re in a global war and the stakes are extinction. Don’t take my word for it, read what the enemy is saying. Examine what they’ve done in any area they’ve been left to rule. Political posturing is simply a dangerous distraction at best. The current administration can say anything it wants and the war will keep on. As noted above, it takes 2 parties to agree the war is over, and the Salafists aren’t stopping. Every time we try to stop they announce victory and attack 3 more countries.
It’s popular to say we can’t kill them all. I disagree: we could, but we aren’t willing to. That’s an important difference between us and a great example of why we can’t allow them to win. They plan to kill every single person on this earth that doesn’t submit and convert. I don’t think we should kill them in droves, either, but not for the same reasons everybody else has.
The only winning example we have so far is Guantanamo. I say that’s a winning example because it is the only place where we have seen them break in their resolve. The reason they are breaking in there is simple when you think about it. They have no chance to die as martyrs. These guys compete for the right to carry out martyrdom operations. It’s the greatest glory to die trying to kill any of us, even our civilians. The reason for this desire to become a martyr is in their belief that they will one day have to rush across a narrow bridge over hellfire with every other soul and most of them are going to fall instead of making it to Heaven. They die a martyr and their place in heaven is assured. Being locked up in prison to live out your natural life is not a good way to become a martyr. That’s the reason for the hunger strikes. These guys are hoping that we are so weak that we’d rather let them go than keep them locked up and risk them dying while in our care. But how many of them that we’ve let go have we found on the battlefield within months? We can keep them alive as long as we want to in prisons, though, and that’s the genius in the strategy. They want to die fighting us, but they can’t. We’re keeping them from their goal, and isn’t that the definition of victory? More potential martyrs keep coming to them full of hope, but what will happen if we make it less likely they can die martyrs? They’ll lose hope. The movement that is Salafism will wither. Killing them is not the way to beat them, keeping them alive and insignificant, that’s the way we win.
“Ultimately, this administration, like the last, has no comprehensive policy to deal with the threat posed by al Qaeda and its allied groups.”
Fine.
What do the folks at FDD think the “comprehensive policy” ought to be?
President Obama would not be dialing back on the drone program if it wasn’t for the carping against it by not only the highly predictable LEFT, but also, very surprisingly and much to my disappointment, being one of them, by many Republicans who place Party over Patriotism. The crocodile tears shed for targeted killing of terrorists who happen to be U.S. citizens makes me puke. Let’s face it, and again, I’m a Republican, no matter what President Obama does by way of harm to Taliban/AQ, the Republican hierarchy won’t give him credit for it. The begrudging and short-lived congrats on the Bin Ladin killing is a prime example. I do, however, agree with the Commenter on Zawahiri. He is the only one of the top 3 9/11 plotters that has not been brought to justice. I also believe he is the shrewdest of the lot. I wish President Obama would get the word out more forcefully that, notwithstanding any drone dial back, accounting for Zawahiri is non-negotiable.
@john
well said particularly; “We’ve been fighting 1 war on several fronts.”
@Arjuna
“He’s well informed,” thanks for the compliment.
“Hot Air and Breitbart,” too funny. By the way I’ve never heard of “Hot Air” till now.
“..but that guy Merlo is ruining your blog.” I look forward to your future ‘cats-paw’ swipes at censure.
I think we have to appreciate where Obama was getting to with his speech. He knows it is only a speech. The criminal use of terrorism for influence among factions of political islam will not end until it were ever to become unprofitable. To what extent sovereignty issues protect these enterprises we are very challenged to fight these cavemen. I have a feeling this is to be the Arab world’s sad contribution to globalism in the coming century. Evil savages bent on subjugating a modern civilization through abject violence. They say it has something to do with islam, so it must be so, but they are pirates, so it must be a lie. In the salafist interpretation, it will be okay to lie cheat and steal if it hurts the enemy, because they believe political islam is charged with a conquest over the modern world.
We don’t need to perpetually suspend our liberties to support their agenda. Concise drone employment by the DoD, closing GTMO, and pulling out of combat operations in Afghanistan are sensible steps to take.
As has already been succinctly said by others here, the other side has not declared peace, so neither will we. No matter what we call it, we will continue to fight criminal political islam, just with greater transparency than before.
I keep saying it. The west answers to a moral compass, and will not countenance the extermination of these extremists. The extremists are counting on that as being our fatal weakness, and they plan on never quitting.
We are only just getting started with this mess. We will align our policies for the long haul only slowly, under the pain of re-electability. We the people of the world’s modern civilizations, will find the resolve to exterminate those extremists after enough damage is done, when some rubicon is crossed, like a terrorist nuclear attack.
The harder we fight, the more we bleed. Tragic but natural fact. The voices of evil have more of an audience now than in ages past. People who fail to amount to anything in modern society will always find the ways of violence to be attractive distractions from their own failures. Drones are just a part of the show. They do not drive recruiting for extremists.
Modern civilization has transformative powers. The cavemen have suicide bombers. Modern civilization has already won. It has already conquered to world, as long as it can keep going. Jihadists, just like punks everywhere, want to burn it down. They will never win, but they will never be exterminated. For how long will these radicals hold the muslim world in thrall? I think it will be for a very long time, which speaks to the weaknesses in their conservative leadership.
I think we are past diminishing returns with Afghanistan, and we should pull out our combat troops just as we are doing. I have no illusions that AQ is defeated or even on the way to it. I know Afghanistan will crumble after we pull back. I also know that all kleptocracies crumble, and that a system of patronage needs and breeds warlords. Since we cannot change these political realities in Afghanistan, our foreign aid is for the most part appropriated according to patronage. Some of it goes to the Taliban, not-very-indirectly.
I think we need to fight smarter, not harder. Obama’s pull-back is cost-saving, its face-saving, and it reduces our exposure to criminal enterprises. It creates a reset opportunity, which we could put to some good use. I do not see it opening the door to another mass-casualty attack in the West. I’m calling it prudent, and in the public interest.
I used to be a Republican. Then came the Neo-cons and the Tea Partiers. Now I’m just a conservative. American congressional politics has become something of a national embarrassment. This speaks to the weakness of our conservative leadership.
I don’t think it’s accurate to use PAST metaphors to describe CURRENT and FUTURE events in an effort to try to prove Bill’s commentary wrong. That is a false equivalency.
Al Qaeda certainly is a constantly evolving and adapting beast but Obama is just touting his “successes” so he can at least look like a President that has done… something, in his two terms in office. All major legislation he has put forward has either been struck down and defeated, or watered down to non-effectiveness from his political point of view.
Of course I don’t want to turn this into a political partisan discussion but it is obvious Obama was trying to prove himself to others, and what America needs is not a leader that tries to brag about his limited success, but a leader that does the job right to the last second of the clock and doesn’t brag about it, he just does it because that’s his duty.
It is no coincidence that in literally every theater of war, local, provincial and national, when the West leaves the armed Islamist insurgents come back in full force. Bill knows exactly what I mean by “local, provincial, national”, he mentions it in his article.
A coherent anti-terrorism strategy will have to wait for an administration that can admit that radical Islam promotes anti-American terrorism.
@Moose:
Messrs. Roggio and Joscelyn are correct in their assessment of the extent of al-Qaida´s operations and network in comparing the current situation vis-a-vis the pre-9/11 1990´s. You note that in the 1990´s al-Qaida´s footprint in Afghanistan included the running of several training camps, and that the Taliban regime was a veritable jihadist factory. And yet, in the 1990´s al-Qa´ida in Afghanistan never marshalled more then around 10,000 fighters, never ran more then a dozen training camps, and never fully aligned the Taliban regime behined its global jihadist agenda.
Today, to name only one example, the ISI/Jabhat an-Nusrah Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham and affiliated groups runs a Taliban-style Islamic state stretching from Idlib and Aleppo in Syria to Diyala province and the outskirts of Baghdad in Iraq. The insurgency controls and administers territory, conducts sophisticated terrorist operations, and fields considerably more then 15,000 fighters in the entire theater. If Taliban Afghanistan was a jihadist factory, the ISI belt in the Near East is an entire industrial complex, and not in a Central Asian backwater, but in the heart of the Middle East. In Syria, the newly-declared Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham administers a city of more then 200,000, leads and conducts operations in all major theaters of the civil war, and is already expanding its operations to conduct attacks in Jordan and Turkey. Iraq is rapidly collapsing into a pre-surge, pre-Awakening state of sectarian civil war, largely thanks to the Obama administration´s policy of light-footprint disengagement and the 2011 troop withdrawal.
This is of course, considering only one theater of al-Qaida´s operations. We have not even considered the activities of AQ and affiliated groups In Nigeria, Mali, Libya and the Sahel, the Sinai, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan and Central Asia.
The Obama administration´s mistake lies in (some might say willfully) mistaking a global jihadist insurgency for the core terrorist group. In reality, terrorist operations against civilian targets in the continental United States are only a facet of al-Qaida´s operations, which extend from administering territory in Syria, to targeting US troops in Afghanistan´s Kunar province to conducting bombings against the French-backed Malian army. The Obama administration´s mistake lies in seeking to downsize US operations and gradually descalate the conflict precisly when al-Qaida´s network and operational capacity in growing faster then at any time since the early years of the Iraq war.
The strategic vision for the cold war was call the containment policy. It postulated that communism was a bogus ECONOMIC system. That it would collapse of its own weight if it was merely prevented from expanding.
Al Qaeda’s funding comes from the oil rich gulf states. The only strategic vision that needed to defeat Al Qaeda is to do everything possible to collapse the price of oil.
Collapse the price of oil and funding sources for Al Qaeda will dry up.
That actually is happening now. But its happening despite the US government. The initial fruits won’t be seen for another 2 years or so.
What we need is a huge advertising campagain that convinces the Jihadists they don’t go to paradise when they die, they just stop like every other organic substance..
Convince them it’s very hard to be a martyer when everyone is called Mohammed, it must be very crowded in paradise..
Really .. it’s the young people that will stop this war, they don’t want Sharia especially the women.
Sharia by force will never go down with the young imaginations… internet education will be the way, give the young people the image of freedom..
Imaginations are the most powerful weapon
Stephen