Wednesday, February 11, 2004

Objective analysis of war on terror: Gloom, doom for al Qaeda

Recently we have seen several articles in this paper written by individuals offering their personal analysis of how the war on terror and operations in Iraq are proceeding. John Munford on Jan. 28 with his opinion article and Timothy J. Parker with his series of letters to the editor (Dec. 31, Jan. 7, Jan. 21) all criticize the strategy of the military operations and the Bush Administration in general.

All reasonable viewpoints, but from a shallow perspective, most likely from a lack of experience in strategic military analysis. I don’t know these gentlemen’s military background, aside from Mr. Parker having a DD Form 214, Military Discharge Certificate.

My credentials: retired Army officer with 23 years military experience, currently working as a senior analyst for U.S. Army Central Command.

Allow me to present another perspective, not mine, but the Ph.D. pundits from the esteemed commercial publication, Strategic Forecasting, Inc., otherwise known as STRATFOR. I encourage anyone interested in straight-forward independent strategic analysis and geopolitics to check out this publication, available at stratfor.com/.

In their 7 Jan. publication of the STRATFOR WEEKLY, they ran a piece entitled “Bin Laden Tape: Honesty and Gloom” that I happen to believe is right on the mark. There isn’t room here for the entire article, but I’ll attempt to summarize:

Osama Bin Laden released a new audio tape during the week of Jan. 5, 2004, remarkable in its shift of tone and focus from previous tapes. Mood of tape was gloomy, but al Qaeda has cause to be gloomy: the U.S. is beginning to gain control over the Iraqi insurrection and the diplomatic situation is beginning to shift in favor of the U.S. Al Qaeda and Bin Laden know they have a problem and are desperately searching for a solution.

STRATFOR’s analysis is that the tape represents an honest assessment of the war on terror from al Qaeda’s view, and it reveals the war isn’t going well for them. Among things said by Bin Laden: “The situation is serious and the misfortune is momentous ... May we examine these pitch-black misfortunes and how can we find a way out of these adversities and calamities ...”

Essential tone of the entire tape is that a serious misfortune has befallen the Islamic world. Responsibility is with Arab leaders and Saudi Arabia in particular. It is far from a statement of surrender but also far from the defiant triumphalism of earlier statements.

To understand Bin Laden’s mood, one must look at the war from a strategic standpoint. The U.S. mounted an effective invasion of Iraq. While the U.S. initially underestimated the strength of the guerrillas, the insurrection never spread past the Sunni triangle, a relatively small piece of Iraq.

Iraqi politics are also shifting in favor of the U.S. The majority Shia are less opposed to the U.S. then the Sunnis, and have no use for the foreign jihadists. They are cooperating with the U.S., in part for control in the government later.

The Sunni sheiks, observing the decline of the guerrilla movement, are repositioning themselves, making deals with the Americans. Therefore, al Qaeda’s hope of bogging down the U.S. in Iraq as they did the Soviets in Afghanistan is disappearing.

On a broader front, the situation is even more unsatisfactory. Al Qaeda hoped that 9/11 would trigger a massive rising among the Islamic masses, toppling regimes collaborating with the U.S. and forcing others to change their policies. That simply hasn’t happened. Invasion of Iraq didn’t cause it to happen either.

To the contrary, the trend in the Islamic world is toward collaboration with the U.S. Most important case is Iran (a Shiite government), whose interests are geopolitical; a Shiite-dominated government in Iraq would certainly be a buffer to Iran’s western flank.

The thought that Iran could be a leading regional power made Saudi Arabia (a Sunni government) take notice and start cleaning house of al Qaeda in the kingdom.

This was a fundamental U.S. goal in the invasion of Iraq. It didn’t happen exactly as planned, but it happened nevertheless. The Saudis, as well as other Gulf states are aggressively accommodating U.S. interests, including attacking al Qaeda throughout the region.

Libya also decided it was a good time to cozy up to the U.S. In the Arab world, only Syria remained outside the process, betting the U.S. would get bogged down. Around the end of December, they realized they had not only bet wrong, but had become completely isolated in the Arab world and surrounded by enemies on all sides. Syria then began to make amends through political diplomacy.

Al Qaeda knows the culminating battle of the war will be waged in northwestern Pakistan when U.S. forces go after Osama and his command cells. They must bring down Pakistan’s leader, President Gen. Musharraf, in order to thwart the U.S. objectives. They have tried, twice, and have failed.

At the moment, not much is going al Qaeda’s way, but they are not yet defeated. Reversals in war are common; the measure of victory is how quickly and effectively one adjusts to the reality and creates a new strategy.

Time is not on al Qaeda’s side; they must do something and do it quickly or continue to lose credibility. Bin Laden is going to have to come up with a good Plan B. The war is not over, but if al Qaeda cannot solve its strategic problem soon, then it could be, at least for this generation.

So it seems the Bush Administration and the Pentagon may know what they are doing after all, and their strategy on the war on terrorism is having an effect on al Qaeda. Let’s pray STRATFOR is correct and al Qaeda becomes paralyzed.

Martin Poffenberger

Peachtree City, Ga.