Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Hillary Clinton did not bring peace to Northern Ireland, but she may have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.

Hillary Clinton did not negotiate to open borders in Kosovo (with Sinbad and Sheryl Crow at her side), but she may have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.

Hillary Clinton did make a speech in China, and that is the only thing her campaign advisors could think of to demonstrate her foreign policy experience.

Mrs. Clinton’s advisors of course could not point to the biggest foreign policy decision she has had to make as an example of her experience, because to do so would raise uncomfortable questions about her judgment or her competence. That experience is Iraq.

Since Hillary Clinton voted to give George W Bush authority to wage war in Iraq she has wavered from saying she had no regrets about her vote to recently saying that she regretted the vote. Her regret for the vote has increased in inverse proportion to the time left to the Democratic nomination.

However, Hillary Clinton has always claimed that she voted not to take the country to war, but instead to avert war by making it easier for the President to wage war. Mrs. Clinton stated on the floor of the Senate that:

Because bipartisan support for this resolution makes success in the United Nations more likely, and therefore, war less likely, and because a good faith effort by the United States, even if it fails, will bring more allies and legitimacy to our cause, I have concluded, after careful and serious consideration, that a vote for the resolution best serves the security of our nation.

Barack Obama often points out that the resolution Hillary Clinton voted for was titled "A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq". So her claim that she wasn’t voting for war is on its face absurd. Further, the resolution that Mrs. Clinton voted for and defended gave the President explicit authority to wage war in Iraq in Section 3(a) and reinforced the point by covering the War Powers Resolution requirements in Section 3(c):

(c) WAR POWERS RESOLUTION REQUIREMENTS.—
(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION.—Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.
(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS.—Nothing in this joint resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.

With Section 3(c), Congress gave the President specific statutory authorization under the War Powers Resolution. Without this authority, Congress could have required George W Bush to get authorization before launching any attack on Iraq. Sections 8(a)(1) and 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution together require the President to terminate "any use of United States armed forces" unless Congress "has declared war or has enacted a specific authorization for such use of United States Armed Forces". The Resolution Mrs. Clinton voted for was just such a specific authorization. Mrs. Clinton was not giving diplomacy a chance, she had just authorized the President of the United States to wage war. She gave George W Bush a loaded pistol and is now surprised that he used it.

In case Mrs. Clinton was under some other illusion at the time, she could have simply listened to the public statements coming from the end of Pennsylvania Avenue she now claims her foreign policy experience qualifies her to take up residence in. On the day Mrs. Clinton voted, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleisher was already talking about what the occupation of Iraq would look like:

Today the White House altered its explanation of the current thinking. Ari Fleischer, the president’s press secretary, said that while ‘’there will certainly be a role for the military'’ in Iraq if Saddam Hussein is dislodged, he expected that Iraqis would not be treated as a former enemy, but rather as a liberated people.

‘’I dispute that notion'’ of occupation, he said. Japan, he noted, ‘’actively fought the United States'’ during World War II, before its postwar occupation. In Iraq in 1991, he noted, many in the Iraqi military surrendered, and he expected that would happen again. ‘’My point is, the likelihood is much more like Afghanistan, where the people who live right now under a brutal dictator will view America as liberators, not conquerors.'’

On the failure of her major foray into domestic policy as First Lady, Hillary Clinton described her performance as "naive and dumb". On her most important foreign policy decision as a United States Senator, it is baffling to think that she would not realize that she had voted to take the United States to war with Iraq.

Hillary Clinton needs to clearly explainto the Democratic voters  whether she voted to take the United States to war in Iraq or whether she did not realize what she was voting for.

Since September the 11th, 2001 President Bush has been telling us that they hate us for our freedoms. However, he has never really been able to define who "they" are. He has never been able to go beyond his talking points to understand who it is that attacked us. His failure to know the shape of the enemy has led us into a major foreign policy blunder in Iraq and away from the struggle before us. His foreign policy and his rhetoric have been hijacked by the neo-cons with damaging consequences. Five years after 9/11 we are still under threat from extremists. In fact, the threat has grown significantly during the last five years in large part due to Mr. Bush’s inaction and his charged rhetoric.

President Bush never misses an opportunity to paint any foe as part of the collective "them" in the War on Terror. Saddam Hussein was "them" so he had to be taken down. Now it is Hezbollah and Hamas, it is Iran and Syria. They must be taken down. Today in his radio address Mr. Bush once again saw red and painted with his broad brush:

"The terrorists attempt to bring down airplanes full of innocent men, women, and children," Mr Bush said.

"They kill civilians and American servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they deliberately hide behind civilians in Lebanon. They are seeking to spread their totalitarian ideology."

While Mr. Bush plays politics to justify his Iraq and Middle East policy the real threat is closer to home and getting stronger.

In the United Kingdom a small but media savvy political party named Hizb ut-Tahrir started to take root in the 1990s. Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation in Arabic) is an Islamist party dedicated to creating an Islamic Caliphate in the Arab and Muslim world. Though it was founded in the 1950s in Jerusalem it really started to mobilize globally in the age of the Internet. Since that time it has started to spread its tentacles across Europe and the Arab and Muslim world. Today Hizb ut-Tahrir has presence in Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Yemen, Uzbekistan, Russia, Australia, United Kingdom, the Sudan, Denmark, Germany and other European countries. In some European and Arab countries the group is banned. However, they continue to operate freely in Britain and in many Muslim countries.

Hizb ut-Tahrir claims to be a peaceful nonviolent movement. According to the FAQ on their information website, they plan on achieving an Islamic Caliphate through peaceful means:

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a political party whose ideology is Islam. The party works throughout the Islamic world to resume the Islamic way of life by re-establishing the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate). The party adheres to the Islamic Shari’ah in all aspects of its work, and takes its methodology from that of the Prophet Muhammad that he used to establish the first Islamic State in Madinah. The Prophet Muhammad limited his struggle for the establishment of the Islamic State to the intellectual and political domains. Hence the party considers violence or armed struggle against the regime a violation of the Islamic Shari’ah.

However, this group has a history of spreading hateful propaganda all over Europe:

In March and April 2002, Hizb Ut Tahrir handed out leaflets in a square in Copenhagen, and at a mosque. The leaflet, which also appeared on the Danish groups internet site, makes threats against Jews, using a quote from the Koran urging Muslims to ‘kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have been turned you out.’ The leaflet also said, ‘The Jews are a people of slander…a treacherous people… they fabricate lies and twist words from their right context.’ And the leaflet describes suicide bombings in Israel as "legitimate" acts of "Martyrdom".

The appeal of Hizb ut-Tahrir lies in its carefully planned and calibrated message. In the West, they try to stay just on the margins of the law. They highlight all the issues most Muslims care about: the Palestinian problem, the war in Iraq, the war in Lebanon, U.S. support for Israel, etc. On cursory observation they appear like any other leftist anti war political party with a pro-Muslim message. However, on closer examination a profile of a hate group emerges. To stay within the law in the U.K. the group has cleaned up some of its official statements. However, a look at their past publications sheds some light on their plans. According to Hizb ut-Tahrir’s since sanitized manifesto (cached page from 2004):

As for the political struggle, it is manifested in the struggle against the disbelieving imperialists, to deliver the Ummah from their domination and to liberate her from their influence by uprooting their intellectual, cultural, political, economic and military roots from all of the Muslim countries.

The political struggle also appears in challenging the rulers, revealing their treasons and conspiracies against the Ummah, and by taking them to task and changing them if they denied the rights of the Ummah, or refrained from performing their duties towards her, or ignored any matter of her affairs, or violated the laws of Islam.

…

Based on this, the Party defined its method of work into three stages:

• The First Stage: The stage of culturing to produce people who believe in the idea and the method of the Party, so that they form the Party group.
• The Second Stage: The stage of interaction with the Ummah, to let the Ummah embrace and carry Islam, so that the Ummah takes it up as its issue, and thus works to establish it in the affairs of life.
• The Third Stage: The stage of establishing government, implementing Islam generally and comprehensively, and carrying it as a message to the world.

The above goals should be familiar to most readers. These are the goals advocated by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda: the removal of western influence from Muslim countries and then the overthrow of the governments of the Muslim countries in favor of a Caliphate.

While bin Laden hides in caves Hizb ut-Tahrir takes its message freely to the young people of the Muslim world. It targets colleges and universities in the Muslim world looking for recruits to its idea of jihad and of an enduring Caliphate. For example, in Bangladesh, which is a largely secular Muslim majority country, Hizb ut-Tahrir is starting to make inroads with university students and intellectuals.

The group’s presence as a political party in Bangladesh is small but nonetheless vocal. It markets itself as a discussion group to university students and openly holds weekly meetings at the country’s leading universities. It feeds on political unrest in the country and presents itself as a utopian alternative to all the country’s ills. It capitalizes on Muslim grievances and focuses hate and anger toward the West and the country’s own government. The Iraq War offers easy ammunition:

The illegal occupying forces of America and Britain have again unleashed a devastating series of attacks upon the Muslims of Iraq. Intensifying their attack upon innocent civilians they have systematically targeted mosques, bazaars, hospitals, marches and demonstrations. They use missiles, tanks, helicopters and planes to carry out these attacks. They have turned the cities of Karbalaa, Al-Najaf and Al-Kufah, its south and north, and "Al-Falujah" into battlefields destroying whatever stands in front of them. They hound the Muslims in their houses and mosques. Thousands have been mercilessly killed by the kafir [infidel] occupying forces.

…

However the greatest tragedy today is the role of the rulers of the Muslim countries. While the Muslims of Iraq have demonstrated their bravery due to their iman [faith] in Allah fighting with their bare bodies, our rulers have demonstrated the extent of their cowardice and treachery. These 50 or so rulers stand by while our lands are destroyed and our brothers and sisters are slaughtered. These rulers like obedient servants of America watch the slaughter preventing the sincere and strong Muslim armies to aid the Muslims of Iraq. Rather our armies are used by these traitor rulers to guard their thrones and palaces. These rulers are appointed over the Muslim Ummah to safeguard only the interests of the colonialists and enemies of the Muslims. [Translations by me.]

The tactic is always the same: blame the West and then find a way of tying the country’s government to the West. In many cases, the grievances are legitimate. That is exactly where Hizb ut-Tahrir’s appeal lies. It first voices a legitimate grievance and then pivots the rhetoric into hate.

Hizb ut-Tahrir are masters at capturing the media spotlight and magnifying the smallest hint of a controversy. During the Danish cartoon controversy, it was Hizb ut-Tahrir in Bangladesh and elsewhere that engineered the protest marches for the benefit of Western cameras:

Look closely at the banners in the above photographs. This group never misses an opportunity to market its goals.

In a largely secular country like Bangladesh, Hizb ut-Tahrir will not garner much support and will likely remain in the fringes. However, it need not have a huge following to mobilize hate. Its target audience, university students who are looking to channel their frustration, are the engine that fuel the armies of hate. It is not groups like Hamas or Hezbollah that produced the September 11th terrorists. It was not Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that produced the London bombers of 7/11 or those that are detained in the current terror plot. In all cases it was educated middle class Muslims in their 20s that were the killers. These young men were schooled in an ideology that began with groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir. While the group claims non-violence, its rhetoric green lights violence with a wink and a nod.

No amount of bombing in Iraq and in Lebanon will make us safer while we ignore hate groups such as these. Instead of tackling these groups, the Bush Administration is busily driving new recruits into their fold. While we bomb "them", we let these groups fester in so-called "friendly" countries. The tired "you are either with us or against us" rhetoric of Mr. Bush does not begin to address the terrorist factories in clear view of the world. So, when we say that Mr. Bush’s foreign policy has made us less safe by ignoring the real threat in favor of his neo-con escapade in Iraq, we should point to groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir as clear evidence.

This is not a war we can win with F-16s and Tomahawk missiles. It is not a war for the soul of Islam. It is a war against a small group of extremists with a powerful propaganda machine. Our goal should be to outmaneuver them and isolate them. To do that we need a leader who understands the world beyond the confines of his talking points.

[As a footnote, if you want to get a small taste of how easily Hizb ut-Tahrir is able to appeal to the young people in countries like Bangladesh, read the comments attached to this post about Hizb ut-Tahrir from a Bangladeshi blogger based in London.]

Update: The Guardian is now reporting that 10 of the 19 suspects arrested last week in London may have been targeted by Hibz ut-Tahrir and its off-shoot al-Mujaharoun.

 [Cross posted at Taylor Marsh]

What is the goal of the United States in the War on Terror? What is the plan to win the war? What is the strategy? And how do we measure success? Are we trying to win hearts and minds while defeating the terrorists militarily?

An article in the New York Times today argues that the U.S. effort of funding the Somali warlords has been counterproductive and has failed. There is a remarkable quote attributed to a senior Bush Administration official in the article that brings into focus the Bush foreign policy agenda:

"You’ve got to find and nullify enemy leadership," one senior Bush administration official said. "We are going to support any viable political actor that we think will help us with counterterrorism." [Emphasis added by me.]

Isn’t that exactly what is wrong with the Bush foreign policy?

Foreign policy that is driven by a single-minded focus on killing the enemy regardless of the consequences seems to be the hallmark of this Administration’s machinations in the War on Terror thus far. This policy is susceptible to sabotage by unscrupulous foreign forces. In order to fight "terrorists" we lay in bed with some very unsavory characters who likely pose a more significant threat to U.S. interests. Warlords and two-bit Third World power brokers transform themselves into "anti-terrorist" forces and manipulate the United States to serve their own local agendas. The military and economic might of the United States is usurped by our "friends" to settle local scores. In short, the United States is getting played.

In the War on Terror the Bush Administration has paid lip service to diplomacy, to alliance building, to containment, and other proven tools to combat a hostile foe in the international arena. Instead the Bush Administration has focused primarily on military force either directly or by supporting proxies - the old rules apparently do not apply in the post 9/11 world. This focus on military means has so far proven to be a complete failure. The Bush Administration has allied itself with Afghan warlords, with Central Asian dictators, with Shia Islamists in Iraq, and Somali warlords because all of them promised to get the "terrorists". Instead what they have gotten is more instability and chaos.

There does not appear to be any broader policy goal in Somalia or the War on Terror other than killing the enemy. Apparently the lure of funding warlords was so strong that the Bush Administration has forsaken a broader policy for a narrower "capture dead or alive" philosophy:

Among those who have criticized the C.I.A. operation as short-sighted have been senior Foreign Service officers at the United States Embassy in Nairobi. Earlier this year, Leslie Rowe, the embassy’s second-ranking official, signed off on a cable back to State Department headquarters that detailed grave concerns throughout the region about American efforts in Somalia, according to several people with knowledge of the report.

 Around that time, the State Department’s political officer for Somalia, Michael Zorick, who had been based in Nairobi, was reassigned to Chad after he sent a cable to Washington criticizing Washington’s policy of paying Somali warlords.

One American government official who traveled to Nairobi this year said officials from various government agencies working in Somalia had expressed concern that American activities in the country were not being carried out in the context of a broader policy.

"They were fully aware that they were doing so without any strategic framework," the official said. "And they realized that there might be negative implications to what they are doing."

It is then not so surprising that this policy has contributed to failure in Somalia:

Some Africa experts contend that the United States has lost its focus on how to deal with the larger threat of terrorism in East Africa by putting a premium on its effort to capture or kill a small number of high-level suspects.

Indeed, some of the experts point to the American effort to finance the warlords as one of the factors that led to the resurgence of Islamic militias in the country. They argue that American support for secular warlords, who joined together under the banner of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism, may have helped to unnerve the Islamic militias and prompted them to launch pre-emptive strikes. The Islamic militias have been routing the warlords, and on Monday they claimed to have taken control of most of the Somali capital.

"This has blown up in our face, frankly," said John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit research organization with extensive field experience in Somalia.

After the U.S. funded warlords were routed, the Bush Administration is now ready to talk to the Islamists in Somalia:

Senior American officials indicated this week that the United States might now be willing to hold discussions with the Islamic militias, known as the Islamic Courts Union. President Bush said Tuesday that the first priority for the United States was to keep Somalia from becoming a safe haven for terrorists.

The Administration has it backwards. First you try diplomacy and then you use the military option, not the other way around.

The Somalia experience is a benchmark for the more general war on terror. The ill concieved Bush Administration strategy of "fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here" is not working.  From Kabul to Mogadishu, from Tehran to Baghdad, we are in a more dangerous world now then we were on September 12th, 2001. Its time for some grown ups at the wheel.