Al Qaeda Strikes Back

Bruce Riedel

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007

Summary:  By rushing into Iraq instead of finishing off the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Washington has unwittingly helped its enemies: al Qaeda has more bases, more partners, and more followers today than it did on the eve of 9/11. Now the group is working to set up networks in the Middle East and Africa -- and may even try to lure the United States into a war with Iran. Washington must focus on attacking al Qaeda's leaders and ideas and altering the local conditions in which they thrive.

Bruce Riedel is a Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He retired last year after 29 years with the Central Intelligence Agency. He served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East Affairs on the National Security Council (1997-2002), Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Near East and South Asian Affairs (1995-97), and National Intelligence Officer for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Intelligence Council (1993-95).

Iraq is, of course, another critical battlefield in the fight against al Qaeda. But it is time to recognize that engagement there is more of a trap than an opportunity for the United States. Al Qaeda and Iran both want Washington to remain bogged down in the quagmire. Al Qaeda has openly welcomed the chance to fight the United States in Iraq. U.S. diplomacy has certainly been clumsy and counterproductive, but there is little point in reviewing the litany of U.S. mistakes that led to this disaster. The objective now should be to let Iraqis settle their conflicts themselves. Rather than reinforce its failures, the United States should disengage from the civil war in Iraq, with a complete, orderly, and phased troop withdrawal that allows the Iraqi government to take the credit for the pullout and so enhance its legitimacy.

No doubt al Qaeda will claim a victory when the United States leaves Iraq. (It already does so at the sheer mention of withdrawal.) But it is unlikely that the Islamic State of Iraq will fare well after the occupation ends. Anbar and adjacent Sunni provinces have little water, few other natural resources, and no access to the outside world except through hostile territory. The Shiites and the Kurdish militias will have no compunction about attacking the Islamic State of Iraq. (Al Qaeda's own propaganda indicates that it fears the Shiites' wrath after the United States' departure more than it fears what would happen if the Americans stayed.)

Another essential aspect of the United States' war against al Qaeda is the war of ideas. Washington must learn to develop more compelling narratives for its actions. Its calls for bringing democracy to Iraq have not resonated, partly because its actions have not matched its rhetoric. Human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay have even further sullied the United States' reputation and honor. Washington should emphasize the concrete steps the United States is taking to heal differences between Islam and the West and to bring peace to Palestine and Kashmir, among other areas. Creating a new narrative will probably also require bringing to Washington (and London) new leaders who are untarnished by the events of the last few years.

The repackaging effort will also have to involve concrete actions to address the issues that al Qaeda invokes to win recruits, particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict but also the conflict in Kashmir. The president of the United States must get personally involved in brokering peace in both instances. In the case of the Arab-Israeli conflict, this will not be easy, especially with Hamas in power in Gaza. But neglecting the issue is no solution either. Washington should consider various ideas for getting the opposing sides back to the negotiating table, including the Baker-Hamilton proposal calling for a new international conference. President Bush should also use the United States' enhanced relationship with India -- thanks to the nuclear deal the two countries ratified last year -- to encourage the nascent dialogue between India and Pakistan and seek an end to those states' rivalry. Such an end would make it easier for the Pakistani government to crack down on terrorist networks in Kashmir, some of which are partners of al Qaeda.

It is now fashionable to call the struggle against al Qaeda the long war. It need not be so, even though helping to rebuild Afghanistan will require a long-term commitment. Decisive actions in key arenas could bring significant results in short order, and a focused strategy could eventually destroy the al Qaeda movement. On the other hand, a failure to adjust U.S. strategy would increase the risk that al Qaeda will launch another "raid" on the United States, this time perhaps with a weapon of mass destruction. For the last several years, al Qaeda's priority has been to bleed the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq. Striking on U.S. soil has been a lesser goal. If al Qaeda survives, however, sooner or later it will attack the U.S. homeland again.

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The Few Setbacks

Despite its overall progress, al Qaeda has suffered several significant setbacks since 9/11, mostly in the Middle East, where it has called for toppling what it considers corrupt pro-U.S. governments. In February 2003, bin Laden wrote a now-famous sermon extolling the "band of knights," the jihadists who had attacked New York and the Pentagon on 9/11, and calling for the overthrow of all apostate leaders in the Persian Gulf -- the "Karzais [referring to Afghan President Hamid Karzai] of Riyadh, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar." In a follow-up message in December 2004, he argued that in the revolution against Saudi Arabia, then Crown Prince Abdullah (now the king), Defense Minister Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, Interior Minister Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, and Bandar bin Sultan (then the Saudi ambassador to the United States) should be killed. He repeatedly urged jihadists to target the oil sector in Saudi Arabia to drive up world oil prices. According to Saudi officials, these public messages came with secret orders from bin Laden instructing cells to attack soft targets in Saudi Arabia.

The al Qaeda apparatus in the kingdom, which had been quiescent, exploded into action between 2003 and 2006 -- triggering the most serious and sustained domestic violence since the creation of modern Saudi Arabia in the early twentieth century. Targets included individual Westerners, the housing compounds of oil companies and Western firms such as the Vinnell Corporation, the Abqaiq oil processing facility (which produces 60 percent of Saudi Arabia's oil), the Ministry of the Interior, and the U.S. consulate in Jidda. Although the offensive coincided with the withdrawal of significant U.S. forces from the country, the pullout was not, as some analysts believed, bin Laden's main goal; it was merely a step toward the overthrow of the "corrupt" regimes in the Islamic world and the ultimate destruction of Israel.

But the Saudi internal security forces fought back very effectively. According to Saudi authorities, they foiled more than 25 major attacks and by the end of 2006 had killed or captured over 260 terrorists, including all but one of the 26 men on the country's most wanted list. The backbone of the al Qaeda movement in the kingdom was apparently broken. After 9/11, al Qaeda also launched an offensive in Egypt, the home country of Zawahiri, preaching the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak. Hotels and tourist sites in the Sinai frequented by Israelis and Westerners were struck in October 2004 and July 2005 -- the July attacks, in Sharm al-Sheikh, killed almost a hundred people, outdoing the worst terrorist strike in Egypt up to that point (the Luxor massacre of 1997, which has also been linked to Zawahiri).