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Next Jihad II
I seem to have distracted many readers from the point of this post with a vague reference to the "flypaper" theory, so let me clarify:
- Eliminating the Afghan sanctuary cut down on al-Qaeda recruitment because despite the continuing appeal of the al-Qaeda ideology, people who wanted to sign up didn't know where to go.
- By invading Iraq and then botching the aftermath, we've created a new location for would-be jihadis to travel to in order to join the war.
- Thus, we're creating some number of new anti-American warriors.
- Right now, those warriors aren't killing people in America because they're in Iraq.
- But at some point, some of them will leave Iraq, and start launching attacks in the United States, Europe, and other countries.
January 5, 2005 | Permalink
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» Thoughts on Iraq from Jeff the Baptist
Matthew Yglesias has thoughts on the grand strategy of Iraq and Afghanistan. While I agree with some of his conclusions, I find his analysis lacking in some areas... [Read More]
Tracked on Jan 6, 2005 11:36:03 AM
Comments
Matthew,
I think we understood your point. The problem is that any discussion that goes anywhere near the on-ramp to that road is seized by the Radical Right as "proof" that Liberal Commentator X really agrees with the flypaper theory but is trying to hide it. Al is already at work setting that trap in the previous thread.
Cranky
Posted by: Cranky Observer | Jan 5, 2005 11:18:25 AM
Also, there will likely be NEW Al Qaedas that arise from the Iraqi insurgency.
Posted by: bobo brooks | Jan 5, 2005 11:24:11 AM
1.Eliminating the Afghan sanctuary cut down on al-Qaeda recruitment because despite the continuing appeal of the al-Qaeda ideology, people who wanted to sign up didn't know where to go.
I'll agree that the invasion of Afghanistan seriously disrupted Al Qaeda's operations. But we didn't go in with enough troops to stablize the country so now we face a resurgence of warlords who are cranking out more heroin than ever before and we have a serious narco-terrorist threat on our hands. Hardly a satisfactory trade-off.
2. By invading Iraq and then botching the aftermath, we've created a new location for would-be jihadis to travel to in order to join the war.
3. Thus, we're creating some number of new anti-American warriors
I think up to 200,000 (according to the Iraqi defense minister, even the Americans are admitting 100,000 now) is more than "some".
4. Right now, those warriors aren't killing people in America because they're in Iraq.
True, but I don't understand the logic that says we are winning the war on terror because we have spent $200 billion and suffered 15,000 casulties overseas instead of here. If those numbers were inside the U.S., we would have demanded George Bush's head on a pike. Those people are just as dead in Baghdad as they would be if the IED blew them up in Detroit.
5.But at some point, some of them will leave Iraq, and start launching attacks in the United States, Europe, and other countries.
This is where the logic breaks down. Attacks in Europe and the U.S. will continue to be infrequent because they are difficult to carry out, expensive, and there are too many tempting western targets closer to home. OBL is a terrorist who likes big operations and will finance spectacular displays in western countries. But he also plans for a long time. Even if we hadn't disrupted his operations it would have been five to ten years before he could have hoped to repeat anything approaching the audacity of the 9/11 attacks.
And don't forget, small attacks are relatively cheap but if you really want to rock the world, it takes a lot of money. That kind of money comes with strings attached. Your financiers may like to see the west taken down a couple notches, but they don't want it destroyed. After all, they are selling their oil to the west and they so do love the money and the lifestyle that the devils in the west provide them.
Posted by: Freder Frederson | Jan 5, 2005 11:35:17 AM
The Fly Factory theory.
Posted by: Patrick Smith | Jan 5, 2005 11:59:11 AM
$200billion/$20million = 10,000. 200K UStroops/~2.5K al qaeda = 80. This GWOT is fucking insanity. Osama could have been captured and his forces disbanded for <$20billion.
Posted by: ken melvin | Jan 5, 2005 12:02:49 PM
Al is already at work setting that trap in the previous thread.
I don't think my post in the previous thread can be construed in that manner. But I DO like your sentiment: folks on the left better stick to the DNC party line, else the right will seize on it to (heaven forbid) promote right-wing policies! Gotta enforce discipline in the troops! I say, it makes it much easier to ridicule the entire left if you all continue to require that all lefties take cartoonish views in order to maintain membership in the club.
As to the substance of the post itself, I think it has holes in its logic so large you can drive a Mack truck thru them. For one, the idea that we are "creating" more terrorists interested in attacking the United States (as opposed to promoting some Baathist and/or Islamist vision of Iraq) than would have been otherwise "created" without Iraq, which is simply idiotic on its face.
Posted by: Al | Jan 5, 2005 12:08:18 PM
One of the points that Sageman doesn't touch is the practical side of carrying an attack in the US. Traveling to the US is expensive, difficult (you need a visa), and there is not much of a support network there. Most terrorist networks emerge where there is a significant base of potential supporters and the arab-muslim population in the US is relatively small and well integrated, making everything (travel, operation, etc.) much more difficult. That's why in Sageman's study, the subjects tended to be the kind of guys who COULD be in the US (upscale men with college education in hard sciences) and not a representative sample of the arab-muslim radical population. So the number of attacks in US soil will always be small.
Posted by: Carlos | Jan 5, 2005 12:14:25 PM
I'm actually with Al on this.
The people who are going to attack us aren't in Iraq, they are in Paris, London, Jersey City, New York, Detroit, etc..
Maybe they needed Afghanistan in the past to organize but they know each other and they have their network, it's just fine and probably growing (possibly faster because of Iraq but it would be growing anyway). These are educated, intelligent people and they have a mission and one that you aren't going to stop without a state security apparatus that makes the old GDR look like a utopia.
It's the price of doing business in the Middle East and you either get terrorists or you get the hell out of that snakepit. This country needs to grow up and pick one.
Posted by: absynthe | Jan 5, 2005 12:21:17 PM
You know I take that back. I was thinking specifically about Al Queda but it's perfectly possible a brand new operation of Iraqi nationalists is in action right now working something up for us.
Posted by: absynthe | Jan 5, 2005 12:32:43 PM
For one, the idea that we are "creating" more terrorists interested in attacking the United States (as opposed to promoting some Baathist and/or Islamist vision of Iraq) than would have been otherwise "created" without Iraq, which is simply idiotic on its face.
Why is this "idiotic on its face"? Is there any doubt that George Bush's aggressive and inept handling of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has made us more hated in the world in general and the muslim world in particular, creating a greater likelyhood that anti-American terrorist recruiting will increase. The war in Iraq has also destabilized world oil prices causing 50% rise in the price of oil. This means the major source of islamic terrorist funding (oil money from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Gulf States and Iran) has increased significantly. As much as the State Department whines about Syria supporting the insurgency in Iraq, Syria is just a conduit. Anyone with a brain knows that Syria is too poor to fund the insurgents. The funding is coming from the countries with oil. The last thing our friends in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan want to see is a Shiite dominated democracy in Iraq.
Posted by: Freder Frederson | Jan 5, 2005 12:41:52 PM
...it's perfectly possible a brand new operation of Iraqi nationalists is in action right now working something up for us.
Yeah, exactly. I was reading today's NYT editorial:
...More than once, American soldiers have taken an Iraqi teenager and compelled him to dig his grave, then forced him to kneel, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger in a mock execution.
...wondering what some of these teenagers might be up to a couple of years from now...
Posted by: abb1 | Jan 5, 2005 12:51:35 PM
From a game theoretic standpoint, the "fly paper" idea is bad because it assumes a stupid adversary. The Iraq war gives someone like Bin Laden a new option of fighting hardened troops in Iraq, which fly-paper advocates want, but it does not stop him from carrying out his original plan and attacking the "far enemy" in the US, where it is not as prepared for attack (and would by now be quite surprised--notice the lack of holiday security warnings this year?). Now I'm a lousy chess player, but I know that you don't leave an opening for your opponent to win even if you think he will be too dumb to see it (you could do it for a faster win against an inferior player, but it's a gamble).
I honestly can't figure out for certain if Al Qaeda really is so stupid that it gets distracted by the presence of troops in Iraq, and attacks hardened positions losing disproportionately many fighter, which is what fly-paper advocates are betting on, or if it just got lucky with 9/11 and would not have succeeded in further domestic attacks because they've lost the element of surprise and the Afghan war hurt them.
What I do know is that "fly paper" is a gamble on having an incompetent opponent, and this is a very poor approach to security. I don't think any serious defense analyst has even promoted it. I only remember hearing it from Andrew Sullivan, and it strikes me as a desperation theory promoted after we failed to find WMDs.
I have often thought that Iraq is less a matter of fly paper than it is creating a stagnant pond in response to mosquito trouble. I.e., you get bit by one mosquito by surprise. You're not sure where the mosquitos are coming from, so in response, you dig a mudhole and fill it with water. You observe that most mosquito activity is in the mudhole, and declare that you have established a "central front" in the mosquito battle.
Posted by: Paul Callahan | Jan 5, 2005 1:13:05 PM
Shorter me: the fly paper strategy fails assuming opponents are not flies but rational game theoretic adversaries.
Posted by: Paul Callahan | Jan 5, 2005 1:16:01 PM
I don't think my post in the previous thread can be construed in that manner. But I DO like your sentiment: folks on the left better stick to the DNC party line, else the right will seize on it to (heaven forbid) promote right-wing policies! Gotta enforce discipline in the troops! I say, it makes it much easier to ridicule the entire left if you all continue to require that all lefties take cartoonish views in order to maintain membership in the club.
As long as we agree that pendulum swings both ways, Al, I'll agree. You guys need more John McCains just like we need more Joe Biden's.
Posted by: Adrock | Jan 5, 2005 1:21:53 PM
If I remember correctly, the "flypaper" theory was only dreamed up as an after-the-fact defense of Bush's "bring it on" comment. Am I wrong? If I'm right, it doesn't deserve discussion as an actual argument for the war, since it was never mentioned before the war.
Posted by: digamma | Jan 5, 2005 1:57:12 PM
You're not sure where the mosquitos are coming from, so in response, you dig a mudhole and fill it with water.
This reminds me of the TPM's metaphor:
...the "flypaper" theory makes about as much sense as a public health director saying "By creating a dirty hospital, we're going to create a place where we can fight the germs on our terms."
Posted by: abb1 | Jan 5, 2005 2:01:30 PM
I think it's a certainty that the sort of young Muslim guy who would have gone to Chechnya or Bosnia 10 years ago, or Afghanistan 20 years ago, now heads for Iraq. Once he's there, he either learns how to be an effective partisan, or he dies. So we're helping not merely to recruit, but to train, the new jihadists.
But those aren't the guys that bin Laden needs for operations against the 'far enemy'. For that, you need enough social and financial sophistication to avoid doing really boneheaded things that give the game away. And you probably need some pretty good technical skills, to make the whole trip worthwhile. So if bin Laden wants to inflict mayhem on American soil, he'll need angry young males who've had some western education. Guys like Mohammed Atta.
Iraq certainly isn't producing of these guys, though it might be inspiring them. Valuable as they are, bin Laden would be squandering their talents if he used them in Iraq, and he doesn't seem like a foolish guy. So I suspect that while there may be a kernel of truth to the 'flypaper theory', the big problem is that we're extremely unlikely to catch the kind of fly we really ought to worry about.
Posted by: sglover | Jan 5, 2005 2:17:52 PM
The flypaper theory also assumes a stupid host - one that won't realise that the best way to deal with the newly-acquired terrorist problem on the doorstep is to get rid of the flypaper.
Posted by: dan | Jan 5, 2005 2:19:36 PM
Valuable as they are, bin Laden would be squandering their talents if he used them in Iraq, and he doesn't seem like a foolish guy.
I would argue that the 9/11 attacks squandered the most capable bunch of Jihadis ever to come under Bin Laden's influence. (This is what call the "Duh" theory of why an attack on the scale of 9/11 hasn't happened again: the people who knew how to pull it off are all dead.)
9/11 also gave away the game and resulted in the destruction of the Afghanistan training camps. I'm not sure which part of this strikes you as smart from a strategic level.
Posted by: Paul Callahan | Jan 5, 2005 2:31:47 PM
It's not correct to think that the US need leave Iraq before the new Iraqi-based groups come after Americans.
Iraqi insurgents threaten attack inside United States
'Big surprise' planned: 'We will give Americans a taste of what civilians in our country go through'
Posted by: tex | Jan 5, 2005 2:57:43 PM
I would argue that the 9/11 attacks squandered the most capable bunch of Jihadis ever to come under Bin Laden's influence.
I think that's true, except that Atta didn't necessarily do what he did because he had 'come under Bin Laden's influence'. He became obsessed first, he found a sponsor with money, he planned it and he acted.
For a new Atta it would probably be more difficult to find a connection to bin Laden now because the organization is more covert, but OTOH there must be a helluva lot more of these Attas out there.
Posted by: abb1 | Jan 5, 2005 3:33:36 PM
he planned it
False. That would be Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Posted by: Al | Jan 5, 2005 4:32:22 PM
I would argue that the 9/11 attacks squandered the most capable bunch of Jihadis ever to come under Bin Laden's influence. (This is what call the "Duh" theory of why an attack on the scale of 9/11 hasn't happened again: the people who knew how to pull it off are all dead.)
I'm don't see how you can say that bin Laden 'squandered' his 9/11 crew. First, the simple cost / 'benefit' ratio is pretty extraordinary: For an 'investment' of a few tens of thousands of dollars and not even a couple of dozen people, he inflicted damage that's a good fraction of a trillion dollars.
More important, it seems to have been a truly galvanizing historic event. It was certainly the best political gift Bush could ever have imagined, and I suspect that bin Laden is absolutely delighted by the November results. It was a heinous act from our perspective, but I'll bet you that it was an inspiration for millions of angry Muslim males -- bin Laden, after all, got something done.
I don't think the loss of Afghanistan is such a harsh blow for bin Laden. It's a setback, sure, but not a decisive one. Hell, for years he was able to go to ground and still operate against the Soviets. Fixed facilities aren't essential to his concept of war. And in any case, I don't think his Afghan camps were very elaborate or difficult to replicate.
Posted by: sglover | Jan 5, 2005 5:16:25 PM
For an 'investment' of a few tens of thousands of dollars and not even a couple of dozen people, he inflicted damage that's a good fraction of a trillion dollars.
Both sides of the argument depend on some unproven assumptions. Replacing the 9/11 hijackers isn't quite as simple as pulling 19 people off the street. Maybe you think it's easier than I do. I am just very skeptical of suicide missions as a longterm winning strategy. The most valuable soldiers are usually the ones that came back alive from previous battles. There's also a question of knowledge transfer. Anyone who wants to train for another attack is going to have to figure out how to do it all over again.
It's also probably true that Bin Laden didn't have much of a choice of how to employ the hijackers, so I'm overstating my case by using the term "squandered" in active voice. But I don't see clear evidence that Bin Laden has come up with a repeatable approach to attacking US interests.
Posted by: Paul Callahan | Jan 5, 2005 5:27:46 PM
I mean a repeatable approach to attacks on the scale of 9/11.
Posted by: Paul Callahan | Jan 5, 2005 5:36:18 PM
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