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Al Qaeda: Surprise! They are Hard to Eradicate

I continue to find some of the "analysis" of the situation concerning al Qaeda to be somewhat frustrating, insofar as I don't consider it well thought-out (indeed, I find a lot of it to be thinly veiled, and to some degree gleeful, excuses to criticize the Bush administration).

Of course, it depends on how one defines success and so forth. The critics seem to be saying two basic things: 1) any actions by al Qaeda prove that they are "resurgent" and 2) this resurgency is because the Bush administration was over-confident/the war in Iraq distracted the administration.

I can accept part of the second argument--clearly, the US did not have all of its assets directed at al Qaeda, therefore one could argue that sans the Iraq war, we might have had more success against al Qaeda. Although I would point out there were some major arrests of al Qaeda operatives right before, during, and after the Iraq war. However, in the broader context of the War on Terror, there were successes in Iraq--the dismantlement of Anzar Islam, the capture of Abu Abbas (who was directing terrorist training from Iraq), and the capture of members of an al Qaeda linked group in Western Iraq. Not to mention, that it is clear that Saddam had aided terrorists in the past (such as Abu Nidal, and the medical treatment given to members of al Qaeda in the past). It is therefore hard to argue (although many do) that the war in Iraq did not further the overall cause of the War on Terror.

So, then you get things like this from ABCNEWS.com:

While President Bush and numerous U.S. intelligence sources were declaring al Qaeda splintered, on the run and incapable of carrying out major terror attacks before the recent spate of bombings, European intelligence services were saying a very different thing.

"We told them repeatedly that al Qaeda was reorganizing, but they never paid any attention," a high-level French counterterrorism official said this week in a comment that reflects the growing frustration built up within European intelligence and law enforcement circles over what government officials there call the Bush administration's "misplaced confidence" in its success in the war on terror.

Several sources in France, Germany and Great Britain have told ABCNEWS this week that the recent wave of terrorist bombings in Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, Pakistan and Morocco have validated an analysis made in Europe close to a year ago that the global war on terror has dealt a smaller blow to al Qaeda's operational capabilities than what has been publicly acknowledged by U.S. intelligence.

Now, what strikes me about this is that 1) the French and Germans have political reasons to criticize, so one has to take such statements with grains of salt; 2) the President and members of the administration have always said that this is going to be a long conflict, not a short one. Indeed, early on the President stated in one his post-9/11 speeches that this war could last beyond his presidency; and 3) part of it boils down to what "splintered" means and what "diminished capabilities" means. Did anyone actually think that al Qaeda was finished? No, clearly not. And the group has always been fragmented by design. Indeed, the same story points out, a few paragraphs later, that

From its inception in the early 1990s, al Qaeda was slowly conceived as a decentralized "network of networks," a "terror Internet" not built around a single center but out of a collection of cells and regional groups acting as nodes linked together by ideology and financial need.

Indeed, part of the rationale behind the “Bush Doctrine” is that because terrorist groups are rarely geographically concentrated, that one has to deal with states who harbor and/sponsor terrorist cells as a means of getting to these groups.

And finally on capacity—al Qaeda has been diminished, and is not currently capable of of a major attack like 9/11--but it is not (or should not be) surprising that they can launch car bomb attacks. And clearly, al Qaeda is far more “on the run” in the post-9/11 world they were before.

Am I arguing that the Bush administration has been flawless in their pursuit of al Qaeda? No. What I am arguing is that the critics have to recognize that terrorist groups are notoriously difficult to destroy—just ask the Israelis.

Posted by Steven at May 23, 2024 09:41 AM | TrackBack