NICHOLAS THOMPSON
The imprecise `war on terrorism'ON THE EVENING of Sept. 11, 2001, George W. Bush introduced the most important foreign policy organizing principle since the Cold War. "We stand together to win the war against terrorism," he said. Almost immediately, the nation rallied around that three-word phrase and settled on it as the definition of the struggle of an era.
That phrase, or "war on terror," has proved useful in some ways. It has given a secular name to something that could have caused greater trouble if named religiously. It also won us allies in the attack's immediate aftermath. Russia, Israel, India and other nations have long battled terrorism and were pleased when the United States declared that it was joining them. But as other commentators have pointed out, "terrorism" is an imprecise and misleading term. For one, it's just a tactic, like blockading or bombing. The French resistance to the Vichy government was surely terrorist. Terrorism also doesn't sufficiently describe the people who threaten us. Our enemies hate the West and will use any tactic to attack us. They use terror now only because it's one of the few available strategies. If they get stronger, they'll change tactics.This spring Osama bin Laden called for the assassinations of Paul Bremer and Kofi Annan. That's no more terrorism than Bush's putting prices on Uday and Qusay Hussein's heads. Consequently, that phrase "war on terror" has confused as much as it has clarified. Unlike the Cold War, where people disagreed over how dangerous the USSR was but not whether it threatened us, the war on terrorism has muddied our foreign policy by creating a mismatch between our rhetoric and our goals. Some of our enemies are terrorists, and some terrorists are our enemies. But on both counts, some aren't. One clear problem is that there are terrorists everywhere, from Chechnya to Palestine to Colombia. By declaring to fight under the banner of a war on terrorism, we either have to stretch ourselves too thin, expose ourselves to charges of hypocrisy, or do a little of both. In addition, in each of these places, if terrorism is our first priority then our previous top priorities, like promoting democracy or trying to broker peace, must be downgraded. Because of these problems, the president would have served the country much better by declaring war against the people who killed lots of Americans on Sept. 11 and who still have designs on killing lots of other Americans. That means Al Qaeda, not the Tamil Tigers or even Hezbollah. Admittedly, calling for a war against Al Qaeda has problems, particularly since it has dispersed greatly since 9/11. Some of the terrorists who attacked Westerners in Bali, Madrid, Saudi Arabia, and other countries were tied to the Al Qaeda leadership through training camps and other networks. Others resemble independent franchises. But fighting "Al Qaeda and its allies" includes everyone who has attacked us. These five words much more precisely describe our foes than fighting "terror." Abandoning the war on terror and declaring war on "Al Qaeda and its allies" wouldn't mean forsaking Israel, Russia, or any other country facing separatist movements that routinely employ terrorism. It would just mean more nuanced support. The terrorist groups in those countries don't targets America or Americans; none has international ambitions; and some are fighting for goals much worthier than Al Qaeda's. Stopping "terror" should probably never be our top priority when it comes to these conflicts. The president isn't likely to change the nomenclature of the war, particularly since the vagueness of the phrase helped him persuade Congress and the public that it was in our interest to topple Saddam Hussein. If we had declared war on Al Qaeda immediately after Sept. 11, it would have been much harder to argue persuasively for diverting resources from the hunt for bin Laden to Iraq. But John Kerry can turn that argument around for his own benefit, arguing that the Iraq War would have been handled much better under a different name. Plus changing the name of the war would give Kerry something dramatic to distinguish his foreign policy in the last months of the campaign. Everyone knows Kerry would handle international relations differently from Bush. But understanding why is complicated. Kerry voted for the resolution authorizing the Iraq war and each of the senator's four declared major foreign policy priorities -- building better international alliances, modernizing the military, using our non-military strength to slow our enemies, and making us independent of Mideast oil -- is something the president supports at least rhetorically. To make a clean break, Kerry needs something bold and something new. Declaring war against "Al Qaeda and its allies" and renouncing the "war on terror" could give him both.
Nicholas Thompson is a senior editor at Legal Affairs. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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