America and the war on terror. (Essays).

Quandt, William B.

As the United States responds to the horrifying attacks of September 11, ordinary American citizens have been hearing two quite different messages. On the one hand, there has been much talk of war; of a crusade to end evil in the world; to punish not only the perpetrators of this outrage, but also those who harbor them -- and those who may simply resemble them. In short, we have been called to a war against terrorism in all its dimensions. These are images designed to mobilize the public for sacrifices to come and to respond to the understandable anger of Americans who feel vulnerable and threatened as never before.

But the same political leaders who have engaged in some of these rhetorical excesses are also the ones who remind us repeatedly that this will be an unprecedented kind of war, one which will not be over quickly, which will require patience, and which we cannot fight alone. We are urged to prepare for a long and murky campaign against an elusive enemy. As much as Osama bin Ladin and the Taliban leaders of Afghanistan have been singled out as the primary culprits, we are nonetheless reminded that the battle will have to be waged in many countries, including our own, where small cells of terrorists reside.

So, as we mobilize for this new kind of struggle, what are some basic realities that we should bear in mind?

* First, we are not in this struggle alone and cannot expect to prevail with a strictly unilateralist policy. We need allies at a time like this, including many in the Arab and Islamic worlds.

* While there is an obvious military dimension to this struggle, it may not be the most important part of what we do. Military force may be able to remove the Taliban regime from power and neutralize Bin Laden and his immediate henchmen, but without a more comprehensive strategy, the broader phenomenon of terrorism will not necessarily be fundamentally weakened.

* In addition to the military strikes, there will be a need for careful police and intelligence work to infiltrate and undermine the networks that are loosely linked to Bin Laden and others of his ilk. We will have to trace the flow of money and arms, training and motives that can lead to the small, tightly knit groups that have the resources and means to carry out these acts of terror. And, of course, we have the large agenda of making sure that we will not be easy targets. Secure cockpit doors on all passenger aircraft might well have made the recent attacks impossible to carry out.

* On the home front and internationally, we need to be careful about who the enemy really is. Our political leaders have generally been very good at reminding Americans that our enemy is not a category of people -- not Arabs, not Muslims. Rather, it is a small fringe of people filled with hate who misuse their religion to justify murderous deeds. Ultimately, it will be other Muslims who help delegitimize their acts by insisting on religious values that respect human life and prohibit attacks on innocent civilians. We risk losing the moral high ground if, in our military actions, we are seen as failing to distinguish between those guilty of terror and innocent bystanders. We must also resist the temptation to use the current moment to eliminate every objectionable regime or group that uses violence. President Bush seemed to have this in mind when he spoke of the need to focus on terrorist groups with "international reach."

* Americans are asking why there is so much anti-American sentiment in the Arab and Islamic worlds today. There is no single answer. Pakistanis may resent our stance on Kashmir; Iraqis -- and many other Arabs as well -- may feel that we have punished an entire people to get at Saddam Hussein; Bin Laden resents our support for the Saudi royal family; Egyptian militants blame us for bolstering the Mubarak regime; and many Arabs and Muslims feel that we have been too one-sided in our support of Israel. And of course we are widely viewed in many parts of the world as too rich, too arrogant and too inattentive to the problems of others. But note carefully: those who dislike our policies and our culture are not generally inclined to support terror. Most of them deplore attacks on innocent civilians, even when they feel deep anger at American policies.

* Still, we should be concerned about the degree of Arab and Muslim alienation from America at a time like this, in part because such sentiments will make it harder for us to conduct the kind of campaign that eventually will reduce the threat of this kind of terror. We should be thinking now of how to encourage moderate voices in the Middle East. Certainly an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement would help, as would greater democratization and sustained economic growth in the Middle East region. After World War II, we made sure that Germany and Japan would not revert to the social, economic or political conditions that produced fascism and war in the 1930s. After supporting the mujahideen in Afghanistan to drive out the Soviets in the 1980s, however, we left the country to its own devices, a society in deep distress where money and guns were able to create the networks that now support terror. Whatever we have in mind for Afghanistan now, we should be thinking of how to help it -- and Pakistan -- emerge from its misery so that future Bin Laden's will not find refuge.

This is a big agenda for action, and some of the needed steps will not be popular at home or internationally. We will not know for sure if and when we have "won," if victory is ever really possible in this kind of war. Still, President Bush has great reserves of support at home and abroad; he has begun to find a tone of leadership that is reassuring; and the American public has so far avoided excesses of jingoism and war fever. The administration has even made clear that it intends to turn its attention to reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace diplomacy in due course, and that when it does it will support a two-state solution along the lines of the Clinton proposals of last year. Let us hope that these encouraging initial steps are built upon in the difficult weeks and months ahead.