3 years later is the US winning the war?

[Mike AI]

> http://www.stratfor.com/
>
> .................................................. ...............
>
> THE GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
>
> September 11: Three Years Later
> September 9, 2004
>
> By George Friedman
>
> The U.S.-jihadist war is now nearly three years old. Like most
> wars, its course has been an unfolding surprise. It is a war of
> many parts -- some familiar, some unprecedented. Like all wars,
> it has been filled with heroism, cowardice, lies, confusion and
> grief. As usual, it appears to everyone that the levels of each
> of these have been unprecedented. In truth, however, very little
> about this war is unprecedented -- save that all wars are, by
> definition, unprecedented. Only one thing is certain about this
> war: Like all others, it will end. The issue on the table on the
> third anniversary is: What is the current state of this war, and
> how will it end?
>
>
> The war was begun by al Qaeda, and therefore its state must be
> viewed through al Qaeda's eyes. From that standpoint, the war is
> not going well at all. Al Qaeda did not attack the United States
> on Sept. 11 simply to kill Americans. Al Qaeda wanted to kill
> Americans in order to achieve a political goal: the recreation of
> at least part of the caliphate, an empire ruled by Islamic law
> and feared and respected by the rest of the world.
>
>
> Al Qaeda's view was that the real obstacles to such a caliphate
> were the governments of Muslim countries. These governments
> either were apostates, were corrupt or were so complicit with
> Christian, Jewish or Hindu regimes that not only did they not
> represent Islamic interests, but they had sold out the immediate
> interests of their own people.
>
>
> From al Qaeda's point of view, the power of these regimes resided
> in their relationship with foreign powers. Moreover, the
> perception of these foreign powers -- particularly the United
> States, which had become the latest edition of Christianity's
> leading foreign power -- was that they were irresistible. Muslim
> countries had not defeated a Christian power in war for
> centuries. Hatred ran deep, but so did impotence. Al Qaeda was
> far less interested in increasing hatred of the United States
> than in showing that the United States was vulnerable -- that it
> could be defeated. Al Qaeda argued that the mujahideen had
> demonstrated this in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, and
> the Soviet Union collapsed as a result. If al Qaeda could
> demonstrate America's vulnerability, a sense of confidence would
> infuse the Islamic world and regimes would fall or change their
> policies.
>
>
> The Sept. 11 attacks were designed to demonstrate the
> vulnerability of the United States. They also were designed to
> entice the United States to wage multiple wars in the Islamic
> world while pursuing al Qaeda directly and indirectly, further
> opening the United States up to attack and attrition. Al Qaeda
> did demonstrate American vulnerability, and the United States did
> surge into the Muslim world. It did encounter resistance and took
> casualties.
>
>
> But al Qaeda completely failed to achieve its strategic goals.
> There was no rising in the Islamic street. Not a single Muslim
> regime fell. Not a single regime moved closer to al Qaeda's
> position. Almost all Muslim regimes moved to closer cooperation
> with the United States. Viewed through the lens of al Qaeda's
> hopes and goals, therefore, the war so far has been a tremendous
> failure. In various tapes and releases, al Qaeda officials --
> including Osama bin Laden -- have expressed their frustration and
> their commitment to continue the struggle. However, it is
> essential to realize that from al Qaeda's strategic point of
> view, the last three years have been a series of failures and
> disappointments.
>
>
> This is the objective reality. It is not the American perception.
> The first reason for this perception gap is the definition the
> administration has given the war: It is a war on terrorism. If
> the goal of the war has been to deny al Qaeda strategic victory,
> then the United States is winning the war. If, on the other hand,
> the goal of the war is to protect the homeland against any
> further attacks by al Qaeda or other groups, then that goal has
> not been achieved.
>
>
> Al Qaeda's primary operational capability is its ability to evade
> U.S. intelligence capabilities. This is not a trivial capability.
> Three years into the war, the precise shape and distribution of
> al Qaeda and related organizations are still not transparent to
> U.S. intelligence. However much more the United States knows
> about al Qaeda, it does not appear that its abilities are
> sufficient to guarantee the security of the United States or
> allied countries against enemy attacks. There are too many
> potential targets, and al Qaeda remains too invisible to
> guarantee that.
>
>
> Therefore, on a purely operational level, the United States does
> not see itself as winning the war. During World War II, for
> example -- by 1943 or even earlier -- the United States was
> secure from German or Japanese attacks against the homeland. That
> is not the case in this war. Therefore, there is an interesting
> paradox built in. On the strategic side, al Qaeda is losing --
> and thus the United States is winning -- the strategic war, and
> this, of course, is the decisive sphere. On the operational side,
> even though there has thus far been no repeat of the Sept. 11
> attacks in the United States, the war is at a stalemate. Public
> perception is more sensitive to the operational stalemate than to
> the strategic success.
>
>
> This has led to a crisis of confidence about the war that has
> been compounded by a single campaign -- Iraq -- which has dwarfed
> the general war in apparent importance. As readers of Stratfor
> know, our view of the Iraq campaign has been that it was the
> logical next step in the general war and that the Bush
> administration knew that by February 2002, when it became
> apparent that U.S. intelligence could not strike globally to
> destroy al Qaeda. It has also been our view that the Iraq
> campaign was marred by extremely poor intelligence and planning.
> We have also argued that such failures are not only common in war
> but inevitable, and that these failures, however egregious, were
> to be expected.
>
>
> We have also argued, and continue to be amazed, that the single
> greatest failure of the Bush administration in this war has been
> its inability to give a coherent explanation of why it invaded
> Iraq. The public justification -- that Iraq had weapons of mass
> destruction -- was patently absurd on its face. You do not invade
> a country with a year's warning if you are really afraid of WMD.
> The incoherence of the justification was self-evident prior to
> the war, and the failure to find WMD was merely icing on the
> cake. The consequence was a crisis of confidence that was a very
> unlikely outcome after Sept. 11 and which the administration
> built for itself. In other words, the decision to invade Iraq
> was, from our point of view, inevitable following the failure of
> the covert war. What was not inevitable was the catastrophic
> failure to explain the invasion and the resulting crisis of
> confidence.
>
>
> The clearest explanation for this failure has to do with Saudi
> Arabia and the U.S. relation to the kingdom -- a relationship
> that goes far beyond the Bush family or either political party.
> Saudi Arabia was one of the reasons for the invasion. The U.S.
> intent was to frighten the Saudis into policy change,
> demonstrating (a) that the Saudis were now surrounded by U.S.
> troops and ( that the United States was no longer influenced by
> the Saudis. The goal was to force the Saudis to change their
> behavior toward financing al Qaeda. Stating this goal publicly
> would have destabilized the Saudi regime, however, and the United
> States wanted policy change, not regime change. Therefore,
> Washington preferred to appear the fool rather than destabilize
> Saudi Arabia.
>
>
> If this is the explanation -- and we emphatically do believe,
> from all analysis and sources, that the administration did have a
> much more sophisticated strategy in place on Iraq than it has
> ever been able to enunciate -- then it was one with severe costs.
> Apart from the specific failures in the war, the generation of a
> massive crisis of confidence in the United States over the Iraq
> campaign has become a strategic reality of the wider war. To the
> extent that this is a war of perception -- and on some level, all
> wars are -- the perception that the United States is deeply
> divided is damaging. The actual debate is over the Iraq campaign
> and not the war as a whole, but this has increasingly been lost
> in the clamor. There is much more consensus on the war as a whole
> than might appear.
>
>
> Therefore, we can say that al Qaeda has failed to achieve its
> strategic goals. At the same time, the United States is facing
> its own strategic crisis. Since Vietnam, the fundamental question
> has been whether the United States has sufficient will and
> national unity to execute a long-term war. One of the purposes of
> the Iraq invasion was to demonstrate American will. The errors in
> what we might call information warfare -- or propaganda -- by the
> Bush administration have generated severe doubts. The
> administration's management of the situation has turned into a
> strategic defeat -- although not a decisive one as yet.
>
>
> Massive dissent about wars has been the norm in American history.
> We tend to think of World War II as the norm, but, quite the
> contrary, it was the exception. The Revolutionary War, Mexican
> War, Civil War, Vietnam War and others all contained amazing
> levels of rancor among the American public. The vilification
> among the citizenry of Washington's generalship or Lincoln's
> presidency during the action was quite amazing. Thus, it is not
> the dissent that is startling, but the perception of U.S.
> weakness that it generates in the Islamic world. And the
> responsibility does not rest with the dissidents, but with the
> president's failure to understand the strategic consequences of
> public incoherence on policy issues. Keeping it simple works only
> when the simple explanation is not too difficult to understand.
>
>
> Let us therefore consider the salient points:
>
>
>
> Al Qaeda has failed to reach its strategic goals.
>
> The United States has not secured the homeland against attack.
>
> There has been a major realignment in the Muslim world's
> governments, due to U.S. politico-military operations that have
> favored the United States.
>
> There has been no mass uprising in the Islamic world as a result
> of the Sept. 11 attacks.
>
> The Iraq campaign has involved massive failures, but the casualty
> rate remains less than 2 percent of the total killed in Vietnam.
> That places the problem in perspective. In addition, the
> political situation is increasingly manageable in Iraq.
>
> The strategic management of information operations has been the
> major U.S. failure. It is serious enough to threaten the
> strategic thrust of the war against al Qaeda. The inability to
> provide a coherent explanation for Iraq has substantially harmed
> the war effort.
>
>
>
>
> At the same time, this should not be overestimated. It is
> interesting to note the problem that John Kerry is having in
> articulating his own challenge to the president over Iraq and the
> war in general. He has three potential strategies:
>
>
> Reject the war in general
>
> Reject the Iraq campaign but embrace the rest of the war
>
> Accept Iraq and the war and argue that he would be more competent
> in executing both
>
>
> Kerry vacillates between the last two positions for a reason. If
> he takes the first position, he risks alienating the center,
> where voters are uncomfortable with any anti-war position but
> want superior leadership and execution. If he accepts the third
> position, he can take the center but risks the possibility that
> hard-core anti-war leftists will stay home on Election Day.
> Therefore, he is avoiding a strategic decision between the last
> two positions -- shifting tactically between the two, hoping to
> bridge the gap. This is a difficult plan, but it seems the only
> one open to him. It is also the factor that will limit the extent
> of strategic damage stemming from Bush's presentation of the Iraq
> campaign. Kerry won't be able to effectively exploit that damage
> because of his own political problems.
>
>
> Therefore, at this moment, we would argue that the war, on the
> whole, is being won by the United States or, more precisely, is
> being lost by al Qaeda. The purely military aspects of the war
> are going better for the United States than is the politico-
> military effort, primarily due to the complexity of coercing
> allies without causing them public humiliation. But that is also
> the weak point of the U.S. campaign and the point at which al
> Qaeda will try to counterattack. That covert coercion could, al
> Qaeda hopes, energize a political movement it is trying to
> create.
>
>
> The war is far from over. The snapshot of the moment does not
> tell us what either side may do in the future. The United States
> clearly intends to move into Pakistan to find bin Laden's command
> center. Al Qaeda clearly intends to destabilize Saudi Arabia and
> any other target of opportunity that might open up -- Pakistan or
> Egypt. And in the end, as in all wars, there will be a
> negotiation. It is impossible to really envision what that
> negotiation would look like or who the parties would actually be,
> but -- returning to the point that this war, like all others,
> will end -- complete victory by either side is the least likely
> scenario.
>
>
> Whatever the outcome, this much must be understood. On Nov. 8,
> the United States will have a president who will never again
> stand for re-election. He may have the office for four more years
> or for only two more months. In either case, we can expect that
> an attempt at decisive action will occur. Win or lose, Bush will
> be looking for his place in history. A Bush acting without
> political constraints will be the wild card in the next phase of
> the war.