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Tuesday, November 20, 2001
By Jack Kelly, Post-Gazette National Affairs Writer
The stunning collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan has already tempered the behavior of other Islamic states accused of sponsoring terrorist organizations, with more changes to come, Middle East experts believe.
Some will seek warmer relations with the United States. Some will seek new alliances to counter U.S. power. Some may redouble efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction to deter potential U.S. attack. Some might hedge their bets and explore all these options.
"In less than two months after it's been hit, the United States has essentially obliterated another government on the other side of the globe," said retired Army lieutenant general William Odom, a former head of the National Security Agency. "This is unparalleled and unprecedented. If you were in Baghdad or Tripoli or Damascus, how would you feel?"
Five of the seven countries the U.S. State Department lists as sponsors of terror -- Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria and Sudan -- are predominantly Muslim and top the list of possible next targets in the U.S. led anti-terrorism campaign. The others are Cuba and North Korea.
Afghanistan -- home to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network -- was not listed only because the U.S. and most of the world did not consider the Taliban regime a legitimate government. Two other hosts for U.S.-designated terrorist organizations -- Lebanon and the Palestine Authority -- are not listed. The Lebanese government is largely a puppet of Syria, and Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority isn't a country.
Iran is the largest of the terror-sponsoring states and the one trying hardest to ease tensions with the United States, cooperating to a limited degree with U.S.-led military and humanitarian operations in Afghanistan.
"The Iranians are trying to get on the right side of the Americans," said Harvey Sicherman, president of the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. said the radical Muslim clerics who run Iran are trying grudgingly to thaw relations with America in order to forestall a revolution against them. He summarizes the mood of the Iranian people this way: "The American army is next door. I hope they don't stop."
Sudan and Syria also are sharing intelligence information with the United States. Bin Laden used to live in Sudan and has a number of associates still living there.
"The fact that Syria and Sudan -- Sudan especially -- have released so much information is indicative," said A. J. Venter, Middle East correspondent for Janes Defense Review.
"It's the same syndrome as after the Gulf War. The whole Islamic world was in a fervor before the war. There were big demonstrations in the cities in favor of Saddam Hussein. But after that awesome display of firepower, we didn't hear a peep for years afterward."
Sami Hajjar, director of Middle East Studies at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Cumberland County, said cooperation from Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority are contingent on the United States becoming an "honest broker" in the Middle East peace process -- which was reflected in Secretary of State Colin Powell's announcement yesterday of a re-invigorated U.S. effort to push Israel and the Palestinians toward a settlement.
"The pressure is going to be on us to come up with a resolution of the Arab-Israeli problem," Hajjar said.
Absent U.S. success on that front, some terror-sponsoring states may seek closer relations with countries like France and Germany and Russia. "They will advance the point of view that what the U.S. regards as terrorism is really national liberation," Hajjar said. "As the U.S. steadily increases pressure on these countries, they are going to resist, and they are going to have the so-called Islamic 'street' with them."
This will be difficult, however, as evidenced by the warm friendship between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin put on display at their U.S. summit last week.
"The biggest thing [about the war on terror] is that it has brought together the three big nations -- China, Russia and America -- who have been wary of each other," Venter said. Both China and Russia have a stake in a stable world economic order and both face radical Islamist insurgencies supported by al-Qaida and related groups.
Some states, notably Iraq, may react to the U.S. war on terror by redoubling efforts to acquire chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in hopes of deterring any potential U.S. attack, said Larry Wortzel, a former Army officer and military diplomat who directs Middle East studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C.
"[Afghanistan] is going to make them think very hard about overt actions and words about sponsoring terror," Wortzel said. "They will be more secretive and clandestine about it."
If the U.S. military does move against any other states after Afghanistan, the experts agree it is likely to be Iraq. "If I were Saddam Hussein right now, I'd be very worried," Charters said.
On the other hand, U.S. success in Afghanistan could lead to a breakup of the anti-terror coalition, especially if there is no clear evidence of Iraqi complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.