In an article for Human Events, my friend and colleague Clare M. Lopez laments that the Obama administration is playing a game of international appeasement with terror-sponsoring, nearly nuclear Iran to sate the appetite of a segment of Obama’s political constituency. And they’re likely doing it at the expense of U.S. national security.
“An 8 February 2009 speech by Vice President Joe Biden (in Munich, of all places) did note U.S. readiness to take pre-emptive action against Iran if it does not abandon its nuclear ambitions and support for terrorism, but also repeated that the U.S. is open to talks,” writes Lopez, vice pres. of the Intelligence Summit and a former CIA operations officer. “This is what your mother always warned you against: mixed signals.”
Indeed, and as Bridget Kendall writing for the BBC says: “Many people want to believe that Barack Obama's hopeful campaign message of change can somehow deliver a magic formula. But many have also noticed there was more mood music [at Munich] than concrete specifics.”
On the Munich table this year was Iran – How could it not be? – as well as Afghanistan, Iraq, the broader war on terrorism, and deteriorating U.S.-Russian relations.
As part of our ongoing series of conversations with international terrorism expert Dr. Walid Phares, we examine this month’s conference.
W. THOMAS SMITH JR.: Echoing Obama, Vice President Biden declared it was time to "press the reset button” in order to stem the tide of "a dangerous drift in relations between Russia and the members of our Alliance.” In your book, The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad, you dedicated an entire chapter to the necessity of a renewed Russian-American partnership against terrorism and jihadism in particular. Almost a week before Biden announces "a strategic rethinking" of these issues you pointed out on Russia Today TV that "the new call to U.S. intelligence to gather better information about Russia” may well turn to “ an enhancing” or thawing of these frozen relations. Do you agree with Biden's new approach to the Europeans and the Russians?
DR. WALID PHARES: The strategic approach I outlined in my last book, The Confrontation, was part of a comprehensive new doctrine promoting the isolation of the terror forces –particularly the Jihadi networks – instead of what we are witnessing which is the great powers and democracies fighting the fight in dispersed ranks and with different strategies. What I proposed last year – which by the way was advanced way before the U.S. election primaries – was a new geopolitical approach calling for repairing and reforming weakened Transatlantic relations since 2003 and the Russian-American relationship for the last few years. But to be clear, my approach was and is to reaffirm the Atlantic alliance and through it build a solid bridge to Russia not by caving in to the Jihadi powers, regimes and organizations, but by building a wider alliance to isolate these radical forces. In my many meetings and briefings in Europe for a whole year I advanced the idea of bringing together all of what is common between America and Europe regarding concerns over the rise of Jihadism within their own countries, and then design an Atlantic approach to confront the threat.
SMITH: And one such initiative, launched last April in Washington, was the formation of a Transatlantic legislative initiative.
DR. PHARES: Yes. With that initiative the aim was to develop fresh thinking on an international platform in the struggle against terrorism. Naturally I support the idea of a renewed Euro-American partnership in the campaigning against terror, and inasmuch as it can be successful, the initiation of a dialogue with the Russian Federation on joint efforts against Jihadi terrorism. But this new approach must move beyond the abstract and the emotional. Yes, working with the Europeans is more than a must, it is a natural strategic direction. And I don't think there will be major hurdles in re-initiating this platform. But with the Russians specifically there must be a lot of work on redefining the common threat.
SMITH: The U.S. has much in common with the Europeans regarding our mutual strategic interests, terrorist threats, and our efforts aimed at countering global terrorism. The attacks in Madrid, London and elsewhere as well as our joint counterterrorism efforts worldwide, demonstrate this common thread and the threats we share. But let’s look at the commonality we share with Russia in this regard.
DR. PHARES: Keep in mind that regardless of politics and mutual criticism between the West and the Federation, the Russians have been targeted significantly by the Salafi Jihadists. Remember the atrocities at the Beslan school and the Moscow theater. There was and is an all out Jihadi campaign against the Russian people regardless of politics. The ideological platforms of most neo Wahabi and combat Jihadi movements consider Russia to be as much an infidel and an enemy as the West. Therefore, Washington and Moscow must come to some minimum level of understanding and cooperation in this realm. Actually it is illogical that both powers haven't engaged in such an important counterterrorism dialogue. For if progress is made at this level, this may help alleviating the crises over other issues of great importance in Europe including the missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic and the problems in the Caucasus.
SMITH: But aren't the Russians today prosecuting a somewhat “cold conflict” offensive aimed at undermining U.S. strategic interests in Asia and Europe? Didn't Moscow encourage Kyrgyzstan to shut down the U.S. base there? And we know the Russian Navy and strategic air forces are operating in America’s Caribbean backyard.
DR. PHARES: The symptoms of confrontation are numerous and seemingly irreversible. Listening to Hugo Chavez’s claims that Russian and Iranian support are necessary to expand his regime’s dominance in the Caribbean, watching as Ahmadinejad and the mullahs receive technology and military support from Moscow, and then we have Assad of Syria offering bases to Russia in return for shipments of weapons is certainly not reassuring to democracies. Nor are central European reports regarding concerns of Russian missiles and other provocations. But all of this is a result of the collapse of U.S.-Russia relations. Hence the necessity of repair, even if the United States must be the initiator of rebuilding burned bridges no matter who burned them. Washington must use all the tools at its disposal to reach out not only to the Kremlin but – and more importantly – to the Russian people in order to redirect the attention of both nations against a common threat. So my recommendations – as advanced in my book – are to engage in a two-pronged approach: Talk to the decision-makers but also to the citizens, and without hesitation. President Obama tried to reach out to the Arab Muslim world via an interview with al Arabiya TV, and he will deliver a speech from a “Muslim city” soon. He should do the same with the Russian people. What Vice President Biden has said in Munich should be the beginning of a tireless campaign to reach out to Europeans and Russians going beyond the abstract.
SMITH: As you’ve often said Moscow has been trying to shield the Iranian regime from the effects of international sanctions, supplying them with technology and more. How can the U.S. engage Russia diplomatically while it is blatantly supporting America's foes in the Middle East?
DR. PHARES: It is a question of political engineering in Washington. I am not sure about what the Obama administration’s plans are in this regard, or if the administration even has any. But I would strongly urge a two-dimensional approach. Regarding the Iranian regime, Washington should expand its coalition against nuclear weapons. In doing so, the U.S. will remain under the UN umbrella but at the same time can engage in direct initiatives. Some are advising the White House to begin full-fledged dialogue. I would advise a different path, where the talking is not the issue, but the recipients of that dialogue must be the issue. We'll address this later. But whatever the administration wants to do regarding Iran, it should not link it to its grand strategy of shaping new alliances worldwide. I admit, this needs lots of strategic crafting in Washington and it needs a global vision of how to confront the Jihadi threat ultimately.
SMITH: Russia has been warned in so many words that the U.S. will not accept the idea of a world divided into “spheres of influence” as we once were; and that former Soviet-bloc nations like Georgia and Ukraine should have the unimpeded right to decide which alliances – like NATO – they might decide to join. Will this prove to be an un-negotiable obstacle to any renewal of Russo-American understanding?
DR. PHARES: The current Russian leadership considers the extension of NATO close to Russia's borders as a menace. But this is a new development for during the 1990s and the first years after 9/11 Moscow wasn't that nervous about this advance of NATO. One has to analyze what happened that created a breakdown in trust? For Russia has had borders with NATO in the post Soviet era, on the borders between Kaliningrad and Poland. Alaska is dozens of miles away from Kamchatka. The question deserves a thorough analysis. What prompted Russia to consider the adhesion of Georgia and Ukraine as threatening? All Russian citizens killed by Terrorists since the end of the Cold war were attacked by Jihadists, either in the Caucuses or in Moscow's heart. Russians populations are targeted by Wahabis and by their allies all coming from the south not from the West. Thus the question is legitimate: why does the Kremlin fear the Poles and the Ukrainians more than the Salafists and eventually the Khomeinists? The analytical review of this Russian shift has to be done in the West.
SMITH: Some have argued that NATO's military presence in the Balkans is the real reason for Russia's overreaction elsewhere.
DR. PHARES: The Russians didn’t hide their frustrations in 2007-2008 when Washington backed the secession of Kosovo from Serbia despite Russian calls to allow negotiations between the two parties over the fate of Serbian minorities in Kosovo. Politicians in the U.S. openly claimed that direct American support to Kosovo’s unilateral separation would gain the sympathy of the Organization of Islamic States to American foreign policy. Russia warned it would back similar claims in the Caucasus in return. In a sense, yes, the Kosovo problem has deteriorated Russian-American relations. Perhaps a re-engagement by Washington over the minority status of Serbs inside mostly Muslim Kosovo can thaw one segment of frozen Russian-American relations. But this is only one example of the complex web of interests between the two nations. There are many forces worldwide who have an interest in seeing the ties completely severed between Moscow and Washington. Radical ideologues cheered publicly during the Georgia-Russia conflict last summer, and were gleefully pronouncing a return to the Cold War.
SMITH: Back to the Munich conference, do you see that Biden's approach and the report by General David Petraeus, commanding general of CENTCOM, regarding Afghanistan have brought support from Western democracies and Russia to the theater there?
DR. PHARES: Again, in my last book, I called for a maximum internationalization of the campaign against the Jihadi forces, including the Taliban and al Qaeda. Some of our friends in the counterterrorism community do not trust the United Nations and anything international about confronting the terrorists. They may be right at this stage, but this can change if a new coalition is formed inside the UN Security Council.
SMITH: Yes, but we are talking about the unwieldy, far-too-often incompetent, and – in many ways as we have seen in Lebanon and elsewhere – impotent UN.
DR. PHARES: Regardless of most of the UN bureaucracy and some of the institutions which seem not to be on board in the campaign against terrorism, an entente between the major powers to isolate the Jihadists and their allies can reverse the current realities. I saw this first-hand when in the spring of 2004 – and despite deep divisions between America and France on Iraq – we were able to forge a single-issue alliance between Washington and Paris on the need to evacuate Syrian forces from Lebanon. It worked and the Security Council became the main force in pushing the Syrian occupation outside the small republic. With regards to Afghanistan, there is already a NATO consensus on defeating the Taliban and their al Qaeda acolytes. Washington must put efforts toward consolidating this Western alliance and go on a charm offensive to convince Russia and even India to be more supportive of the campaign. Again it will depend on the strategic architects in Washington. Will they capture the moment and widen the alliance on the Afghan battlefield or will they lose the opportunity and retreat into doomsday theories of finding the “good” Taliban to talk to? It really depends on who in Washington gets it and is willing to move swiftly and globally. I see a window of opportunity for the Obama administration to score a significant victory in Afghanistan. With Petraeus's new operational plans, an anti-terrorist government in Islamabad, a European perseverance so far, and potential common-interests with Moscow to reverse the Jihadi threat in central Asia, there couldn't be a better alignment of the planets. But the window is small and short-lived.
SMITH: Back to Iran, how do you read Biden's statement regarding Iran that the administration is ready to engage in dialogue with them?
DR. PHARES: I think the administration has decided to try the dialogue strategy with the Iranian regime. And there may be too much pressure now for them not to go down that path. First you have a campaign promise to fulfill, then you have a current majority in Congress, which has already adopted this direction. But more importantly, the administration is besieged by a mass of expertise pushing toward the "sit down" doctrine. I don't see at this stage any other course of action for them – unless the Iranian regime commits a less-likely mistake – than to slide, slowly, then fast into the so-called dialogue with the Mullahs. The problem in my mind is that I do not see a medium nor a long-range plan in Washington projecting – if not predicting – the stages to follow the theatrics of this diplomatic dance. In other words, the big achievement is not going to be the actions of organizing meetings and what have you, but what is it that you are going to get from the meetings. I have my own predictions, but let’s hold them for future analysis. Vice President Biden though understands that the U.S. will be dealing with very difficult set of circumstances and a Machiavellian regime on the one hand. And he will have to keep the sword of Damocles in the other.
[Dr. Phares is director of the Future of Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy. Recently, he was appointed secretary general of the newly formed Trans Atlantic Parliamentary Group on Counterterrorism. Dr. Phares has provided analysis to the U.S. government. He regularly conducts Congressional and State Department as well as European Parliament and UN Security Council briefings, and he has been providing exclusive analysis to us for nearly five years.]
