Obama and the Terrorists

By Gwynne Dyer

President Obama's inauguration increases the likelihood of a major terrorist attack in the United States. That was the stark message of the South Waziristan Institute for Strategic Hermeneutics (SWISH), a think tank that offers strategic advice to some of the leading players in global politics.

SWISH warned in its mid-December report to Obama's transition team that al-Qaida ``will attempt a 9/11-level attack, probably within the United States, at some point between now and mid-2010. If and when that happens, your country will require exceptional levels of political leadership if you are to avoid yet another misguided military response.''

Unfortunately, the institute only exists in the fertile brain of British academic and strategic analyst Paul Rogers, who publishes its reports on the Web site of Open Democracy. Moreover, the Obama transition team did not ask for this report, although one devoutly hopes that they read it. Because the prediction is quite serious, as is all of SWISH's work.

The SWISH phenomenon began as a one-man attempt to educate Western analysts in the thinking of their Islamist enemies.

The reports mimicked the format used by consultants in the various Washington think-tanks that advise the U.S. government and the Pentagon on strategic matters, but they came from the mythical South Waziristan Institute, which had supposedly been hired by the leadership of al-Qaida to provide a similar service for them.

In its first report to al-Qaida in 2004, SWISH advised bin Laden's planners that ``the immediate requirement … is therefore to aid, in any way within the framework of your core values, the survival of the Bush administration.'' By invading Afghanistan and Iraq, by his policies of illegal detention, torture and rendition, and by his absurdly militaristic declaration of a ``war on terror,'' Bush was doing exactly what al-Qaida wanted

So, the report continued, it could not recommend a further large terrorist attack on the United States, since its impact on American public opinion was unpredictable. It might strengthen support for Bush in the November 2004 election, but equally it might turn American public opinion against him. On balance, SWISH concluded, it was best not to risk an attack, since Bush was likely to win re-election anyway.

The third SWISH report to al-Qaida, in 2006, brought the subject up again: ``It is not possible to say what would be the political impact of another attack on the scale of, or larger than, 9/11. It could either produce a strong political reaction against the Bush administration, pointing to the futility of its current conduct in making America safe, or it could be used as a rallying-call for an even tougher response.

``No doubt your intention would be to encourage the latter, given that you do not want any kind of U.S. disengagement from current policies. On balance we expect that this would be the effect, but we are not sure … If you wish to commission further work in this respect we would be happy to oblige in association with our Washington office.''

You may wonder what all of this has to do with reality. The answer is: a great deal more than most of what passed for political analysis in Washington over the past eight years.

While your average Beltway bandit treated the al-Qaida leaders as a bunch of ``mad mullahs'' driven only by unreasoning hatred, Paul Rogers assumed (quite correctly) that they were intelligent people with coherent long-term strategies.

In particular, he assumed that a primary purpose of the 9/11 attacks was to sucker the United States into invading Afghanistan (and, if possible, other Muslim countries), as that would radicalize Muslim populations and generate waves of recruits for bin Laden's organization.

Once Bush did that, he was al-Qaida's man _ and its main interest was keeping him in power. So, there were no more attacks on the United States between September 2001 and January 2009.

This is not rocket science. Long-time readers of this column will recall that I have repeatedly predicted no further al-Qaida attacks on the United States on exactly the same logic. Why would al-Qaida risk a backlash against Bush when everything is going so well?

American analysts are very resistant to the notion that their country could be a pawn in somebody else's strategy, but gradually this perspective has been making headway.

I shared a platform with former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge a couple of years ago, and he was willing to concede that his success in ``preventing'' further al-Qaida attacks after 9/11 might have been due to the fact that they weren't actually planning any.

But by the same token, Barack Obama's arrival in power may make a new 9/11 desirable. While he is certainly not proposing a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan or even a complete troop withdrawal from Iraq, he seems less persuaded than Bush that invading and occupying Muslim countries is a good idea. Moreover, he intends to end the torture and abuse of (overwhelmingly Muslim) prisoners.

So if there is any way that al-Qaida can organize a major attack on U.S. soil in the coming 12 to 18 months, they will do it. These are not stupid people, and their main goal now must be to stampede the American public back into the fearful mindset that allowed Bush to launch his wars in the first place, and hope that Obama will be swept along by it.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

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