The Emerging Security Environment: Preemptive War and International Terrorism after Iraq

The terrorist assault against the United States by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization in September 2001 provided the propulsive force for a series of events whose ending is uncertain. But the more immediate effects are apparent: American efforts to shape the political evolution of Middle Eastern countries using both overt and covert means, the unilateral undertaking of warfare in the name of preempting future attacks, and the waning of the democratic model of the United States to the world. The draconian measures implemented against immigrants in the United States and the adoption and harsh enforcement of the Patriot Act have undermined the fundamental civil liberties of all Americans while failing to make us more secure. The mass detentions of persons in the name of law enforcement, the denial of legal defense to "material witnesses," and the use of immigration policy as a proxy for antiterrorism have resulted in a tarnished image of America as a "city upon a hill." It has strained our national unity, given rise to the stigmatization of a whole class of American citizens from the Middle East and South Asia, and encouraged the accelerated rise of hate crimes and vigilantism. Yet another consequence is likely to be more global and chronic: terrorism directed against American citizens and the wider propagation of low-level armed resistance as a means to diminish American influence from Islamic nations.

The removal of Saddam Hussein's tyranny will do little to increase the domestic security of America, because the Baath regime was not a major influence on global terrorism. But the first American occupation of a Muslim country may substantially increase hostility in the Middle East and South Asia against the United States while providing incentive for new recruits to al Qaeda and other religiously inspired militant groups waging what they believe is a war against unbelievers: war certainly of cultures and civilizations. Already, jihadi from countries as diverse as Algeria and Albania are filtering into Iraq to kill Americans. Two years after 11 September and six months after the fall of Baghdad, America is not only less secure than before, but the harvest of consequences from our national security policies may ensure the next terrible violent event in America.

To a generation of neoconservative policy makers in the Bush administration and their acolytes in the media and Washington think tanks, the seminal al Qaeda attacks provided the validation for their doctrine of preemptive warfare, a doctrine premised on the flawed concept that the violent actions of antagonists who are stateless can be deterred by aggressive military actions beforehand. For the vice president of the United States and the civilian custodians of our Department of Defense, a more muscular American defense and foreign policy would put the ghosts of Vietnam far in the past and signal the renaissance of American as a force for order, stability, and freedom in a world that lacks enough of each. America is viewed by these proponents as the democratic example for the world, a model that can be embedded within diverse cultures and geographies by bold military strikes that lessen the resistance of regional governments to broader U.S. foreign policy goals and enhance the protection of Israel from antagonists. The proponents intend a modified version of nation building that requires a modest American personnel commitment and the use of local surrogates who are ideologically compatible with the Bush administration. The role the Pentagon had hoped would be played in the post-Saddam era by Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi exile with neoconservative associations, is an example. The new form of nation building, however, relies primarily on military means, political intimidation, and the overconfident presumption that the Defense Department knows what is best for the world, whether its allies or foes agree. The doctrine of preemptive warfare adopted by the Bush administration was demonstrated, of course, at its most extreme in the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, a...