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At some point in the coming weeks, intelligence agencies for the U.S. and its allies are likely to finger the mastermind of the horrifying Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. The evidence will be laid out before the American public and the world. And President Bush will face his biggest foreign-policy challenge to date: how to respond.
The options will vary depending on whether it was the Afghanistan-based organization of Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden, Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, some combination of the two, or maybe even others. But after President Bush called the assaults an "act of war" and declared that the U.S. will also hold accountable those countries that have harbored murderous terrorists, it's already clear that response likely will involve some form of military action.
The options range from bombing with precision-guided weapons to deploying troops such as the elite, covert Army Delta forces and Navy Seals. Or he could order a full-scale invasion by U.S. military forces. But whatever he does, it will be a daunting challenge.
"MANNED AIRCRAFT." Already, President Bush has shrewdly moved to build broad support by invoking the NATO charter to get allies on board. Administration officials believe even Russia and China would back the use of force to a point, though Beijing might balk at a substantial use of force -- the most likely option.
Make no mistake: Pinprick bombings with precision-guided missiles won't do the trick. "This is not an incident to which Tomahawks are a robust response," says David J. Rothkopf, a former Clinton Administration official now president and chief executive of Intellibridge Corp., a consulting firm. "You need manned aircraft and troops."
If Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks, President Bush could mobilize ground forces as his father did. "If it was originated by Iraq, we might even declare war," says Stephen M. Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard. While Desert Storm showed Iraq's troops weren't the fierce fighting force American generals had feared, military action again poses new risks. Saddam may be more willing to use chemical or biological weapons than he was a decade ago, because the Iraqi dictator may believe another attack won't end until he is ousted. He'll truly have nothing to lose this time.
FINDING BIN LADEN. That means the U.S. would have to deploy precision-guided weapons to take out suspected sites used to manufacture chemical and biological weapons. Trouble is, there's no assurance we know where all of them are. The second stage of operations could involve use of ground troops to march to Baghdad. Then special forces might track Saddam down.
It would be a more daunting task to hunt down bin Laden, who is believed to be living in Afghanistan under the protection of the ruling Taliban. The wealthy Saudi Arabian-born terrorist leader "doesn't view himself as a terrorist. He views himself as a military force," says Nicholas Kittrie, an expert on Islamic terrorist groups. "He has to be defeated as a military force." But it will be hard to hit such a shadowy figure "without causing the kind of collateral damage you don't wish to cause," says former Senator Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), who co-chaired a panel on 21st-century security threats. And as the Russians discovered, "invading Afghanistan is not an easy thing to do," says Harvard's Walt.
Any scenario would involve using precision-guided weapons to strike at his training camps. But nabbing the fugitive would involve special forces. Again, that poses big risks. Without intelligence to provide his exact whereabouts, the probability of success is low. Another idea has nothing to do with the military: Freeze his bank accounts. That would quickly crimp his ability to conduct more operations. But it might not satisfy American anger and resolve for retribution.
COOPERATION IS KEY. Whatever President Bush decides, he must weigh the short-term costs against the long-term ramifications for foreign policy. In the short term, there would be a political payoff and a sense of justice if the U.S. hammered the culprit hard. But Washington has long-term diplomatic interests, too. There will be tremendous pressure "to really make a splash," says Michele A. Flournoy, a Defense Dept. official in the Clinton Administration now at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. But the long-term goal "might be undermined by that kind of high-profile operation," she says.
That's why success will require cooperation from Arab states. Arab leaders may be sympathetic to America's plight -- and fearful themselves of Islamic fundamentalists. But the pictures of Palestinians dancing with jubilation when New York and Washington were attacked are chilling for several reasons. Many people in the streets of the Middle East are likely to be angry when America retaliates. The U.S. response thus must be calibrated to be strong enough to be effective, but not so strong as to alienate or topple governments we'll need for the long haul.
Even if the Bush team manages to walk a fine diplomatic line, military retaliation is not a sure winner. Retired Rear Admiral Stephen H. Baker, now a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information, draws a comparison between any U.S military mobilization with the campaign the Israelis mounted against terrorism after the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. But 30 years later, Israel still faces an intifada. That's not a good omen.
FIGHTING FANATICS. Indeed, the nature of terrorism is changing. In years past, violent fanatics tied their rage to freeing their cohorts from prisons or toppling a government. There was a method to their madness. "The political goals of terrorists usually impose a certain rationality," says Gideon Rose, a terrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.
However, if attacks stem from hate fueled by religion or fanaticism, as appears to be the case with the assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the unfocused rage "makes it very difficult to combat," he adds. A retaliatory attack may be the best hope for bringing the plotters to justice. It could avert more plots and sate public anger. But there's no guarantee in the 21st century that such hate won't manifest itself again.
Crock covers national security and foreign affairs for BusinessWeek from Washington. Follow his views in Affairs of State twice a month, only on BW Online Edited by Douglas Harbrecht
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Copyright 2001 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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