Foreign Policy In Focus

At the New York Times, Declan Walsh and Donald G. McNeil write about Islamist extremists targeting Pakistani women who work for the UN administering polio vaccines.

After militants stalked and killed eight of them over the course of a three-day, nationwide vaccination drive, the United Nations suspended its anti-polio work in Pakistan on Wednesday. … Militant commanders have been criticizing polio vaccination campaigns … since 2007 when Maulvi Fazlullah, a radical preacher on a white horse. … claimed that polio vaccines were part of a plot to sterilize Muslim children, but in recent years Taliban commanders in the militant hub of North Waziristan have come up with a more political complaint: they say that immunization can resume only when American drones stop killing their comrades.

Compounding matters

Suspicion of vaccination has also intensified since the C.I.A. used a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, to run a hepatitis B vaccination scheme in order to spy on Osama bin Laden’s house in Abbottabad in 2011.

In fact

Heidi Larson, an anthropologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who analyzes local support for vaccines in different countries, believes the C.I.A.’s use of Dr. Afridi has hurt the polio drive more than the Pakistan government or the eradication campaign itself will admit.

As with Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old education activist that members of the Taliban shot in the head and neck, they're demonstrating that "they consider women to be legitimate targets." On a side note, this amounts to a declaration that, in fact, the Taliban are less concerned with theological credibility -- 50 Islamic clerics subsequently issued a fatwa against the attackers -- than in enforcing their whims.

Another victim of Pakistans' use of Dr. Afridi is the doctor himself. Matthieu Akins reports at GQ. Pakistan's ISI, its main intelligence agency

… arrested him as he was driving home in Peshawar on May 23, and as they say in Pakistan, "he was disappeared." Afridi was taken to a secret prison, leaving unanswered the question of what exactly happened that day in Abbottabad.

The $25,000,000 reward for bin Laden was left unclaimed.

It's starting to look more and more like Osama bin Laden was not only in hiding at Abbottabad, he was in forced exile. It seems as al Qaeda may have seized the opportunity of his need to go into hiding to put him out to pasture. In a blockbuster piece on May 3 for Truthout titled The Truth Behind the Official Story of Finding Bin Laden, Gareth Porter provides evidence.  When a senior U.S. intelligence official said that he "was active in operational planning and in driving tactical decisions," Porter writes, he and CIA officials were:

… blatantly misrepresenting … bin Laden's role in al-Qaeda when he was killed. …  In fact, during his six years in Abbottabad, bin Laden was not the functioning head of al-Qaeda at all, but an isolated figurehead who had become irrelevant to the actual operations of the organization. The real story … is that bin Laden was in the compound in Abbottabad because he had been forced into exile by the al-Qaeda leadership. 

In fact

… several months after the Abbottabad documents [taken by Special Operations forces from the scene] had been thoroughly analyzed and the results digested by senior administration officials, the administration was unable to cite a single piece of evidence that bin Laden had given orders for -- or was even involved in discussing -- a real, concrete plan for an al-Qaeda action, much less one that had actually been carried out. Far from depicting bin Laden as the day-to-day decisionmaker or even "master strategist" of al-Qaeda, the documents showed a man dreaming of glorious exploits that were unconnected with reality.

Porter explains that retired Pakistani Brig. Gen. Shaukat Qadir gathered information from "Pakistani tribal and ISI sources" about bin Laden's exile and his discovery by the CIA.

"Nobody listened to his rantings anymore," said one of the [former couriers for TTP, Pakistan's Taliban] in a conversation with Qadir. "He had become a physical liability and was going mad," another told Qadir a couple of days earlier. "He had become an object of ridicule," said the second courier. … That situation led Zawahiri to propose … that bin Laden be forced to retire from active involvement in the organization's decisions. 

Also on May 3, the Combating Terrorist Center (CTC) at West Point published/posted its analysis of the small sample of the documents released to it by the Director of National Intelligence. The report, of course, contains none of the inside information Porter gleaned about how other al Qaeda members felt about bin Laden. But as you can tell by the title -- Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined? -- it attests to his waning influence and at times suggests he was being indulged. Surprisingly, it may have been partly because, by this point, no longer a loose cannon, he had become al Qaeda's force of restraint (if you can call anything it does restrained). (I wrote about this on May 8: Bin Laden Grows a Conscience.)

In particular, his concern was curbing the brutal excesses of al Qaeda affiliates. Today's al Qaeda is characterized as decentralized. Viewed through the lens of complexity science -- in particular, complex adaptive systems -- it exhibits self-organization, adaptation in response to "perturbation," and "emergent" leadership (different leaders rise to the top in different situations).  But the inclination of affiliates to go their own may have partly been a symptom of their lack of respect for bin Laden.. As Patrick Cockburn wrote: "A striking feature of these letters is that there is no evidence that their recipients made any effort to carry out their leader’s instructions." Other examples of bin Laden's waning influence from the CTC report follow.

The documents show that some of the affiliates sought Bin Ladin’s blessing on symbolic matters, such as declaring an Islamic state, and wanted a formal union to acquire the al-Qa`ida brand. On the operational front, however, the affiliates either did not consult with Bin Ladin or were not prepared to follow his directives.

… Far from being in control of the operational side of regional jihadi groups, the tone in several letters authored by Bin Ladin makes it clear that he was struggling to exercise even a minimal influence over them.

… One of the letters … from a “loving brother” addressed to Bin Ladin. … alerted Bin Ladin that when one is distant from reality, as Bin Ladin was because of security measures he was forced to take, the soundness of one’s judgment was bound to be impaired.

… The documents make it clear that Bin Ladin was not informed of the TTP’s planned bombing of Times Square in New York City, a failed attack on U.S. soil attempted by Faisal Shahzad in May 2010.

… Bin Ladin had apparently sent `Atiyya [al Qaeda leader Atiyyatullah] some suggestions on how to improve the economy, but `Atiyya either ignored them or had not attended to them. … Not only does he seem to have acted as Bin Ladin's conduit, but it is alos possible that he exercised more control than he was authorized. In one of the letters, for example, Bin Ladin appeared frustrated that the audio or visual recordings he was sending to`Atiyya were either being delayed or not being released at all.

… Bin Ladin's decision not to grant al-Shabab a public union with al-Qa`ida [may have been] the subject of internal debate within al-Qa`ida and possibly behind his back.

[Al Qaeda's functioning leader Ayman] al-Zawahiri is conspicuously distant from people in bin Ladin's immediate circle.

It's ironic that bin Laden's step back from the abyss of mass murder -- if less out of compassion for the suffering of innocent Muslims than to advance the cause of jihad -- left him out of touch with the al Qaeda affiliates. As he aged, he seems to have forgotten that jihad was just another name for exploding body parts on the parts of the disenfranchised young men who formed and joined the affiliates. Bin Laden, with his newfound focus on providing services, was taking the fun out of jihad.

As you've no doubt heard by now, the Director of National Intelligence released a tiny sample of the documents that U.S. Special Operations Forces captured at Osama Bin Laden's compound to the Combating Terrorist Center (CTC) at West Point  for it to analyze. Still reading Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined?, we'll single out one Focal Point™.

In contrast to Bin Ladin’s public statements that focused on the injustice of those he believed to be the “enemies” (a`da’) of Muslims, namely corrupt “apostate” Muslim rulers and their Western “overseers,” the focus of his private letters is Muslims’ suffering at the hands of his jihadi “brothers” (ikhwa). He was at pains advising [the latter] to abort domestic attacks that cause Muslim civilian casualties and instead focus on the United States, “our desired goal.”

In fact …

… High on his list of concerns was their flexible understanding of tatarrus, which resulted in the unnecessary deaths of Muslim civilians. … Bin Ladin was concerned that regional jihadi groups had expanded the meaning of a classical legal concept meant to be applied in rare circumstances and turned it from an exception into the norm. … Tatarrus refers to special circumstances when it is permissible, from an Islamic law of war perspective, for a military commander to attack enemy territory, even if the attack may result in the deaths of non-combatants, including Muslim women and children [aka] collateral damage.

"Flexible," "expanded"?  Stretching the definition to the breaking point would be more like it. The CTC report continues:

As a result, the jihadis, he worried, have lost considerable sympathy from the Muslim public; this loss was compounded when “the mistakes of the jihadis were exploited by the enemy, [further] distorting the image of the jihadis in the eyes of the umma’s general public and separating them from their popular bases.”

But, even though

… Bin Ladin largely disapproved of their conduct, he did not consider publicly dissociating … himself and al-Qa`ida from the actions of regional groups, as Adam Gadahn strongly urged the senior leadership to do.

It's obvious that whatever compassion Bin Laden had come to evince for Muslims -- infidels, including civilians, were still fair game -- he was more concerned that the Muslim public would sour on the al Qaeda brand, thus imperiling the success of jihad, than he was with their actual suffering at the hands of al Qaeda's affiliates.

In his State of the Union address last night, President Barack Obama began with what is widely perceived to be his strong suit: foreign policy. The nation is safer under his watch, he reassured his audience, now that Osama bin Laden is gone, al-Qaeda is broken, and U.S. troops are out of Iraq. It’s too bad that the president couldn’t lead with diplomatic accomplishments to prove that the United States has reestablished a new relationship with the international community and gained a new level of global respect. Instead, President Obama felt the need to emphasize U.S. military power.

Imagine how breathtaking it would have been if the president had begun his speech differently by touting diplomatic breakthroughs with Iran and North Korea. Instead, the United States has edged closer to conflict with the former and has largely ignored the latter. Imagine if the president could point to the closure of the detention facility in Guantanamo, a campaign promise and a pledge from his first day in office, as a signal to the world that the United States had turned its back on the lawless behavior of the previous administration. Imagine if the president could take credit for a responsible drawdown of Pentagon spending and the application of a true peace dividend to job creation at home. Alas, the cuts in military spending the president has proposed have been extraordinarily modest and don’t address either Pentagon waste or pressing human needs at home and abroad.

After his ode to American military strength, the president turned to his central issue: the economy. He gestured in the direction of foreign policy – to praise free-trade agreements, to bash the Chinese for unfair trade practices – but all the messages were subordinate to fixing the U.S. economy. As a practical need and a political necessity, the president was certainly wise to focus on pocketbook issues. But his us-versus-them rhetoric is ultimately unhelpful. The United States has to work with other economic powers not only to get the global economy up and running again but to restructure it so that it no longer disproportionately benefits the wealthiest 1 percent of countries, corporations, and individuals.  

Obama returned to his perceived strong suit in the end to discuss how the United States must operate from a position of strength. Unfortunately, he was talking about the strength of the U.S. military. The United States should indeed set an example: of wise diplomacy, global economic equity, and sensible budget priorities at home. Perhaps the next State of the Union can begin on a note of international cooperation instead of unilateral triumphalism. 

Michael Scheuer, some of whose pronouncements about al Qaeda since 9/11 you may be familiar with, was head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit between 1996 and 2005. In a piece titled The Zawahiri Era, he addresses the succession of al Qaeda's leadership.

The question on everyone's lips is whether new al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri is up to the job. My own bet is that al-Qaeda will survive, as it did after near economic ruin in Sudan (1994–96); after the pounding it took from the U.S.-NATO-Pakistan coalition (2001–02); and after the U.S. military helpfully killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's chief in Iraq (2006), whose indiscriminate targeting of Muslims almost pushed al-Qaeda to the brink of defeat.

As proof that al Qaeda will endure, Scheuer cites the approach that al Qaeda used in dealing with al-Zarqawi's excesses. He writes: "Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri agreed that the indiscriminate killing of Sunni and Shia Iraqis was wrong in Islamic terms, was not al-Qaeda policy and would not recur. … Forced by the al-Zarqawi-led brutality to clarify appropriate target sets" -- Muslims deemed permissible to kill -- "bin Laden and al-Zawahiri proffered their mea culpas … and delegitimized the Western narrative." By which he means the "West's incorrect, absolutist interpretation of Islamic law [which] forbids-the-killing-of-one-Muslim-by-another-in-all-cases-whatsoever." (Emphasis added.)

Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri correctly pointed out that there are Muslims on all continents and in all countries. … If al-Qaeda, its allies and those it inspires were going to wage their jihad effectively, they would have to kill Muslims. Thus, the remaining job was to define those Muslims who were religiously permissible targets.

Scheuer has never been one to shy away from bloodshed. Not long after bin Laden was killed, The New Statesman reported:

Scheuer has admirers on the left and the right. The former quote his views on the link between US foreign policy and the al-Qaeda threat; the latter point to his support for near-indiscriminate military action against terrorist groups, the use of "extraordinary rendition" and CIA special prisons, and his relaxed attitude towards "collateral damage".

Returning to the National Interest article, he writes that bin Laden and al-Zawahiri defined -- "splendidly" -- exactly which Muslims were expendable.

In the Salafist interpretation of Sunni Islamic law, Muslims who actively support an apostate regime or an infidel occupier sacrifice the protection afforded by their faith; their lives and wealth can be taken. Soldiers, bureaucrats, security and intelligence officers, and elected or appointed government officials serving apostate regimes or foreign occupiers are therefore legitimate targets.

Remember, he's not speaking about collateral damage, but of Muslims intentionally targeted by Muslims. Turns out, too, that, according to Scheuer, al Qaeda's rationalization is working (emphasis added).

It is individuals in these categories who have been al-Qaeda in Iraq's primary victims as it tries to recoup al-Zarqawi-caused losses, and there has been little to no negative reaction from Iraq's Sunni community or other Islamic regimes and scholars outside Iraq. Al-Qaeda's focus on these categories of Muslims as legitimate targets is likely to harden into an organization-wide policy … This leaves a reinvigorated al-Qaeda with an expanded and well-defined target set.

So many Muslims for Islamist extremists to kill, so little time.