Surgical Strike vs. Mass Attack
Washington
Post Opinion, Wednesday, September
19, 2001
Foreign
leaders converge on Washington this week bearing expressions of sympathy and
support for the American people. Most will also bring a barely hidden agenda:
to temper and focus narrowly the Bush administration's military response to
America's day of mega-terrorism.
U.S. allies
have detected two main lines of argument in the first, hurried internal
deliberations in Washington over punishing prime suspect Osama bin Laden and
those who harbor or support his organization.
Most foreign
leaders will discreetly but forcefully intervene to bolster those Bush
officials who favor a making a surgical strike confined to Afghanistan --
unless clear and compelling evidence comes to light that other countries were
specifically involved in the Sept. 11 airborne massacres in New York and at the
Pentagon.
A surgical
approach tied to hard evidence will make it easier to assemble a broad
coalition and reduce the risks of an even greater explosion against U.S.
interests in the Middle East, its proponents argue. The Gulf War coalition is
cited as precedent and model.
But the
analogy is misleading: The massive loss of American lives gives the United
States a clear legitimacy to practice self-defense, as a U.N. Security Council
resolution recognized last week. The U.S. response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait
had to be sought internationally. Also, indisputable "evidence" of
terror planning is much more subjective and harder to come by than was a land
invasion.
"At this
point the idea of assembling a broad and deep coalition seems to be working
against the need for a broad and deep military response that would deal
comprehensively with state sponsors of terrorism as well as their agents,"
says one official.
Adds a
European diplomat: "If Washington broadens the focus beyond bin Laden and
perhaps Afghanistan, it will lose the support it needs to carry out the
surgical plan effectively." This is the message that Bush and his aides
will hear in one form or another from French President Jacques Chirac, British
Prime Minister Tony Blair, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Faisal and others this
week.
Bush
encouraged these visits -- and the appearance they foster of America listening
to the world. When Chirac offered to postpone his trip, Bush urged him to come
as scheduled. But the U.S. president has not tipped his hand on the scope of
military action in the internal deliberations.
Diplomats
believe that Secretary of State Colin Powell, who must assemble the coalition,
naturally leans to the overwhelming-evidence, surgical-strike school. Secretary
of Defense Don Rumsfeld sounded a different emphasis yesterday by saying
"the problem is much bigger than bin Laden."
Other U.S.
officials believe it is vital to make the most of this opportunity to go after
the infrastructure of terrorism located in radical Arab states and especially
in Iraq, which sought to assassinate former president George Bush in 1993 and
was linked to the first attack on the World Trade Center that year. As recently
as 1998, the FBI found the tracks of one of the plotters in that WTC bombing in
Baghdad.
The Bush
administration is not splitting into opposing camps of hawks and doves. While
tactics are in dispute, there is broad agreement on the need for a forceful
response, and on other key points.
Expectations
are low that Pakistan's effort to persuade the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to
dismantle bin Laden's camps and surrender him will produce anything credible.
Publicly, Washington holds Pakistan to its promises of cooperation while
privately planning around the expected failure. Pakistan's intelligence
service, which along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates helped
create the Taliban, does nothing to halt terror groups moving from its
territory into Kashmir, to put it mildly.
This is the
powerful point made by the strike-broad, strike-deep camp, who are the
Omnivores in this administration's self-described à la carte foreign
policy: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and many of the other Arab states Powell hopes
to recruit for the bin Laden posse have long been part of the problem, not part
of the solution to international terrorism.
These states
cannot be given free passes for going through the motions of helping the United
States. And European allies cannot be allowed to order an appetizer of bin
Laden and not share in the costs of the rest of a meal cooked in hell.
Listen to
their concerns, Mr. President, and be your affable, charming self. But leave
your visitors in no doubt that America's losses will be avenged -- and
America's vulnerabilities will be minimized -- whether they ride in the posse
or not.
© 2001
The Washington Post Company