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GLOBAL VIEW
By GEORGE MELLOAN
Recent Victories in the War on Terror
August 24, 2004; Page A13
Of Americans surveyed in the latest Rasmussen opinion poll, 52% believe the U.S. is now winning the war on terror. That’s a sharp change from only two weeks ago, just after the Democratic convention in Boston, when only 45% held that view.
What has happened to bring about the change? Quite a few things. The Iraqi interim government of Ayad Allawi, given sovereignty by the U.S. in June, has been establishing itself as a reliable U.S. ally. U.S. forces and Iraqi troops and police have finally cornered Muqtada al Sadr, the wild-eyed ayatollah who wants to turn Iraq into another Iran. As of the weekend, some “Mahdi army” fighters appeared to be melting away from his bunker in a sacred Shiite shrine in Najaf, although the battle continues.
If Mr. Allawi gets control of Najaf, Fallujah and the “Sadr-city” slums of Baghdad, he will have made a big step toward ending challenges to his authority and threats to Iraq’s plans for democratic elections next January. Elsewhere in Iraq, for the most part, reconstruction is going well.
The other good news has been a wave of arrests of terrorism suspects in the U.S., Britain and Pakistan. Pakistan over the weekend grabbed a gang that was targeting various military sites, the parliament, the presidential palace and the U.S. embassy. Counting this bunch, several dozen terrorism suspects have been brought into custody by authorities around the world since last spring, and they include some interesting characters.
On July 12, the Pakistanis arrested Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, an al Qaeda communications director, and as a result uncovered an intelligence treasure trove. Included were notes on the surveillance of targeted financial institutions in New York and Washington, and the names of several al Qaeda agents. Based on those findings, Britain promptly responded with 13 arrests. Discovery of an al Qaeda “summit” in the tribal areas of Pakistan last March provided information that led to several arrests, including Mohammed Babar, who was nabbed in Queens and charged with trying to buy materials to make bombs.
Last week, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the indictments of three men alleged to have been aiding Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group, through money laundering and other schemes. Those indicted were Mousa Abu Marzook, who now lives in Syria, and two others arrested in Chicago and Washington. Clearly, the antiterrorist cops have been on the job, and the cooperation of Pakistan has been a key to much of the success.
Of course, the problem with fighting terrorism is that it is impossible to assess with any accuracy the extent to which terrorist networks have been damaged. The would-be experts on the subject are all over the map in their guesses. Some say we already have decapitated al Qaeda by capturing or killing most of its leaders. Others argue that a new generation of leaders has stepped into the breach and that the organization remains as dangerous as ever. What most agree on is that if al Qaeda tries to strike the U.S. again, it will try to make the attack as spectacular as the one on 9/11/01.
There will be no way of knowing for sure when the war has been won, because terrorist sleeper cells could linger on for years, like malignancies in temporary remission. But the key elements of the war are coming into sharper focus. Two state sponsors are still on their feet and will have to be neutralized before it can be safely said that terrorism is under control. They are Iran and Syria.
The insurgency aimed at bringing about a U.S. failure in Iraq is fueled by both of those neighboring states. The foreign fighters who have given the U.S. so much trouble in Fallujah were mostly infiltrated from Syria. New suspicions are being raised that Syria cooperated with Saddam Hussein by offering him a place to hide his weapons of mass destruction before the allied invasion.
These theories are based on a review of satellite footage showing heavy truck traffic across that border just before the invasion. Be that as it may, the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, which is under Syrian control, has for many years been a major base for terrorists operating against Israel and other countries.
That Iran is aiding the insurgency is equally plausible. There are estimates that it has spent millions to supply the fighters with weapons and other aid. Sadr is an Iraqi Arab, but his goal of an Islamic state meshes nicely with the efforts of the ayatollahs of Iran to hold on to power despite the growing disgust of the Iranian people with their vicious methods. Having an American-sponsored regime next door also doesn’t fit well with the ayatollahs’ plans to build nuclear weapons and use them to blackmail their neighbors and Europe.
It is a mark of how much the losses of Sadr perturb the Iranians that last Friday Iranian President Mohammad Khatami called for an urgent meeting of Muslim countries to discuss the “catastrophe” in Iraq, meaning that his side is losing the key battle for Najaf. He wanted the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference to take action to stop the violence, presumably to rescue Sadr from the trouble he has made for himself and the young Arab zealots who’ve become cannon fodder on his behalf.
Even if other Muslim nations respond to the call, don’t bet that the result will be anything other than a talkfest. Most leaders of Muslim nations are more than happy to see terrorism suppressed, knowing full well that it can be aimed at them as well as at the Americans. Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf made that calculation a long time ago and has shown remarkable courage in fighting al Qaeda.
How the events in Najaf play out over the next several days will tell us a lot about how the war on terror is going. Mr. Allawi has shown considerable political skill, not to mention courage, in trying to bring Sadr into the political process but using the iron fist when he has balked or tried to practice his well-refined skills at deception. Americans and Iraqis are working well on the ground. No wonder the mullahs across the border in Iran are worried.
George Melloan is the Journal’s Deputy Editor, International. He began writing “Global View” in 1990, when he took over responsibilities for the overseas pages after 17 years as deputy editor in New York. During the first five years of his present assignment he was based in Brussels, traveling extensively from there to write about such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the break-up of the Soviet empire and the collapse of the Japan’s stock market and real estate bubble. He returned to New York in 1994.
Mr. Melloan invites comments to george.melloan@wsj.com.