Took a week off for the holidays. Here’s the latest with some commentary. Also included is the best unclassified study I've seen examining (realistically) how Iran getting nuclear weapons will alter the geoploitical picture.
(For the blog the pdf can be found at http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub629.pdf )
The Underwear Bomber
By now, most everyone has heard about the attempt to detonate a PETN bomb on Christmas day on board a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/northwest-airlines-bomb-photos/story?id=9436297
At first, the spin coming from the Department of Homeland Security was one designed to calm fears and reassure the public that things went according to plan.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091229/D9CT6TE80.html
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9CUEFR80&show_article=1
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/12/31/airplane-bomber.html
The problem is, it didn’t. Here’s a partial list of where things went wrong:
- How did airport security, improved at much cost after the 2001 terrorist attacks, miss the explosives concealed on the bomber's body?
- How did the terrorist watchlist system allow Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to both keep his American tourist visa and avoid extra flight screening despite his father telling authorities his concerns about the younger man's radicalization?
- Why didn't Abdulmutallab's lack of luggage, and cash purchase for an international flight, raise suspicions?
- Why was the plot thwarted only by an apparent explosive malfunction and fellow passengers' aggressive action?
- How did the suspect leave Yemen with an expired visa?
- Who helped get him on the plane without a visa?
- Why did the FBI insist that only one person was detained for the longest time, then reverse itself (mostly because witnesses saw the whole thing)?
- Why didn’t US intelligence agencies put all the pieces together, despite having intelligence (according to the NY Times) before Christmas that al Qaeda in Yemen was preparing “a Nigerian” for an attack on the west?
Occam’s razor says that these failures stem from simple incompetence; that basically nothing has changed in the intelligence community except that a new level of bureaucracy was created by adding the DHS to the mix. Yes, there haves been a ton of studies, white papers, reorganization, money spent, commissions, etc… since 9/11, but fundamentally the players are still the same.
One startling possibility, though unlikely, is that this was not simple incompetence; it was sabotage. Al Qaeda sympathizers managed to penetrate some US agencies in the 90’s. Could it be that there are people actively trying to prevent US intelligence agencies from achieving effective data dissemination and fusion? Probably not, but the possibility must be investigated.
Side Note: It's only a matter of time before one of these guys actually is able to get their explosives to work properly. Also, full body scanners don't work if the explosives are carried in a bodily orifice like a cocaine mule.
Also, it's interesting that al Qaeda keeps going after airliners. They're much harder targets than say, elementary schools. Perhaps al Qaeda is trying to prove a point: no matter how good your security, we can get through. But, following that line of thought, wouldn't taking down someone protected by the Secret Service get that message across even more effectively?
Afghanistan
The Taliban scored several successes in the information operations campaign against the coalition in the past two weeks. The first came before Christmas when a member of the Afghan national Army attacked and killed coalition troops.
http://ph.news.yahoo.com/afp/20091229/twl-afghanistan-unrest-italy-us-shooting-7e07afd.html
In November, another Afghani policeman attacked and killed five British soldiers on base.
The Taliban have the ability to terrorize the population, and that’s an extremely effective motivator. Right now, given how much of the police force is infiltrated by the Taliban, I doubt we can effectively convey a message that the police and Army can protect the population from the Taliban.
The biggest setback was the attack via a suicide bomber inside a US base that killed 8 members of the CIA and 4 Canadians.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091231/ts_nm/us_afghan_violence
This is probably the biggest PR coup for the Taliban. It hit at the CIA, and the civilian workers. It was inside the base. It plays to both American and local audiences. The US is the lynchpin of the whole thing: if we waver, then the whole coalition comes apart. Public support for engagement is our critical vulnerability, and spectacular attacks like this are effective at undermining it.
The Taliban is winning the information operations portion of the war decisively at the moment, and both sides know it.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/81358.html
Iran
Iran’s leadership seems to have resigned itself to expecting a Tiananmen Square style massacre sooner or later.
http://www.iranfocus.com/en/iran-general-/iran-cleric-demands-force-against-rioters-19408.html
If not Tiananmen style, these statements indicate that mass executions of those arrested will be forthcoming (probably by hanging). It is my opinion that a simple massacre would be more effective at crushing the reform movement. If no one has any idea how many people died, the government can spin what happened any way they want, and use the ambiguity in the casualty figures to their own advantage. Note how much momentum the Democracy movement in China has had since 1989…..
Iran has give the West its own deadline for accepting or rejecting its counter proposal to the Uranium swap deal.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9CVO0NO0&show_article=1
France has already rejected this counter proposal out of hand.
http://www.iranfocus.com/en/nuclear/france-rejects-irans-nuclear-counter-proposal-19419.html
The next step is sanctions. This will not happen until France holds the rotating monthly presidency of the UN security council starting in Feb 2010, Getting anything done in March will be difficult with Russia holding the seat. However, it must be noted Iran has been extremely effective at working around sanctions in the past.
http://www.iranfocus.com/en/nuclear/chinese-evade-u.s.-sanctions-on-iran-19418.html
http://newsmax.com/Newsfront/iran-north-korea-weapons/2009/12/22/id/344346
All in all, I don’t believe sanctions will have much effect on Iran, and what sanctions are put in place won’t hit them where it hurts: oil exports. I also strongly suspect that Israel is thinking along the same lines.
Last (but not least): Israel ran a war game with several scenarios for taking down Irans nuclear facilities using (generally) conventional weapons (the unconventional component was special forces, not Nuclear / Radiological /Chemical / Biological (NRBC)). It also simulated the geo-political outcomes of such attacks. The bad news was that Israel lost them all.
http://www.thetotalcollapse.com/iran-winner-in-israeli-simulated-war-games/
A really interesting exercise, but it assumes that Israel will not attack using any of the more extreme measures available to it that would be aimed at collapsing Iran as a nation / state. Basically, this war game indicates that Israel has only two realistic choices:
1. 1. Accept that Iran will become a nuclear power.
2. 2. Use of disproportionate military force against non-military targets.
Neither is particularly appealing. One stakes the fate of half the world’s remaining Jews on the hope that Iran won’t actually use nuclear weapons or give them to terrorist entities like Hamas and Hizbollah. The other one leaves Israel hoping that their attack both succeeds, and that the world won’t lash out at Israel for its actions. Given the blasé attitude of Europeans towards taking decisive steps, the US public support of Israel, and China and Russia’s inability to project power as far as Israel, it seems doubtful that Israel would suffer much more diplomatically with a massive attack than with a conventional one.
It should be noted that Vice President Biden told the Israeli military establishment (behind closed doors) that they had better just get used to the idea of a nuclear Iran way back in 2005. It's fair to say Israel believes that the US doesn't believe its own rhetoric about letting sanctions work.
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