PakTribune, Pakistan
'War on Terra' a Stinging Failure. Period.

By Anwaar Hussain*
June 19, 2006
Pakistan's Pak Tribune - Original Article (English)    

As the duration of the War on Terra (that's Texanese for War on Terror, and I won't be reminding you again) now almost matches that of the Second World War, let us see how the man from Texas has done over the last five years.

Let us turn to a survey that has been done of 100 leading American foreign policy analysts. Released by the journal Foreign Affairs on June 14th, the report is entitled "The Terrorism Index" .

The participants of the survey included a former U.S. secretary of state and former heads of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, along with well-known members of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment. The majority served in previous administrations or in senior military posts. Chances are, they know what they're talking about, and the overwhelming consensus is not what America's ruling cabal would like to hear.

Despite the U.S. President's claim that he is winning the War on Terra, some 86 percent of these specialists believe otherwise. They think that the world has grown more, not less, dangerous, and that the main reasons are war in Iraq, the detention of terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay, U.S. policy toward Iran and American energy policy.

Almost 80 percent of the analysts say that a widespread rejection of radical Islamic ideology is crucial if terrorism is to be eradicated, but that this goal requires "a much higher emphasis on non-military tools." Across the board, they rated Washington's diplomatic efforts as appalling, with a median score of 1.8 out of 10. The Department of Homeland Security was rated for effectiveness at only 2.9 out of 10.

Joe Cirincione, vice-president of the Center for American Progress, the Washington think-tank which co-sponsored the survey said, "When you strip away the politics, the experts, almost to a person, are very worried about the administration … they think none of our front-line institutions is doing a good job and that Iraq has made the terror situation much worse."

Asked what presents the single greatest danger to American security, nearly half of the analysts said the greatest threat is from loose nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Only four percent said Iran. Cirincione says the fact that so few experts think Iran is a threat and so many regard Iraq as a mistake, "turns the administration's policies on their head."

Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations was even more up front in his remarks. In the survey's accompanying report, he said, "The reason is that it's clear to nearly all, that Bush and his team have had a totally unrealistic view of what they can accomplish with military force and threats of force."

In plain English, what these experts are saying is that after five years of the War on Terra, the world is much more insecure than it ever was, and that the war itself is a ringing failure. Period.

What the experts did not say, was said by the Washington-based Pew Research Center's poll of almost 17,000 people from Britain, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Spain, Turkey and the United States. The Foreign Affairs Journal report comes on the heels of this Pew poll, and the combined reading puts to rest any doubt that one may have regarding the complete collapse of the War on Terra.

According to the global poll, conducted between March and May, Pew found that President George Bush's six years in office have so battered the image of the United States that people worldwide see Washington as a bigger threat to world peace than Tehran. This despite the fact that throughout the period the poll was conducted, the crisis over Iran's nuclear program, intensified by hard-line comments from its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was repeatedly in the news.

The annual survey also shows the continued decline in support for the U.S. since 1999. In Muslim countries with which the United States has customarily enjoyed a good relationship, such as Turkey - a member of NATO - and Indonesia, there have also been slumps. In Indonesia, America's favorable ratings have dropped from 75% to 30%, and in Turkey from 52% to 12%.

Even in Britain, Washington's closest ally, favorable ratings have slumped from 83% in 1999 to 56% this year. The pattern is similar in France, down from 62% to 39%, Germany 78% to 37%, and Spain 50% to 23%.

As part of the overall decline in support for the U.S., the survey also records a drop in support for the U.S.-led "War on Terra," even in countries like Spain, in spite of the Madrid bombings two years ago by al-Qaeda that left 192 dead. Support for the "War on Terra" dropped in Spain from 26% last year to 19% this year. Favorable ratings of the U.S. in India dropped over the year from 71% to 56%.

In the U.K., the second biggest contributor of troops in Iraq, 60% said the Iraq War had made the world more dangerous. Only 30% said it had made the world safer, and 41% of British people said the America's presence in Iraq represented a great danger to world peace, with 34% citing Iran as a bigger threat.

For the first time in the past five years, two influential reports are simultaneously speaking straight and to the point. No six-of-one-and-half-a-dozen-of-another language. The message is clear: The Texan's War on Terra is a miserable disaster.

However, there is a silver lining for the man from Crawford in the Pew poll. Majorities in two countries, India and Nigeria, have expressed confidence in him.

With a third reelection impossible for Bush, and the world wishing to begin its own "War on Terra" against him and his gang, Bush had better begin weighing his chances for the top slot in one of these countries (hint: Nigeria has proven oil reserves of 36 billion barrels).

Anwaar Hussain is a former Pakistan Air Force F-16 fighter pilot. With a Masters in Defense and Strategic Studies from Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad, he now    resides in United Arab Emirates. He has published a series of articles in Defense Journal, South Asia Tribune and a host of other web portals. Other than international affairs, Anwaar Hussain has written extensively on the religious and political issues that plague Pakistan.

VIDEO FROM LIBYA: GADHAFI SAYS 'NO GLOBAL TERROR ... MUSLIM TERROR'

AL-ARIBIYA, DUBAI: Excerpts from a speech by Libyan Leader, Muammar Gadhafi, at the Arab League conference, March 23, 2005, 00:05:33, Via MEMRI

"What is terrorism? Has any American blown up an airplane? No. Has any American strapped on an explosives belt and gone to Cairo, Tripoli, or Algiers, to blow something up? Such a thing never happened. Has any Indian gone to China to blow something up? No. Has any Russian done such things? No. Has any Italian, any Frenchman...? No."

Libyan Dictator Moammar Gadhafi