The recently released US State Department Country
Reports on terrorism for 2014 isn’t likely to become popular beach reading this
summer, but it may well be one of the most sobering publications to appear this
month. Outlining both terrorist activity and government responses, this lengthy
document provides a useful overview and timeline, on a country-by-country basis,
of global terror activity.
A document such as this does not stand alone, and requires
much more background information to be understood in context. For this reason, I found comments made by Tina S. Kaidanow,
Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism, and posted on the State Department website, to
be particularly noteworthy. Addressing
the need for greater collaboration and engagement by police and civil society
actors around the issue of terrorism, Ambassador Kaidanow also highlighted the importance
of respecting human rights and the rule of law, saying, “The United States
needs partners who can not only contribute to military operations, but also
conduct arrests, prosecutions, and incarceration of terrorists with their
facilitation networks. Addressing terrorism in a rule of law framework with
respect for human rights is critical both for ensuring the sustainability of
their efforts and for preventing the rise of new forms of violent extremism.”
Trying to strike the proper balance between security and
respect for foundational elements of civil society is not an easy thing to do,
and has been an endless source of public debate these last 14 years in both the
US and abroad. At this very moment, congress is wrestling with this issue
against the backdrop of a looking presidential contest, a factor which only
further fuels the intensity of this debate.
While many countries are working both domestically and in partnerships
across borders to counter violent extremism, there are, as the report notes,
several which are doing the opposite. In some places, such as Cuba, the
government has taken meaningful steps to demonstrate it is distancing itself
from terrorism, while in others, such as Iran, the official leadership continues
to actively support terrorism, contributing to instability and violence across
the globe. In fact, in the case of Iran, the report notes of the country, that,
“While its main effort focused on supporting goals
in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, Iran and its proxies also continued
subtle efforts at growing influence elsewhere including in Africa, Asia, and,
to a lesser extent, Latin America. Iran used the Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) to implement foreign policy goals, provide cover for
intelligence operations, and create instability in the Middle East.” As
author Matthew Levitt and others have extensively documented, such actions by
Iran and the IRGC are nothing new and this report confirms that these activities
continue apace, raising serious questions ahead of the June 30 deadline about
how committed to peace and stability Tehran actually is.
Aside from governments
which actual sponsor terrorist activity, there are also a number of places with
weak central governments, including failed or failing states, where terrorists
and their supporters are able to operate with a great deal of freedom. In such
places, the breakdown in political infrastructure has undoubtedly put even
greater stress on civil society and community-level institutions, creating an
even more fertile environment for crime and terror activity. These places
include the southern Philippines as well as those which are more often reported
on in the US news as terrorist havens, including Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan
and Somalia. In these areas the problem is not that the central government is
actively sponsoring terrorism or has declined to work with international partners
to combat it for overtly political or ideological reasons, but rather that the
governments themselves lack the capacity to adequately muster the police,
intelligence and civil society resources needed to prevent terrorist groups
from planning and operating within the borders of their state.
These two very broad questions
– how to respond to state-sponsored terrorism, and what to do about places which attract terrorists by virtue of their lack of adequate
security or political infrastructure – appear somewhat simple on the surface,
but are incredibly vexing upon closer examination. In the case of
state-sponsored terrorism virtually all of the activity surrounding such
sponsorship is carried out clandestinely. The role of Iran in the bombing the
AMIA Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires in July of 1994 is a good example of
this. By acting in the shadows these nations can engage in a thinly-veiled kind
of plausible deniability, making it very hard for another nation or international
body to hold them accountable. It’s not impossible, just difficult. In this
sense, combating state-sponsored terrorism should involve shining a bright light
on these covert relationships and activities. Exposure may have the practical, short-term
affect of limiting government involvement in supporting attacks and over the
longer term could degrade these relationships to the point where they do not
pose a serious threat. The other necessary element is to try and hold these
nations accountable for their role in terrorism through aggressive sanctions
and efforts to limit their influence in international organizations. Doing this
will not bring about an immediate end to state-sponsored terror, but it could reduce
its efficacy, and by extension, perhaps save some lives.
The question of what to
do about failed, failing and under-governed states is equally as challenging. The
first hurdle we must get over is convincing citizens of Western countries that
vital national interests are at stake when other nations anywhere in the world begin to fall apart. When the central government is corrupt, bankrupt or so distracted
by other issues that it does not pay attention to who is crossing its borders
or what they are doing there when no one is looking, terrorists who are likely
to have western countries in their sights are going to take advantage of this
opportunity.
At the same time, people living in the
countries which have become unstable need to feel like there is a possibility
of a return to normalcy. In other words, the people who will rebuild government
and civil society need to see the value in it, and be willing to take the
required risks to make it happen. Aside from cooperation between military,
intelligence and police forces, this is the kind of collaboration which is
needed to make a real long-term difference when it comes to terrorist
exploitation of political instability.
Anyone reading the State
Department report will see that there are indeed many programs and initiatives
designed to do these things, often in conjunction with civil society partners.
Outside of such partnerships I think that all people have a responsibility to
support this kind of work, because ultimately we all have a stake in its
success. In my mind, this is what makes reports like this one valuable, by
serving to remind us that the threat of terrorism is not monolithic, nor is it
rooted in one particular place or motivation. Instead, what we broadly call “terrorism”
is a multi-faceted, ever-evolving threat that takes many forms and requires an equally
varied response. I’m not usually one to suggest that bureaucracy, government or
otherwise, is often a source of clarity, but as a reminder of the complicated
nature of the threats we face, this report offers a refreshing note of clarity
amidst so much media noise about the nature and extent of terrorism today.
Copyright Daniel E. Levenson 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment