FDD: Conference mulls the hard choice between dictators and dissidents

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US/94; US/1; 

By David S. Jackson

The Washington Times

Thursday, December 6, 2012

It wasn't that long ago that the question posed by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' (FDD) annual national security conference — "Dictators and Dissidents: Should the West Choose Sides?" — would have seemed easier to answer.

But what happens when victory by the dissidents leads not to democracy but to totalitarian rule? Suddenly the choice between an authoritarian dictator and, say, a totalitarian clerical regime becomes not only more complicated, but also a lively topic for debate.

To be clear, the government, military and private-sector experts the FDD gathered at the Newseum in Washington were staunchly pro-democracy. Their discussions were mainly about how to secure democratic rule at a time when dissidents in Syria, Egypt, Iran and other countries seem poised to redraw the political map of the Middle East.

Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey kicked off the conference with some sobering observations. Historically, he noted, the "Act One" of revolutions looks promising. "Life seems to be headed in a new and positive direction," he said.
But then comes the second act, which often brings "the first signs of violence."
"Act Three is often very ugly," he added. "Those who support totalitarianism ... come to the fore."

While the ultimate outcome in Syria and Egypt isn't clear, he said, "we need to make wise choices." Throughout its history, the U.S. "on balance has made remarkably fine choices." The problem right now, Mr. Woolsey said, is that the current totalitarian threat is rooted in "one of the world's great religions."

The extremists associated with Islamism "are our enemies," he quickly added. "Islam is not our enemy."

The former CIA chief described an extremist Islamic tract that offered guidance on the "three acceptable ways to kill a homosexual."

"We have a very long and difficult task ahead of us," Mr. Woolsey concluded.
* * * * *
Lively debate during the first panel: Islamists and Elections: Where Do They Lead?

Reuel Marc Gerecht, an outspoken former Iran specialist for the CIA, now a senior fellow at FDD, took the lead on what could be called the realist view of where democratic elections will probably lead in the Middle East. In this view, a public debate will be therapeutic, and anyway, trying to keep Islamists out is trying to block centuries of history.

But Brett Stephens, a foreign affairs columnist for The Wall Street Journal, offered a more pessimistic take: "The truth is, we're not going to have a democratic outcome in the Middle East, and we might as well prepare for the consequences."
* * * * *
Poignant comments from former Iranian political prisoner Marina Nemat during the panel on Iran's Human Rights Record brought a hush to the crowded conference room. Ms. Nemat, whose memoir "Prisoner of Tehran" described her arrest and torture as a 16-year-old in the wake of the 1979 revolution, told the audience that after the revolution, "we had hope... that Iran would become a democracy." She said she had grown up wearing short skirts and Western hair styles, and suddenly Iran's religious rulers banned everything that was "fun". She couldn't even walk down the street holding hands with her boyfriend.

She wasn't the only one who was affected, she added.

"How political can a 14-year-old get?" she asked. "If you ban fun, then a 14-year-old can get very political."


Ms. Nemat now lives and teaches in Canada. Asked if things have gotten any better in Iran since she lived there, she did not hesitate. "No, they are not." Like others on the panel, she said she was glad to see some focus on the issue of human rights, rather than Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons, which gets most of the attention these days. "I'm here," she declared, "to make sure that the story of Iranian political prisoners is heard."
* * * * *
Ali Alfoneh, of the American Enterprise Institute, said the Revolutionary Guards' use of "show trials" has had a chilling effect on Iranian citizens. When they see even Mir-Hussein Mousavi, the former Iranian Prime Minister who had been a favorite of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, being put on trial, "then all regular Iranian citizens feel at risk."

Said Ms. Nemat: "I don't think any Western country can change the behavior of the Iranian regime when it comes to human rights." But she added that when the United States speaks out on behalf of human rights, it gives political prisoners hope "because news does get into the prisons."

"All I am interested in is just giving hope," she said. "If I can save just one life, then I can die in peace."

Alfoneh joked that no Western country can ever win a negotiation with someone from the Middle East. But the conversation turned serious again when panelist Emanuele Ottolenghi of FDD said recent crackdowns in Iran were evidence that "the regime is increasingly on the defensive."

Alfoneh criticized U.S. academics — "do-gooders" — who are always calling for the U.S. to close down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, but are silent on the issue of Iran's notorious prisons. "Where are these good people?" he asked. They have "totally forgotten Iran."

Ms. Nemat had the last word on the panel. She implored officials who believe they are dealing with "moderates" in Iran to never forget "the true nature of the regime."
"The enemy of your enemy," she said solemnly, "is not necessarily your friend."
* * * * *
** Updated **
Career diplomat Robert S. Ford, the current U.S. Ambassador to Syria, spoke about the situation in Syria. The Free Syrian Army, the main opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime, has made "substantial gains," he said, and the regime no longer controls most of Syria's border with either Turkey or Iraq. "It's very clear that the regime forces are being ground down and are losing." But, he added, "they still have some fight in them."

Meanwhile, Ford noted, "extremist groups" are gaining ground in the opposition. He said there is an Al Qaeda affiliate now operating in Syria and there are groups that are cooperating with them.

Ford said there are also long-term social problems that will have to be dealt with long after the current crisis is over: About 1.5 million Syrians — out of a total population of 23 million — are internally displaced, and more than 475,000 Syrians have fled the country to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq.

As for the path forward, Ford said the U.S. still "strongly supports" a political solution, but Assad "and his clique must go... He does not have a role in this political transition." Their "days are numbered" and "the regime needs to step down now."
A question from the audience: When the ambassador said Assad's "days" were numbered, did he mean Assad has only "days" left? Ford quickly replied that he would not be pinned down to a timeline.

Another questioner asked about the Alewites, Assad's privileged Muslim minority sect. Ford said the Alewites "must understand that they have a place" in Syria... "not with special privileges, but also not with special discrimination."

He said those who have committed crimes would be held responsible, and Syrian investigators were now being trained to investigate war crimes.

Fear of genocide is "certainly present," Ford conceded, "but there does not have to be a genocide in Syria... It is incumbent on us to bolster moderates in the opposition, which is what we're trying to do."

A more critical view was offered in a subsequent panel — What's Next for Syria? — by Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian human rights activist and a fellow at FDD. He complained that at a time when Syrians were being "slaughtered on a daily basis," the "world offered them a six-point plan."

He blamed the Obama administration for an "absolute lack of vision" and argued that if the U.S. had intervened sooner, the situation wouldn't be so bad. As a result, he predicted, Syria would be a problem for "many years to come."

© Copyright 2012 The Washington Times, LLC

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JUDITH MILLER: Is the war on terror over? - Najibullah Zazi Recruit CONVICTED in NYC...

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US/1; ATTN: RT/66; US/12; TPS/2; CID/2; OSINT/1 &2; JAG/1; US/17; HST/2; VADM/2; VS/2

by Judith Miller
Fox News
April 30, 2012

http://www.judithmiller.com/11628/war-on-terror-over

"The war on terror is over." That's what a senior State Department official told the National Journal in light of the Arab spring uprisings and the killing of Usama Bin Laden.

The article's ink was barely dry when a White House spokesman corrected the record. The State Department official had misspoken: President Obama's "war on Al Qaeda" was being fought furiously, and would continue.

In fact, Obama rejected George W. Bush's war on all of the violent Islamists and terrorists who might threaten America– his "Global War on Terror" – back in 2009. Instead, he had embraced a more intensely focused "war on Al Qaeda, its affiliates, and adherents."

That this more concentrated war continues was crystal clear during a trial last week in Brooklyn featuring Najibullah Zazi, the home-grown mastermind of the 2009 Al-Qaeda plot to bomb New York's subways. The suicide strike might have been the deadliest attack on American soil since 9/11 had the FBI and NYPD not thwarted it, police say. While Zazi and a fellow home-grown militant from Queens pleaded guilty to terror charges and testified for the government, a third alleged conspirator, Adis Medunjanin, denied guilt.

The testimony against him was an unsettling reminder that the war on terror, or Al Qaeda, or whatever else the administration calls it remains decidedly unfinished business.

That, too, was the message from John Brennan, President Obama's senior counter-terrorism adviser, who visited New York City as the trial was getting underway.

Brennan warned in a speech to the NYPD that Al Qaeda and other violent jihadis still threatened America. If America wanted to avoid "another devastating attack," it could not afford to drop its guard, he said. While hundreds of key Al Qaeda operatives had been killed and its abilities severely degraded, Al Qaeda still had "several hundred" members in Pakistan and another "hundred" or so in Afghanistan. Washington remained alarmed not only about Al Qaeda "core" but also about its metastasized affiliates and adherents – first among them, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or AQAP.

AQAP, Al Qaeda's "most active operational franchise," now had over a thousand members in Yemen, he said. Al Qaeda branches and affiliates and like-minded militants might also develop international agendas and capabilities. Noting the formal merger between the Somali militant group al Shabaab and Al Qaeda only two months ago, he said that Al Shabaab was now committed to Al Qaeda's campaign of international terrorism. Another Al-Qaeda affiliate in North Africa was now operating in Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Mali.

          [AQIM, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreeb]

There was no shortage of counter-terrorism frustrations, he added -- the millions of dollars that European states have paid to ransom nationals held hostage; concern that terrorists might acquire Libyan weapons from unsecured stockpiles: stopping terrorists from gravitating towards lawless areas in Egypt's Sinai near Israel; the possibility that Al Qaeda might fill a political vacuum in Syria.

Preventing Al Qaeda from capitalizing on the chaos of the Arab Spring would require "one, two, three years" of intense focus, Brennan warned.

At home, he worried about the proliferation of homegrown militant loners, inherently more difficult to detect and stop than radical groups. The growing sophistication of AQ bombs, the result of a generation of militants schooled in Iraq and Afghanistan, could also threaten Americans in the coming decade.

In a press conference after his speech, Brennan praised the NYPD's counter-terrorism work, asserting that New York's finest had struck an "appropriate" balance between protecting the city and its citizens' civil liberties.

The apparent endorsement meant much to the NYPD. The cops have been under fire from the AP, civil libertarians, and assorted Muslim activists over their aggressive Muslim surveillance program which has helped foil 14 plots against the city since Sept. 11. Critics say the department's efforts to understand the communities in which terrorists are likely to recruit or hide constitute racial profiling and violate civil liberties guarantees. The police insist that the program is legal and essential. Brennan's speech and subsequent remarks were widely seen as an endorsement of the NYPD's actions.

But Brennan had barely finished speaking when White House officials once again clarified his remarks by asserting that Brennan wasn't defending the NYPD's controversial Muslim surveillance program at all. "John never approved of described press accounts of alleged NYPD surveillance," a senior official said. Rather, Brennan was noting that "everyone in the counterterrorism and law enforcement community must make sure we are doing things consistent with the law."

I was standing next to Brennan when he was asked for his view of the NYPD's surveillance effort. Saying that he had known and worked with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly for years, Brennan said he did not think that Kelly would violate the law. "I have full confidence that the NYPD is doing things within the law, and has been responsible for keeping this city safe for the past decade," he said. The Muslim community was "part of the solution to the terrorist threat," he said, and needed to be "part of that effort."

On Sunday, the White House further clarified its earlier clarification. Brennan was indeed a "very strong supporter of the tremendous work done by NYPD on a daily basis keeping New York City safe," National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor wrote. But because the Justice Department has been "reviewing requests" that the NYPD surveillance program be investigated, Brennan "did not" and would not comment, "much less pass judgment, on any of those allegations or the Justice Department's pending review."

This is silly. For the administration's unwillingness to openly back the NYPD – or permit Brennan to do so – is not only at odds with Obama's own actions, it undercuts his impressive anti-terrorism accomplishments as "warrior in chief," as Peter Bergen, the author of a new book, "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden — From 9/11 to Abbottabad," calls him.

Obama's counter-terrorism achievements cannot be denied. Thanks to his gutsy call, Usama bin Laden is dead. Ditto Anwar al-Awlaki, the de facto chief of AQAP. [go USA…]

Al Qaeda's "core" has been decimated due to increased American drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Guantanamo is still open, despite his vow on his first day in office to close it.

Obama now asserts the right not only to target American citizens for assassination without judicial review if intelligence suggests they are involved in plotting terror, but to hold some terror suspects in jail indefinitely without trial.

This year, he revised guidelines to permit law enforcement to store records on people not suspected of terror from five months to 5 years.

I don't recall hearing demands for judicial review of such actions, however troubling to civil libertarians (including me) some of them, especially those affecting American citizens, may be.

In fact, despite his campaign pledges, Obama's counter-terrorism policy bears a striking resemblance to President Bush's, minus the waterboarding. That, I suspect, is precisely what troubles Obama's liberal base and some of the officials around him.

The administration seems to want to have things both ways – to bask in the glow of its counter-terrorism achievements, while downplaying the rhetoric, mind-set, and actions that a war on terror involves.

On one hand, his spokesmen try to placate his left-wing base – by initially calling the war on Al Qaeda "overseas contingency operations," (pathetic bureaucratic blather), by rejecting talk of a broader "war" on terror while waging one, and by trying to distance Obama from the NYPD's aggressive, successful tactics by calling for a judicial review of the cops' surveillance program.

On the other hand, they tout Obama's counter-terrorism victories in ads and interviews to combat assertions from the right that Obama is weak.

Such mixed signals, however, have often angered both left and right. And Mr. Obama has been able to sustain this cognitive dissonance only because his liberal base has resisted calling him on the contradictions between his pledges and his policies.

But in an election year, voters are demanding that Obama clarify where he stands on such issues as the balance between freedom and national security.

On Monday in a speech in Washington, Brennan outlined in detail the legal, strategic and ethical rationale for using drones to target and kill suspected terrorists – foreign and American –abroad, despite the fact that innocent civilians would continue to die.

It was an impressive, and to my mind, persuasive argument. -- Voters should demand more such genuine clarifications from the president and his team.

Better late than never.   [Ditto – US/1]

Related Topics:  Terrorism

 

Judith Miller: Obama Must Stop Compromising

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US/12; JAG/1; RT/66; CID//2; TPS/2; YQ/G-1; US/94 

 Member CONTRIBUTION

Judith Miller will join FOX News' weekly Sunday afternoon "Power Panel" from 4.30-5:00pm ET, on June 26th.

---

Decision Time For Afghanistan Has Come

by Judith Miller
Fox News
June 24, 2011

http://www.judithmiller.com/9822/obama-must-stop-compromising

President Obama's decision on the size and timing of the troop withdrawals from Afghanistan – bringing home 10,000 by the end of this year and 20,000 more by the end of the summer of 2012 – is pure politics.

Why should that surprise us?

His initial decision 18 months ago to "surge" American forces in Afghanistan by 30,000 – the amount he is now withdrawing -- was also inherently political.

During the election, Obama never stopped touting the war in Afghanistan as the "essential" conflict that President Bush had ignored to wage his war of "choice" in Iraq. So after taking office and a tortuous eight-month review, he finally fulfilled his campaign pledge to give higher priority to destroying Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies by agreeing to send an additional 30,000 forces to Afghanistan. But when he announced his surge decision in a speech at West Point in late 2009, Obama gave himself an out: he pledged to begin withdrawing the surge forces, in effect, "de-surging" at the end of 18 months.

The time had come. The president had to decide how quickly to implement his pledge. The decision, initially disclosed almost three weeks ago in a Daily Beast column by the well-connected foreign affairs guru, Leslie H. Gelb, was to withdraw all of the surge forces, but slowly over the next 18 months. The call was vintage Obama. The president tried to compromise, splitting the difference.

As a result, everyone got something he wanted and had to live with something he opposed. Those Democrats and Republicans who wanted to withdraw most of the American forces in Afghanistan ASAP – the "quick exiters," as Gelb called them –got the big withdrawal they wanted. The "die harders," or those opposed to pulling the extra capacity out of Afghanistan, got 18 more months and two more summer fighting seasons, minus one fall, to weaken the Taliban further. "Ain't democracy grand?" Mr. Gelb declared.

The center ground seems to have few supporters. Obama's 12-minute speech was soon denounced not only by Republicans, who have suddenly rediscovered their isolationist roots, but also by Democrats who believe that nation-building in Afghanistan is a waste of precious American blood and toil and resources that are badly needed at home.

Least unhappy with the president's call were those like Vice President Joe Biden who have long argued that destroying Al Qaeda and keeping the Taliban from returning to power in Kabul can best be accomplished by deploying special forces and by targeted raids and drone attacks on militant havens in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.

Echoing this view, Ann Marlowe, an Afghan expert and frequent visitor there, noted that the surge had actually increased the levels of violence in Afghanistan and hence, potential support for the Taliban. There has been a direct correlation between the surge in forces and growth in IED attacks. In 2010, she reported, Afghan insurgents planted 14,661 IEDs, a 62 percent increase over 2009's 7,228, which was a 120 percent increase over 2008. "More troops means more IEDs, period,' and hence, more injuries and death for American fighters. But while Marlowe applauded what she called the "excellent idea" of reversing the Afghan surge, she, too, lambasted Obama for not saying "we were wrong, I was wrong, we have learned something."

Also bordering on the openly critical was the U.S military's top brass. Testifying before a House committee, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the President's decision was hastier and creating "more risk" than he had advised. Ouch. He had counseled what he called a less "aggressive" approach, the same phrase, interestingly, that Gen. David Petraeus used to describe his assessment of the president's decision in his confirmation hearings before a Senate committee for his new post of CIA director. But whatever General Petraeus' reservations of the decision may be, he was quick to add that he would salute the president's decision and head back to Afghanistan to begin implementing it immediately.

Usually, the desires to compromise and split differences are highly regarded in politics. Indeed, Les Gelb ultimately supported Obama's call and said those who accuse him of abandoning Afghanistan – with 70,000 U.S. forces still on the ground – should "seek psychiatric help."

But our politics and policy have become so polarized that the president is no longer given the benefit of the doubt by many Americans. When seen through the lens of the next presidential campaign and his determination to be elected, skepticism about his underlying motives and cynicism about tough foreign policy and national security calls will inevitably grow.

Mr. Obama could defuse some of this if he were more honest with the American people, if just occasionally, he acknowledged having made mistakes, or if he ever credited his predecessor with having made a wise call instead of repeatedly bashing him and blaming him for all of the challenges he now confronts. There is one unmistakable irony in the course the president has chosen. The strategy as espoused by Mr. Obama Thursday this week is not that different from the one initially embraced by former President George W. Bush. "After a decade of war, half a trillion dollars, and innumerable strategies," wrote Jessica Tuchman Mathews, the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, President Obama's decision "brings the United States back nearly full circle to the limited 'no boots on the ground/special forces/air power' approach of the Bush presidency in 2002-03."

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