Stop Riding the Cowboy

Since America’s “unilateral” invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, it has been fashionable among the liberal and novice foreign policy critics alike to castigate the Bush foreign policy as “Cowboy Diplomacy.” This view of Bush as the Lone Ranger on a quixotic quest, tilting at the windmills of democracy in the Middle East, has been used to create a picture of America alone, abandoning a tradition of multi-lateralism and a position of global leadership. Criticisms of the Bush administration’s “Cowboy Diplomacy” have grown louder and angrier on the campaign trail, with Republicans and Democrats alike calling the Bush foreign policy “arrogant,” “counterproductive,” “dangerous,” “illegal,” and exhibiting a “bunker mentality.”

Fortunately, those criticisms are wrong. While the Bush administration’s critics sat on their hands, hoping for change to materialize on its own, waiting for a divine hand to Immanentize the eschaton, the Bush foreign policy team has been hard at work and succeeding where past administrations failed to create bilateral security and diplomatic relationships to fight terrorism with key partners such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Ironically, the countries (Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) that have been the most helpful in our fight against terrorism have endured the most unfair criticisms from the Left here in America as they bravely moved forward in aiding the United States in our international war on Islamic Terrorism, despite fierce domestic opposition in their own countries.

The biggest problem in the perceived debate over the appropriate steps of American foreign policy may be summed up best in the words of Ronald Reagan, who during a televised national address on behalf of Barry Goldwater said that the “trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so!” That is certainly the case with Barack Obama. While I can appreciate the fact that it would be difficult for a “community organizer” and a Constitutional law professor (who has never written a law review article) to learn anything about foreign relations after only serviover three years (ng in the Senate for just two of which were spent campaigning full-time for President), or to know much about America’s relationship with Pakistan, every time Senator BarackObama (D-IL) has discussed our Pakistani allies he has ended up with his foot in his mouth. Instead of providing thoughtful discourse, he has instead disrespected the courage and hard work of American and Pakistani diplomats and military personnel. For example, while speaking at a campaign stop in New Hampshire in August 2007, which I attended, Obama said that American strategy in the War on Terror in Afghanistan and the tribal regions of Pakistan amounted to “just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, with is causing enormous problems there.” Those comments were not helped by the fact that on August 3, 2007, in a major policy address, Obama said that he wanted to “make this clear…If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, I will.”

Obama’s comment certainly did create unity, but perhaps not the unity that he promised on the campaign trail. In response to Obama’s comments, protesters in Karachi, Pakistan, burned the U.S. flag and Pakistan’s foreign minister called the statement “very irresponsible” and said that while “the election campaign in America is heating up, we would not like American candidates to fight their elections and contest elections at our expense.” Tariq Ali, a British-Pakistani historian, also criticized Obama’s suggested bombing missions in Pakistan against the wishes of the Pakistani government. Tariq Ali said that: “Were the United States to start bombing raids inside Pakistan, there would be a massive increase of support for the jihadi fundamentalist groups in that country, and it would weaken not just secular political groups, it would weaken even the moderate religious parties who are not associated with that.”

Obama’s naiveté in foreign policy should be a real concern for all voters in November. While he is quick to criticize the Bush Administration, and tout his judgment of speaking against the War in Iraq in 2002, it is obvious that he has some learning to do if he wants to avoid a full-blown war with a destabilized Pakistan governed by jihadi fundamentalist groups in control of the country’s nuclear arsenal. Governor Romney was right when he said that he had to laugh when he saw Barack Obama go “from saying he’s going to sit down, you know, for tea with our enemies but then he’s going to bomb our allies. I mean, he’s going from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week.”

While Obama threatened to bomb our most valuable ally in the region to fight terrorism, the Bush administration has taken a more diplomatic and productive route to solicit the aid of Pakistan against terrorist networks as recalled by former CIA director George Tenet in his book At the Center of the Storm. Following the September 11 attacks, Pakistan ceased aiding the Taliban and enlisted in the fight against al-Qa’ida, and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Pakistani intelligence chief Ehsan Ulhaq became two of the most important figures in the effective fight against this terrorist organization. Immediately Pakistan began an offensive against al-Qa’ida targets within its borders to disrupt the flow of money, weapons, and supplies to the organization’s forces in Afghanistan and Waziristan. In March of 2002, the Pakistanis, with the aid of U.S. intelligence, raided thirteen al-Qa’ida safehouses across their country, capturing over two dozen of the group’s leaders, including Abu Zubaydah, a senior operations expert from Saudi Arabia.

Abu Zubaydah was the first “high-value detainee” to be taken into custody and the information that he provided proved to be invaluable in America’s fight against al-Qa’ida. In fact, recovering information from his cell phone, computer, and documents, and using advanced interrogation techniques (the ones that everyone claims do not work), Zubaydah led US and Pakistani officials to Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a Yemini terrorist involved in the planning of 9/11, who was captured by Pakistani officials in Karachi on September 11, 2002. Since then, Pakistani military and intelligence forces have continued to prove to be essential in fighting al-Qa’ida. For example, Khalid Shekh Mohammed, a Pakistani and the operational chief of 9/11, was captured by Pakistani officials in 2003. Khalid Shekh Mohammed’s information proved even more valuable, for after being introduced to the same “ineffective” advanced interrogation techniques, he led to the arrest of Hambali in Thailand, the Indonesian leader of the Jemaah Islamiya, an al-Qa’ida affiliated Sunni group in Southeast Asia. For good measure, Pakistani officials captured Khalid Shekh Mohammed’s replacement, Abu Faraj al-Libi, within their borders in May 2005 and also killed al-Libi’s replacement, Hamza Rabi’a, in Northern Waziristan later that year.

Despite those impressive efforts on the battlefield, perhaps the greatest contributions that President Musharraf and his government have made to the fight against international terrorism and enhancing global security came from America’s and Pakistan’s coordinated effort to dismantle two of the most successful and dangerous nuclear proliferation networks in the world. The first network to be dismantled was Umma Tameer-e-Nau (UTN). A Pakistani NGO founded under the guise of providing humanitarian relief, UTN was actually providing advice on nuclear weapons developments to al-Qa’ida’s senior leadership. Led by Sultan Bashirrudan Mahmood, former director of Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission, UTN leaders had met with senior al-Qa’ida leaders Usama bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan in August of 2001, and discussed the possibility of acquiring a nuclear device. The second, and much larger, proliferation network to be stopped by the Pakistanis was led by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program. After investigations by American and Pakistani intelligence, Khan signed a confession admitting to having sold designs and equipment to Iran, Libya, and North Korea to assist their nuclear weapons developments. While Khan was only sentenced to permanent house arrest, Tenet called this a “major victory” and noted that we “brought to justice the most dangerous nuclear weapons proliferators the world has ever known.”

Pakistan’s efforts have not gone unnoticed by the Bush Administration. In fact, during a recent press conference, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “Pakistan is an ally and a country with whom we have deepening ties.” In addition, during an appearance on Meet the Press on March 30, CIA Director General Michael Hayden said, “we have not had a better partner in the war against terrorism than the Pakistani government.” For his efforts and heroism, President Musharraf has narrowly escaped two assassination attempts by al-Qa’ida and been threatened with being bombed by Senator, and possibly future President, Obama.

In addition to the essential assistance of Pakistan, America and the world also owe a great deal of gratitude to Saudi Arabia, another constant target for liberals, for its efforts to extinguish al-Qa’ida in the Kingdom. The decision for Saudi Arabia to adopt a more aggressive policy of fighting al-Qa’ida in the Kingdom came about in the spring of 2003 and was motivated by two factors: the Riyadh bombings in May and American intelligence reporting of the attempt by senior al-Qa’ida leadership in Saudi Arabia to acquire three Russian nuclear devices. According to intelligence reports, Abu Bakr al-Azdi, the Saudi al-Qa’ida chief, had been in contact with al-Qa’ida leaders Sayf al-Adl and Abdel al-Azzi al Masri (the man Khalid Sheikh Mohammed described as al-Qa’ida’s “nuclear chief”) in Iran, from the end of 2002 into the spring of 2003, and was told by Sayf al-Adl that “no price was too high” if he could acquire nuclear weapons.

According to George Tenet’s account in At the Center of the Storm, “From the spring through the summer of 2003, with unprecedented CIA assistance, the Saudis staged a remarkable series of preemptive actions that thwarted a number of terrorist attacks in the kingdom, and which gutted the al-Qa’ida leadership in Saudi Arabia in the process.” As a result of these coordinated actions, al-Qa’ida’s financial resources in the Kingdom disappeared, their leadership was destroyed, and their weapon stocks were eliminated. In addition, the coordinated CIA and Saudi attacks also uncovered weaponized cyanide in safe houses and successfully thwarted a plan to conduct an attack using that cyanide on the New York City subway system being planned in Bahrain.

The U.S.-Saudi relationship has been more than just a military alliance, however. As His Royal Highness Prince Saud al-Faisal, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister, said in a January press conference in Saudi Arabia with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, “There have been a number of positive issues from the strategic dialogue; most importantly, the increase of students entering the United States from less than 3,000 to more than 15,000 students over the last three years; as well as the record level of trade between the two countries.” Secretary Rice said that these developments came about from President Bush’s strongly held “belief that the best antidote to many of the misconceptions about the United States, much of the propaganda that there is about the United States, is to have people go to the United States and to see who we are, and to work with us and to study with us and to do business with us.”

While the Saudis continue to violate human rights and severely oppress women, their contribution to fighting terrorism within the Kingdom should not be overlooked. The courage of Crown Prince Abdullah, Price Naif and Prince Bandar, former Saudi Ambassador to the United States, in taking aggressive action against al-Qa’ida has been essential to preventing dozens of terrorist attacks around the world and perhaps stopping al-Qa’ida from acquiring nuclear weapons.

While these examples of bi-lateral diplomatic relationships may be “An Inconvenient Truth” to Democrats, it is a shame that more Americans (members of Congress and Presidential candidates included) are not more aware of, and thankful for, the fruits of the Bush Administrations outreach to allies in the Middle East to fight terrorism.