State Sponsors of Terrorism (3 of 4)

Wesley Clark gives a good description of how, by the late 1990s, it was becoming clear to Clinton officials and those outside the government who took the new transnational terrorism seriously as a problem that the model of focusing on state sponsors was obsolescent:

It seemed unlikely that we would be able to put a state "face" on terror: Afghanistan was playing a cagey game of talking and offering assistance, then failing to follow through; Iran had reportedly suspended terrorist aims agains Americans in 1996. In Somalia there was no government to hold accountable. Yemen was slowly warming up to U.S. overtures. In addition, there were problems with U.S. allies in any prospective campaign: The Saudis were uncooperative, the Egyptians heavy-handed. Excessive reliance on Israeli intelligence and support in the Middle East ran the risk that the United States would undermine relations with friendly regimes, thereby conflicting with other foreign policy objectives. This had all the markings of a long and very difficult effort.

Clark also recounts events in some detail in the year prior to the 9/11 attacks. The attack on the USS Cole in October 2000 was not finally determined to be the work on al-Qaeda until after the election. But the outgoing Clinton Administration tended to see it as a turning point requiring the need for a more comprehensive approach to fighting al-Qaeda that simply retaliatory strikes.

Last week's 9/11 Commission testimony has focused a lot of attention on how the Bush Administration did and did not respond to the terrorism threat during their first months in office. Wesley Clark's 2003 book does not focus on the issue highlighted by Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke in their more recent books, of how the Bush team seemed intent from the very first on finding reasons to go to war against Iraq.

But Wesley Clark's Winning Modern Wars does review information both from Clark's own sources and other reports already in the public record last year on how their was serious consideration after 9/11 for going to war immediately with Iraq. And he develops his analysis of how the excess focus on "state sponsors" through his discussion of the Afghan and Iraq Wars.