The new US National Security Strategy

We have a new (March 2006) National Security Strategy (NSS), issued by the White House on Thursday.

I've posted about its reaffirmation of the Bush Doctrine of preventive war at The Blue Voice.  To summarize what I said there, it's clear that the NSS document is saying, "We've gotta git Iran!"

I was struck in particular by this passage from Section 5 of the report which discusses Iran as both a nuclear proliferation threat as well as a problem on other issues.  It says:

We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran. ... The nuclear issue and our other concerns can ultimately be resolved only if the Iranian regime makes the strategic decision to change these policies, open up its political system, and afford freedom to its people. (my emphasis)

But as desirable as wider democracy and greater freedom for the Iranians would be, dealing with the potential proliferation problem does not require a change in Iran's form of government.

Section 3 makes a puzzling attempt to define The Terrorists as having a definable ideology.  But then doesn't really define it other than in vague propagandistic terms.

And the administration is sticking to its determination to insist that The Terrorists "hate us for our values", and not for anything about American policies:

* Terrorism is not the inevitable by-product of poverty. Many of the September 11 hijackers were from middle-class backgrounds, and many terrorist leaders, like bin Laden, are from privileged upbringings.

* Terrorism is not simply a result of hostility to U.S. policy in Iraq. The United States was attacked on September 11 and earlier, well before we toppled the Saddam Hussein regime. Moreover, countries that stayed out of the Iraq war have not been spared from terror attack.

* Terrorism is not simply a result of Israeli-Palestinian issues. Al-Qaida plotting for the September 11 attacks began in the 1990s, during an active period in the peace process.

* Terrorism is not simply a response to our efforts to prevent terror attacks. The al-Qaida network targeted the United States long before the United States targeted al-Qaida. Indeed, the terrorists are emboldened more by perceptions of weakness than by demonstrations of resolve. Terrorists lure recruits by telling them that we are decadent and easily intimidated and will retreat if attacked. (my emphasis)

The highlighted portions are weasel-words to help the administration's spokespeople comma-dance around dim-witted cable news hosts when they're defended his policies.  Nobody I ever heard of said that terrorism is an "inevitable" by-product of poverty, of that it results "simply" for any of the other three items.

There's probably some more-or-less interesting psychological reason why comments like this are so popular among Republicans.  It's some kind of thinking that assumes that no one has a legitimate right to be happy over social/political issues, except for whiny white folks complaining about taxes, gubment regulation and minorities talking over everything.

But, hold everything!  Has the Party Central Headquarters decreed that henceforth we will spell that organization as "al-Qaida" instead of "al-Qaeda"?  I like to keep up with these things.  It took me years to catch on that we were now using "Muslim" rather than "Moslem".

Back to the laundry-list.  Whether it makes sense in the country club or not, conditions of desperation in situations like the Palestinian territories or East Timor can certainly exert a powerful influence over people who are members of that group, including individuals who are more fortunate than the poorest of the poor.  That talking point is kind of like Republicans arguing that a John Kerry can't be truly concerned with the needs of working people because he grew up in a wealthy family.

And, however irrational it may seem to the country-club set, and however irrational it may really be in some kind of objective sense, Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a major grievance for Muslims, by no means only the jihadists.  The United States is a close ally with unpopular regimes like the authoritarian Egyptian government and the Saudi monarchy.  Having American troops in Iraq bombing Muslim villages and torturing Muslim prisoners really does encourage a lot of Muslims to hate America and Americans.

It's really odd, this insistence that no actual policies of the US has anything to do with Muslim hositility to the US or contributes to recuitment for jihadist groups.  Showing that we have an abundance of testosterone is important, though, because "the terrorists are emboldened more by perceptions of weakness than by demonstrations of resolve. Terrorists lure recruits by telling them that we are decadent and easily intimidated and will retreat if attacked."

I wonder if anyone in our press corps will actually bother to fact-check that last claim.  Is it really true?  Do jihadist groups recruit by telling people, "Hey, join us, jihad is easy!  The Americans will run away once you shoot at them!"?  When leaders start emphasizing the need to show Will and Resolve as the justification for an ongoing war, that's probably a pretty good signal that they're running out of substantial reasons to continue it.

Would Osama Bin Laden brag about a great victory if the US were to exit Iraq by this time next year?  Of course. Would anyone besides fundamentalists Muslim and otherwise take the claim seriously?  For the most part, no.  Are we winning respect by continuing in a war that is wrecking the Army, has no reasonable prospects for a genuinely beneficial outcome (aka, "victory") and most of the world thinks we had no business starting in the first place?  Only in the faith-based imaginations of Bush, his advisers and his most hardcore Christian fundamentalist admirers.

Chapter 3 offers other clues as to why this adminstration's "public diplomacy" (aka, public relations) in the Muslim world has fallen on his face time after time.  For instance:

Democracy is the opposite of terrorist tyranny, which is why the terrorists denounce it and are willing to kill the innocent to stop it. Democracy is based on empowerment, while the terrorists’ ideology is based on enslavement. Democracies expand the freedom of their citizens, while the terrorists seek to impose a single set of narrow beliefs. Democracy sees individuals as equal in worth and dignity, having an inherent potential to create and to govern themselves. The terrorists see individuals as objects to be exploited, and then to be ruled and oppressed.

Democracies are not immune to terrorism. In some democracies, some ethnic or religious groups are unable or unwilling to grasp the benefits of freedom otherwise available in the society. Such groups can evidence the same alienation and despair that the transnational terrorists exploit in undemocratic states. This accounts for the emergence in democratic societies of homegrown terrorists such as were responsible for the bombings in London in July 2005 and for the violence in some other nations. Even in these cases, the long-term solution remains deepening the reach of democracy so that all citizens enjoy its benefits.

It wouldn't surprise me if somebody went into the archives or just Googled a bit and recycled some old Cold War boilerplate.  Imagine it written like this:

Democracy is the opposite of Communist tyranny, which is why the Communists denounce it and are willing to kill the innocent to stop it. Democracy is based on empowerment, while the Communists’ ideology is based on enslavement. Democracies expand the freedom of their citizens, while the Communists seek to impose a single set of narrow beliefs. Democracy sees individuals as equal in worth and dignity, having an inherent potential to create and to govern themselves. The Communists see individuals as objects to be exploited, and then to be ruled and oppressed.

Democracies are not immune to Communism. In some democracies, some ethnic or religious groups are unable or unwilling to grasp the benefits of freedom otherwise available in the society. Such groups can evidence the same alienation and despair that the international Communists exploit in undemocratic states. This accounts for the emergence in democratic societies of homegrown Communists such as were responsible for the bombings in London in July 2005 and for the violence in some other nations. Even in these cases, the long-term solution remains deepening the reach of democracy so that all citizens enjoy its benefits.

I wonder what "terrorist tyranny" means?  That's almost a full-circle evolution of the word "terror" back to its meaning from the French Revolution, when the Terror was repression directed by the revolutionary government to scare its opponents into ceasing resistance.

The following list of types of action against The Terrorists still reflect the extent to which terrorism, to the extent that's a target of Bush administration policy at all, is conceived primarily as one of state sponsors of terrorism:

* Prevent attacks by terrorist networks before they occur. A government has no higher obligation than to protect the lives and livelihoods of its citizens. The hard core of the terrorists cannot be deterred or reformed; they must be tracked down, killed, or captured. They must be cut off from the network of individuals and institutions on which they depend for support. That network must in turn be deterred, disrupted, and disabled by using a broad range of tools.

* Deny WMD to rogue states and to terrorist allies who would use them without hesitation. Terrorists have a perverse moral code that glorifies deliberately targeting innocent civilians.  Terrorists try to inflict as many casualties as possible and seek WMD to this end. Denying terrorists WMD will require new tools and new international approaches. We are working with partner nations to improve security at vulnerable nuclear sites worldwide and bolster the ability of states to detect, disrupt, and respond to terrorist activity involving WMD.

* Deny terrorist groups the support and sanctuary of rogue states. The United States and its allies in the War on Terror make no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor them, because they are equally guilty of murder. Any government that chooses to be an ally of terror, such as Syria or Iran, has chosen to be an enemy of freedom, justice, and peace. The world must hold those regimes to account.

* Deny the terrorists control of any nation that they would use as a base and launching pad for terror. The terrorists’ goal is to overthrow a rising democracy; claim a strategic country as a haven for terror; destabilize the Middle East; and strike America and other free nations with ever-increasing violence. This we can never allow. This is why success in Afghanistan and Iraq is vital, and why we must prevent terrorists from exploiting ungoverned areas.   (my emphasis)

It's interesting to see the phrase "the Long War" is not evident in the new NSS.