BOOKS
America’s Secret War
America’s Secret
War by George Friedman
(Doubleday, 2004)
Review by Ahmad Faruqui
George Friedman says that the
US is winning the war on terror and that the war
in Iraq is part of this war. Friedman is the founder
of STRATFOR, a firm that describes itself as “the
world’s most respected private global intelligence
firms.” So one cannot reject these claims
out of hand.
Friedman presents a theory about the attacks of
9/11. He argues that Al Qaida, born at the end of
the Soviet-Afghan War, began to plan the attacks
out of frustration with the Gulf War. Friedman says
that Al Qaida has nothing against the US way of
life. It wants to lure the US into attacking Muslim
countries so they can be freed from their illegitimate
rulers, allowing for the re-establishment of the
Islamic Caliphate.
The author fails to note that while Al Qaida might
think it is speaking for the Muslim world when carrying
out its criminal acts, it is only speaking for the
lunatic fringe.
Friedman say s that the US is winning because Al
Qaida has failed to generate a mass uprising in
the Muslim world and because the US has successfully
“reshaped the behavior of Islamic regimes.”
This ignores the proverbial “pink elephant
in the room.” The US war on terror has alienated
the entire Muslim world from the US. In addition,
Al Qaida has spawned a variety of other extremist
organizations.
The author fails to acknowledge that terrorism cannot
be overcome through military means. It is a battle
for the hearts and minds of Muslims, requiring diplomacy,
education and economic assistance, not cruise missiles
and bunker-buster bombs.
Friedman argues that the war in Iraq is an integral
part of the war on terror. In May 2002, the US redefined
the Al Qaida problem as a Saudi problem. To tell
the Saudis that it meant business, it decided to
take on Iraq in a big way.
He argues that
the Bush administration policy is not controlled
by the neoconservatives but by people close to the
Saudis such as Dick Cheney and Colin Powell. This
completely overlooks evidence coming out of several
Bush insiders, such as Richard Clarke and Paul O’Neill,
on how the administration was focused on attacking
Iraq immediately after taking office in January
2001. It overlooks assertions by senior Bush officials
that there could be no peace between the Israelis
and the Palestinians until Saddam Hussain was overthrown,
since “the road to Jerusalem ran through Baghdad.”
Friedman’s assertions are contradictory. On
the one hand, the US did not want to invade Saudi
Arabia because that would depose the House of Saud.
On the other hand, he argues that by placing 138,000
troops in Iraq, the US “would pose a threat
that was outside the security paradigm the Saudis
had ever considered.” Since the said number
of troops is proving insufficient to control the
insurgency in Iraq, how could it be expected to
threaten Saudi Arabia?
But along the way, he provides the real rationale
for the war in Iraq: “The inability to engage
al Qaida effectively left no alternative but to
invade Iraq.” In one place, he says, “The
decision to invade Iraq was not a good one and very
few in the administration thought it was.”
In another place, he says the decision was a good
one.
He analyzes how the US forced Musharraf’s
hand. It knew that the Pakistani army had been the
mainstay of the Taliban and Musharraf could not
survive politically if he openly turned on them.
So it asked Musharraf to quietly permit the US to
fly missiles and bombers over Pakistani territory
enroute to Afghanistan. It also got to establish
secret bases on Pakistani soil from which to launch
ground operations. Finally it was allowed to recruit
Pashtuns into its anti-Taliban coalition. All of
this was done to preserve Musharraf’s “deniability.”
Following the failure of the Tora Bora campaign,
the US realized that it would be impossible to pursue
the war against al Qaida without Musharraf’s
active cooperation. The attack on the Indian Parliament
by Kashmiri insurgents created a new opportunity.
Musharraf was now less afraid of the jihadists than
of the possibility that the US would solve its al
Qaida problem through an Indian attack on Pakistan.
In the midst of the crisis, the US created its own
crisis for Pakistan. Unless it turned over these
facilities to the US for inspection, it would not
stand in the way of an Indian strike at these facilities.
In March 2002, Musharraf buckled and US special
operations forces in civilian clothes along with
US scientists from NEST “deployed simultaneously
to all of Pakistan’s nuclear reactors.”
In a nutshell, the US used a “good cop-bad
cop” routine on the Pakistanis where India
was the bad cop, ready to invade and if necessary,
use nuclear weapons. The US was the good cop, ready
to hold the Indians back. US officials “wanted
Musharraf to cross the that line, because once across,
he would become permanently dependent on the United
States.” Musharraf proceeded to cross the
line and started arresting people, becoming “Busharraf.”
Of course, the two attempted assassinations in December
2003, which Friedman does not mention, finally tipped
him over.
He says the US planned to invade Pakistan after
it had captured Saddam Hussein but the invasion
had to be called off because of insufficient reserves.
He implies that this mission may be taken up again
in the future. Recognizing that this may stir a
backlash against Musharraf, he says the US is prepared
to move into Pakistan with Indian cooperation.
Because of this “over the top” scenario,
the book is likely to generate a lot of buzz in
Pakistan. The book contains a few factual errors.
For example, Friedman says that the number of Soviet
troops in Afghanistan was 300,000 when it was half
that number. However, it is the uneven quality of
his analysis that causes one to lose confidence
in Friedman’s ability “to provide clear
perspective on the current geopolitical map.”
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