Iraq and Afghanistan

The tragedy in the Caucasus has caused a great deal of discussion of Russia’s role in Chechnya. Putin has tried to say it is simply "international terrorism" as a means of identifying his cause with ours. U. S. Government officials have apparently said that perhaps an accommodation with Chechnya should be made. An Op-Ed by Daniel Pipes carries this a step further saying the problem would be solved by granting independence to Chechnya, a people the Russians have not treated too kindly in the past. (It occurred to me that we should tell the Israelis that their problems might also cease were they to grant the Palestinians what they want!) Today another Op-Ed says the opposite, that is that Putin has tried hard to reach an accommodation short of independence and that for him independence is not an option. My opinion is that we should not unnecessarily make enemies in Russia by using our cold war animosities as a crutch for reducing Moscow's power still further.

This is all part of a difficult and many-sided discussion that will not end soon. The questions are: "What is terrorism", "What is international terrorism?" and "What is the proper or most useful relationship of the United States to terrorisms of different kinds?"

It is clear that as a nation we have one clear terrorist enemy, an enemy that we can loosely label "al-Qaida". It is not a unified, closely integrated movement. It plays a hand in the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq, in the terrorism in Indonesia and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as well as most of terrorist events in Europe and Russia. Al-Qaida is not, in my judgment, a major player in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Neither is it the only or even a major player in the insurgencies in Chechnya. But in this and other cases we can see that terrorists and insurgents are being assisted by and copying methods associated with al-Qaida. My position is that in so far as al-Qaida is involved, we should assist any country affected by their activities, whether or not we agree entirely with the politics involved. One reason is to improve our intelligence and knowledge base for our struggle against our primary "terrorist" enemy. On the other hand, where this link is not clear, we should not automatically be supportive just because someone has labeled the violence "terrorism".

Partly with Israeli urging, many is Washington want to emphasis the "terrorist" activity of the Iranians, directly and through Hezbollah, a sometimes violent political grouping headquartered in Lebanon. But directly or indirectly, Iran's terrorism has not been transferred in any major way to the United States and Europe, although there was apparently some actions against Israelis in Argentina. In Iraq and Afghanistan Iran has played a hand in assisting military and political groupings (in fact they aided us in the early stages of our latest Afghanistan adventure). They may be sending in weapons to Iraq, probably to the Mahdi Army, but I have seen little proof. In fact I saw a reference that they were actually assisting a variety of Shi'a groups, as a means of maintaining support for the future. In my mind this hardly makes them a terrorist state.