Port 80

It’s official: The FBI thinks that there is an elevated risk of terrorist attacks this summer.

In the words of Gomer Pyle: Surprise, surprise, surprise.

This is the precise reason that many were so dismayed at the actions of the Spanish electorate after the Madrid railway bombings: By supporting Zapatero as the Prime Minister, the Spanish taught al Qaeda that a mass-casualty attack immediately prior to an election could influence the result of that election to benefit al Qaeda. The ousted Anzar had committed troops to Iraq, the incoming Zapatero immediately withdrew all Spanish forces from the region, causing the withdrawal of the Honduran contingent as well.

Now, with US elections coming up in November, is it any shock that al Qaeda might try the same tactic again? They have learned that it is costly to engage US troops on the battlefield, but by attempting to influence the American elections, they may succeed in having the American forces in Iraq withdrawn quickly (or at least ahead of schedule) for a far lower cost. If the new Iraqi government can be collapsed after a US withdrawal, al Qaeda will not only have removed a major American base of operations in the Middle East, they will have created a new base of operations for themselves.

Following a collapse of the Iraqi government, it is likely that nations surrounding Iraq would move to intervene openly within the country. Iran would seek to work with the Shiite majority in Iraq to either expand Iran or create a new Islamic state, while Ba’athist Syria might also attempt to carve out expanded territory from the remains of Iraq. It is also likely that the Kurds would declare independence, and finally form a state of Kurdistan. This would be immediately followed by a Turkish invasion from the North — the Turks have long feared that an independent Kurdistan would encourage the succession and open revolt of Turkey’s largely Kurdish southern territories. When regional and tribal militias are added to this picture, the result is an environment of lawless chaos. This is precisely the situation that al Qaeda has long exploited in establishing bases of operation, the latest examples being the border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan and the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia.

Of course, this is not a guaranteed result if al Qaeda launches an attack against the United States before the November elections. It is possible that public outrage at the attack would result in the reelection of Bush, or that Kerry’s Iraq policy would not differ from Bush’s current program. However, this is a problem of deterrence: If al Qaeda thinks that launching an attack will get the US out of Iraq, then they will try to launch the attack. Unfortunately, all the indications that the leaders of al Qaeda are getting right now suggest to them that America will turn tail and run if they can inflict major civilian casualties on the United States.

One of the primary culprits here is the mainstream media, which has undeniably turned against the war, and has even reached the point of blatant fabrication of quotes from US generals in order to score points against the Bush administration. The Abu Ghraib prison scandal has been pounded nonstop in the media for weeks, with papers so eager for news of the scandal that the Boston Globe published images from a pornographic website, claiming that they were images of Abu Ghraib abuse. (In the Boston Globe’s defense, the images came from a highly reputable source - none other than Louis Farrakhan’s heterodox Nation of Islam.) By contrast, the execution of Nicholas Berg , the discovery of undeclared artillery shells filled with sarin, and confirmation of an Iraq/al Qaeda link were all downplayed in the mainstream press. To get an even better idea of how far the media has tilted, consider that a recent Reuters report on the President’s Monday speech on Iraq was more critical of that speech than the corresponding report from Al-Jazeera. If one was to judge public opinion by the reporting of the mainstream media, a vast majority of Americans are convinced that the US operations in Iraq are a failure would like nothing better than to withdraw immediately — and, to an al Qaeda leader, a few bombs in an American city could only help to push the public further in that direction.

Recent statements by certain members of the Democratic party have not helped matters, either. Much attention has been given to Ted Kennedy’s May 10th remarks on the Abu Ghraib scandal, which equivocated the United States with Saddam: “Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam’s torture chambers reopened under new management Ñ U.S. management.” Let us also not forget John Kerry’s declaration in the Iowa Debates that “The war on terror is less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering and law-enforcement operation.” Even if a Kerry administration would in fact track down al Qaeda with as much fervor as the Bush administration, Kerry has certainly given al Qaeda good reason to believe that he would back off from the Bush administration’s current policies.

When all of these statements and stories are combined, is it any wonder that al Qaeda hopes that another major attack against the United States will lead to a US withdrawal from Iraq and a less aggressive prosecution of the global war on terror? While Kerry, Kennedy, and the media are not responsible if an attack occurs this summer, they have certainly managed to make the idea of an attack look fairly attractive to al-Qaeda, and that is a very dangerous thing. Recall that this is a question of deterrence: If al Qaeda thinks that an attack will be productive, they will try to launch one. And between the Athens Olympics, the party conventions this summer, and the thousands of soft targets around the nation, al Qaeda has ample opportunity to test the hypothesis that the American electorate behaves in the same way as the Spanish.

We may be in for an ugly six months. There’s no need to start digging bomb shelters in Montana, but this would be a good time to review your first-aid skills and keep your eyes open. Al Qaeda didn’t roll over and given up after 9/11, and we can’t afford to either.

Oh, and it really wouldn’t hurt if the media and the Democratic leadership would get a clue that terror warnings might have a purpose besides being turned into political footballs. (And if they can’t get a clue, maybe they can just buy a decent level.)

Margin Notes: As an aside, the question may be asked at this point: Why not just pull out of Iraq, and hope that al Qaeda leaves us alone? The Spanish haven’t been bombed since they pulled out of Iraq, have they? This is a valid question, and I would reply that al-Qaeda will continue to attack the United States regardless of our actions in the Middle East, although further attacks might be somewhat delayed by a radical change of US policy in the region. I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition, which this post is too short to contain. However, I will be addressing this issue separately.

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. … We — with God’s help — call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. — Usama Bin Laden, 1998 Fatwah

The war on terror is less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering and law-enforcement operation. — John Kerry, January 2004