The loooong war: Yep, we’re stuck

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Thursday, January 28, 2010 - 4:57 PM Share

Here's a report from my CNAS colleague Matt Irvine, who trekked up to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to hear experts Richard Clarke, Juan Zarate, and Steve Coll tell the House Armed Services Committee what to think about al Qaeda.

By Matthew Irvine

Best Defense chief congressional correspondent

What the witnesses delivered was a long-term forecast reading: more of the same. The conflict against al Qaeda and its ideology will not be won when American forces leave Iraq or begin drawdowns in Afghanistan in 2011.

Rather than speaking of end dates and benchmarks, these witnesses spoke of decades and generations. Mr. Clarke captured the tone of the panel, contending that "the eradication of al Qaeda is the work of a generation ... It will never be perfect, don't expect we will ever be able to stop every attack."

Mr. Coll piled on, saying "this is a 20-year challenge that is not going to go away."

The tragic events at Fort Hood demonstrate the ease with which al Qaeda's lethal message is carried across the globe. Countering this message is the only way to seize the initiative against the jihad. According to Mr. Zarate the "ideological battlefield is where the long war will be fought."

After hearing three leading experts on al Qaeda and U.S. counterterrorism policy it is clear that General Abizaid's "long war" is as real today as when he testified before the same committee seven years ago.

Here is old Steve Coll's paradox-driven testimony.

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EXPLORE:MIDDLE EAST, SOUTH ASIA, AFGHANISTAN, AL QAEDA, IRAQ, U.S. CONGRESS

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JSINAIKO

3:39 PM ET

January 29, 2010

Same old, same old...

This really doesn't represent anything new.

The US spent a good part of four decades - 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s - believing that there was a monolithic communist movement, probably run from the Kremlin. Even after the Russian - Chinese split, which began in about 1960 this belief was maintained, at least by some folks in power and the political, if not all in the intelligence communities.

Tremendous amounts of treasure, human life, and other resources were expended in various places because of this mistaken belief. The domino theory was partially based on it. It was a consideration taken in almost every policy move the US made in that period, including domestic security policy.

For example, many people thought the Korean War was a feint by Uncle Joe to draw resources away from Europe so he could just walk through the Fulda Gap. It informed our policies towards liberation movements in South and Central America. It colored almost everything we did.

And it was totally incorrect. The Soviet propaganda machine said it was the case, and the communist international acted as if ran the show outside the USSR, but it seems we just took that at face value and didn't explore the vast cultural differences between the various communist nations and the fissures that appeared very early. There was a very arrogant assumption that other nation states, North Korea or North Vietnam for example, were incapable of acting on their own with or without the approval of their "sponsors" in Moscow or Peiping (or Peking - oh OK, Beijing).

Of course Moscow had no stake in telling us we were incorrect - the monolithic communism silliness allowed the USSR to perpetuate the myth, thus appearing to be much more powerful that it was in reality, and helped to obscure the many, many serious disputes and policy differences between the many communist countries the exposure of which would make the Soviets look weak - as weak as they really were.

And this wasn't just the case with the USSR, PRC, North Korea, and North Vietnam. There were many serious problems between the various "satellite" nations in Eastern Europe and the USSR before and after the creation of the Warsaw Pact. Budapest 1956 and Prague 1968 were only the most serious and public of these disagreements

So it really isn't anything new that paranoid fantasies about the power and unity of those who are (and who are supposedly) aligned against us abound and inform policy and the expenditure of resources.

Thus yet another quagmire. Will we ever learn? Or just get smart?