Millions of people will head to airports this week ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. All will go through the Transportation Security Administration’s ritualized security: Remove belts and shoes, and confirm no toothpaste exceeds 3.4 ounces. Much of it is theater designed to prevent the last terror attack rather than the next one.
The biggest vulnerability to airlines today is not passenger screenings at American, European, or East Asian airports, but it’s rather the expansion of airline alliances to include compromised airliners, airports, and terror states. Consider Turkish Airlines, a member of the Star Alliance group. A private-public partnership, the Turkish government owns almost 50% of its flagship airline, while those close to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dominate the remainder.
Erdogan, of course, has made little secret of his support for some of the world’s most radical Islamist groups. He sang the praises of the 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla to supply Hamas and, more recently, declared that he had no problem with the Taliban’s ideology. Turkey became a lifeline for the Islamic State. In 2014, a leaked telephone conversation between a top Erdogan adviser and the private secretary of Turkish Airlines’s CEO suggested that Turkey was using the airline to supply Boko Haram with weapons. Given the Erdogan regime’s close terror ties, the question for airline security is how certain can it be that the same intelligence officials who facilitated al Qaeda affiliates in Syria will uphold the standards of airport security that the TSA and international airlines demand.
Nor will the problem necessarily originate inside Turkey. Turkish Airlines is one of the only major airlines to survive in Mogadishu, Somalia, a city whose national security adviser has documented ties to militant Islamist groups. To board in Somalia on Turkish Airlines and connect through Istanbul and Europe is to trust Turkish supervisors and Somali baggage handlers to ensure all luggage is harmless. Five years ago, however, airport authorities in Mogadishu missed a laptop bomb that later detonated on a different airliner in flight.
If Mogadishu is a weak link, consider Beirut. In 2008, Hezbollah and the Lebanese armed forces squared off in Lebanon’s capital over the Lebanese government’s efforts to oust the terror group from the airport. Hezbollah won. Airport officers may dress in Lebanese uniforms, but they answer more to Hezbollah than Lebanon’s nominal government. Hezbollah not only uses the airport to acquire equipment and weaponry from Iran, but it also treats airport jobs as patronage for its members. In effect, this means that close associates of a designated terrorist group may screen and load luggage on European carriers that then transfer their cargo to American partners.
The same problem exists at Iran’s gateway Imam Khomeini International Airport south of Tehran. While initially a joint Austrian-Turkish consortium won the contract to manage operations at Iran’s flagship airport, in 2004 the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps interceded to cancel the contract so that its affiliated companies could run the airport. Put aside the fact that just two years ago, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps may purposely have shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet departing Tehran for diplomatic gain. To trust that employees of a state sponsor of terror who load baggage on Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines is foolish for both Americans and Europeans.
If U.S. and European governments truly want to ensure the safety of air travel, they may want to reconsider which poses a greater threat: an extra ounce of toothpaste or terrorists impersonating airport administrators. TSA assurances that it demands effective screening at airports with direct service to the United States only help when countries and counterparts share the same agenda.
Perhaps it is time to revisit security priorities. While some screening will always be necessary, passenger carry-ons are no longer the only or even primary threat. It is time for the Department of Homeland Security, the TSA, and the State Department to consider two broader questions. First, whether diplomatic niceties should trump the reality that some airlines and some airports are weak security links — not because of physical design but rather because of hostile intelligence services. Second, U.S. authorities must answer whether airlines serving American airports should be allowed to maintain partnerships with counterparts tied to terror-friendly regimes or servicing airports compromised by ties to terror.
Perhaps it is time for European carriers to decide: Beirut or Boston, but not both.
Michael Rubin (@mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
