Are we safer now than we were on Sept. 10, 2001? On the eve of the most devastating terrorist attack on the United States we weren’t safe at all, but we thought we were. The same remains true today. It took almost 10 years to get Osama bin Laden, but we did. Does that mean that al Qaeda and its terrorist ilk are no longer a threat?
We’ve spend thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, although Saddam Hussein is dead and the Taliban driven from Kabul, does that mean neither nation will again become a base for terrorism?
Our special operations forces have captured or killed terrorists and terrorist leaders in many corners of the world, from Pakistan to the Philippines to Africa, and in many other places still undisclosed. Does that mean terrorism is no longer a threat?
The answer to those questions is a resounding “no. Why? Because, though we have made very few mistakes since 9-11, those we’ve made were on the two most important decisions we’ve had to make since the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center toppled to the ground.
First, both President Bush and President Obama have refused to confront the reality of the war we are in, and to deal with it in a manner, which could have brought about a decisive victory.
Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and the Taliban, to name just a few, are defined not by the rhetoric or strategies they share, but by the ideology that propels them and by the nations that, by their sponsorship, elevate the terrorists from mere murderers to an existential threat.
As I wrote in the Washington Times on Sept. 12, 2001, nations that sponsor or harbor terrorist are our real enemies, and we must treat them accordingly. But, in the decade since 9-11, we have not done so.
Instead of defining our enemy correctly, Bush and Obama contented themselves with fighting the proxies — al Qaeda, the Sunni insurgents in Iraq, and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan — instead of taking on the real enemy.
As a result the nations that sponsor terrorism — Iran, Syria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia principal among them — are neither defeated, nor deterred. We have dealt massive setbacks to their proxies, but those forces will be regenerated and enabled to carry on the war against us.
We couldn’t have defeated Soviet communism without having first shown the world that the ideology of that evil empire was corrupt and in every sense inferior to ours, embodied in the freedoms preserved by our Constitution.
We are not safer today than we were on 9-10-2001 because we have not confronted the ideology that propels nations such as Iran to sponsor terrorism against us. Bush went to great lengths to promote the idea that Islam is a “religion of peace.”
Obama has gone even further, ordering that the terms “Islam” and “jihad” be expunged from our national security planning documents.
What neither president had the courage to say is that Islam is both a religion and an ideology. Its law and religious proscriptions are inseparable as they comprise an integrated system of beliefs on which a government is intended to be based.
Unless and until we have defeated the enemies’ ideology, we cannot end the threat that Islamic terrorism poses to our future and the future of our children. And, yes, we can defeat Islamic ideology without warring against the religion of Islam.
We feel safer today because we are in an intermission in the war. We have dealt major blows to al Qaeda and the Taliban, our anti-terrorism efforts at home have provided some small level of deterrence to attack.
The Department of Homeland Security is our Maginot Line against terrorist attack. For all its molestation of air travelers, TSA has yet to stop a single terrorist attack. Luck, and lack of skill on the part of terrorists, have saved us, not TSA.
The other major mistake we made — attempting nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan — allowed the enemy to control the pace and direction of the war.
Though we have sacrificed thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars, nation building has accomplished nothing that will last.
Whether it happens in weeks or months or even one or two years, the path of Iraq and Afghanistan will lead them inexorably back into the hands of the terror sponsors, to resume their roles as spawning grounds for al Qaeda and others.
Iraq will soon be a satellite state of Iran, the principal terror sponsor on Earth. Afghanistan, to the extent it exists as a nation, will be dominated by Pakistan or Iran, or both.
The Republican presidential race has not yet focused on the issues of the war being waged against us by the terror-sponsoring nations, but it must. Bush and Obama kicked the can down the road. Obama’s successor — in 2013 or 2017 — will find it too big and too heavy to do that again.
Who among the contenders will say what must be said and set out a plan for what must be done? Let us pray they do it soon.
Jed Babbin is a former deputy undersecretary of defense during the administration of President George H.W. Bush and the author of several best-selling books, including “In the Words of Our Enemies.”
