via Consortiumnews.com.
Europe Hopes Obama Shifts on ‘Terror’
By Don Ediger
January 26, 2009
Obama's positive rhetoric lessens terrorism
President Barack Obama can make great strides in combating al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups if he abandons George W. Bush’s heated rhetoric and unrealistic view of how terrorism is structured, says Rik Coolsaet, a top European expert on terrorism.
Obama’s image can do just as much damage to al-Qaeda’s recruitment than a brigade of infantry. The more he is seen as one who wishes to listen instead of challenge, the less hatred he will sow.
Coolsaet, director of the Security and Global Governance Department at the Royal Institute of International Relations in Brussels, said in an interview that the U.S. and Europe are already working behind the scenes on new ways to reduce terrorist threats, in part by steering away from Bush’s approach.
Terrorist activity in Iraq rose significantly under Bush.
“The comparative absence of terrorism on American soil, together with the dramatic nature of 9/11″ go a long way in explaining why some Americans have exaggerated the threat, said Coolsaet, who is a member of the European Commission’s Expert Group on Violent Radicalization. The low-profile group advises the commission on policy issues.
President Bush often employed alarmist rhetoric, such as warning of “a totalitarian Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands, stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.”
But Coolsaet said today’s terrorists are nearly always a patchwork of “self-radicalizing local groups with international contacts” but without a global command structure. “Today it’s a bottom-up structure with groups of friends, and sometimes families, who become radicalized and then search for a larger, international network,” he said.
Coolsaet said the threat of terrorism can even be exacerbated through exaggeration. Overreaction, like the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, can stimulate terrorism instead of reducing it, he said.
Today’s terrorist structure requires counter-strategies that are very different from those pursued by the Bush administration, according to Coolsaet. He said the most effective strategy for combating terrorism has these components:
–International cooperation among local and national law-enforcement agencies as well as intelligence services. The Bush administration pursued this strategy to some extent but was handicapped by its misperception of the terrorist structure. Coolsaet said the Obama administration has an opportunity to pursue cooperation much more vigorously, which would be especially important, given the bottom-up structure of most terrorist organizations.
–Forging links between local governments and communities targeted by terrorists. All too often, members of these communities harbor a shared sense of injustice, exclusion and humiliation (real or perceived). The U.S. has an advantage in this area because of its history of assimilating immigrants.
Coolsaet has outlined a smart and effective strategy. Something must be done at the local level, down where the citizens turn radical. Jobs would help. The U.S. Army saw this same need in Anbar province and began negotiations with local tribal leaders and thus started the “Anbar Awakening”.
No one can deny the success of that effort even though the negotiations the Army employed were about money. Someone from the government must be willing to go into the tribal areas and engage these local leaders in Afghanistan.
The right wing, John McCain and others, have saide that there needed to be a “surge” in Afghanistan similar to the one in Iraq without adding that the element of the surge most lauded as a success was the Anbar Awakening. This is the strategy that could be useful elsewhere.
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