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From: "Julie Shaw" <jshaw@ceip.org>
Subject: New Carnegie policy brief Date: Wed, 17 Oct
POLICY BRIEF DRAWS LESSONS FROM COLD WAR TO FIGHT WAR AGAINST TERRORISM
To wage a successful war against terrorism, U.S. policy makers need to learn from genuine area specialists, gain the full support of authorities and ordinary people in Muslim states, encourage an ideological struggle against radical Islamism, and change its policy on Israel, writes Anatol Lieven, senior associate, in the Carnegie Policy Brief No. 7, "Fighting Terrorism: Lessons from the Cold War." Read the policy brief at: http://www.ceip.org/files/publications/policybrief7.asp
Like the Cold War, the war against terrorism will be a very long struggle in which ideological, political, and socioeconomic campaigns will be as important as the military struggle. The first lesson of the Cold War, Lieven writes, is to "know thine enemy." The dangers in the current war "are made worse by a mixture of ignorance, ingrained prejudice, and an ideologically rigid categorization of 'the enemy'".
Another key lesson from the Cold War is the need to engage the support of authorities and ordinary people in Muslim states, most of all in the fields of intelligence and policing. Strengthening such forces with U.S. aid and encouragement for socioeconomic reforms is usually more important than military action. The deployment and use of U.S. forces, when necessary, should be kept to a minimum and civilian casualties should be avoided as much as possible for fear of eroding support in the Muslim world. Lieven describes a strategy to seek an opening to Iran, like President Nixon's opening to China, to profit from the country's deep hatred for the Taliban and Iraq.
The third lesson is the need for an ideological struggle against radical Islamism and a change of policy in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Radical elements can only be defeated by Arabs and Muslims themselves. This will require real social, economic, and democratic progress in leading Muslim states to show Muslims an avenue of success that can be presented as legitimately Arab or Muslim. Also necessary, Lieven writes, is Israel's surrender of the territorial gains it has made at the expense of Arabs since 1967. "Without such a change in policy, it will never be possible to rally most of the Arab world for a sincere and full-blooded struggle against terrorism and the states that support it."
Anatol Lieven is a senior associate in the Carnegie Endowment's Russian and Eurasian Program. A British journalist, he covered the Afghan civil wars as a correspondent in Pakistan for the Times of London in the late 1980s. From 1990 to 1996 he served with the Times in the former Soviet Union.
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