May 2010 Archives

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair announced his resignation, effective May 28, amid reports that he had clashed with the White House and, particularly, the politically ultra-connected CIA director, Leon Panetta. Prominent members of Congress, including Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I/D-Conn., and two contributors to this blog, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, immediately expressed their skepticism about Blair's ouster. Some observers suggest that Blair is being held accountable -- or scapegoated -- for the intelligence community's failures in the Christmas Day and Times Square bombing attempts. Others argue he overreached his authority as DNI -- if anyone could agree what the DNI's scope is in the first place.

Like the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created as a highly visible solution to the problems of 9/11 and has struggled ever since. Whatever Blair's personal problems as DNI, the role is inherently awkward, the product of a quest to improve security by redrawing organizational charts. Blair is the third person to hold the office in the five years since it was created.

So was Blair just the wrong guy to be DNI? Whoever holds it next, does the office need new powers and another reorganization of the intelligence community? Or should there even be a DNI at all?

15 responses: Michael F. Scheuer, Ron Marks, Col. W. Patrick Lang, Michael Brenner, Gordon Adams, Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Amy Zegart, Wayne White, Paul Sullivan, Col. W. Patrick Lang, Michael Brenner, James Jay Carafano, Ron Marks, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo.

After his meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the White House on May 12, President Obama offered a cautious endorsement of Karzai's bid to reach out to so-called moderates within the Afghan Taliban camp by convening a "peace jirga," a national assembly of tribal elders, to try to achieve reconciliation between the Kabul government and rebel factions.

"The Taliban is a loose term for a wide range of different networks, groups, fighters, with different motivations," Obama said. "What we've said is that so long as there's a respect for the Afghan constitution, rule of law, human rights; so long as they are willing to renounce violence and ties to al Qaeda and other extremist networks; that President Karzai should be able to work to reintegrate those individuals into Afghan society."

"This has to be an Afghan-led effort, though," he stressed.

Should any hope be held out for the success of a jirga? Is it in the interest of Washington to give Karzai wide berth to pursue this step -- so much so that the U.S. should itself be prepared to play an active role in advancing this reconciliation process? Should Washington even be considering direct talks of its own with Taliban "moderates" -- given the Pentagon's bleak report in April to Congress finding that little progress has been made in the military campaign so far? Or is all this talk of reconciliation a chimera -- with the real task at hand a more determined U.S. military plan to crush all armed Taliban insurgents? As you consider this question, bear in mind that Obama has promised the American people that he will start to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan by July 2011, a little over a year from today.

7 responses: Joseph J. Collins, Michael Brenner, David Krieger, Michael F. Scheuer, Christopher Preble, Ron Marks, Wayne White

Links between the Pakistani Taliban and Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad raise the possibility that Islamic terrorists may be finding new ways to target the U.S. homeland. Compared to Al Qaeda's attack on 9/11, this was an unsophisticated operation -- although U.S. law enforcement still did not find the bomb until it went off (misfiring, luckily) and did not capture Shahzad until he had boarded a plane for Dubai. And unlike Al Qaeda, homegrown Pakistani groups historically have gone after targets in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, not in the U.S. So what accounts for this apparent change in tack?

"This is retaliation" by the Pakistan Taliban for an intense wave of CIA drone attacks against the group's fighters, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told the U.S. media. "They're going to fight back." But other sources report that Shahzad was inspired by Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemen-based cleric also linked to accused Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan.

So was the Times Square attack a response to specific U.S. actions against a specific target? Or is it part of a broader form of blowback -- retaliation by radicalized Muslims worldwide for the "war on terror" since 9/11? Are current U.S. counter-terrorism policies sufficient to stop relatively crude attacks like this one? And is the lesson of this plot, despite its failure, that almost any terrorist group -- or individual -- can gather the capability to hit America, which will inspire more and more dangerous strikes in the future?

8 responses: James R. Locher III, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, Joseph J. Collins, Paul R. Pillar, Wayne White, Michael Brenner, Brian Michael Jenkins, Steven Metz

According to some senior Israeli officials, Syria has passed Scud missiles to the Hezbollah group in Lebanon; if true, the source of the missiles would almost certainly be Iran. That represents a serious potential escalation in the arming of Hezbollah, giving the Islamic group the capability to strike any Israeli city. As pressure mounts on Tehran from the United States and Europe to curb its uranium enrichment, history suggests Iranian leaders will be looking for a means to change the subject and deflect the pressure. Conflict between Israel and any of its neighbors, or with terrorist proxies of Iran such as Hezbollah and Hamas, does the job nicely by inciting anti-Western outrage on the Arab street and forcing the United States to stand with Israel and against its regional Arab allies.

So, are we seeing the early signs of another looming conflict in the Middle East? What other signs should the U.S. administration be on the watch for? What impact might such a conflict have on U.S.-Arab relations, on U.S. attempts to raise pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, on U.S. interests in Iraq and Afghanistan, and on the war against Al Qaeda? Or are these reports overblown, and this is just another spike of rhetoric and empty threats?

6 responses: Michael F. Scheuer, Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Col. W. Patrick Lang, Michael Brenner, Wayne White, Paul R. Pillar