Seven years after 9/11, there’s no consensus about where we stand. Is it the case, as many have argued, that America’s actions since the attacks of that day—and especially our policy in Iraq—have greatly strengthened al-Qaeda? Or is the trend, as others maintain, in the opposite direction, with al-Qaeda and its allies weaker? Is the appeal of violent strains of Islam growing in the Muslim world, or not? Is the ongoing struggle against radical Islamist movements going to be the defining conflict of the 21st century, as a number of observers have repeatedly insisted, or is that forecast grossly exaggerated, as others pronounce with equal conviction? Is the notion of a “war on terror” coherent? Is the danger of eroding our freedoms in a quest for security actually greater than that posed by any external threat? And so on.
More striking than the lack of consensus is the tone of the conversation, on all sides. Whence cometh all this righteous certainty? And why the reflexive contempt for anyone who disagrees? Are the facts on the ground really so transparent? With this issue we begin an occasional series, “What’s Next?”, exploring such questions.
In Terror and Consent: The Wars For The Twenty-First Century, Philip Bobbitt offers a penetrating, sober, and wide-ranging meditation on the issues raised by the proliferation of terrorism. Bobbitt examines developments in the global economy and international law that he sees as even more fundamental than the appeal and durability of radical Islam. While he relates these matters to terrorism’s chief practitioner, al-Qaeda, he shows how they may continue to apply even if radical Islam subsides.
Consider the organizational structure of Wal-Mart. Backed by international finance, Wal-Mart’s executives coordinate a transnational supply line facilitated by electronic communications and international shipping. Development and production are outsourced to vendors around the globe, who rely on equally dispersed commodities markets. At the consumer end, Wal-Mart’s products are delivered through indigenous staffing, with an eye to local circumstances. Personal contact in this far-flung enterprise remains vital only in two areas: management and training. All other contacts can be handled through intermediaries or virtually, as when Shenzhen store workers watch a DVD of Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott in Bentonville.
Al-Qaeda’s organizational structure is much the same. The global market economy both creates and empowers those who hate its liberalizing effects. In the same way that Wal-Mart can deliver Malaysian flip-flops to customers in St. Louis, al-Qaeda may soon be able to deliver a weaponized Ebola virus to your home town. A global commodities market is springing up in weapons of mass destruction, and just as firearms and explosives escaped strict governmental controls, so weapons of mass destruction are following suit.
Many nations want to possess weapons of mass destruction in order to deter intervention in their internal affairs. The threat of their use could also come in handy in lateral conflicts among states, dissuading the American superpower and its European friends from acting on behalf of regional allies. Our inaction in North Korea suggests the effectiveness of WMD as a deterrent. The growing threat of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is a compelling argument for taking a less aggressive posture toward Hezbollah in Lebanon. Our actions are already being shaped by the presence or the potential presence of wmd—however unsophisticated—in our opponents’ hands.
Bobbitt illustrates these developments by tracing the Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan’s partially successful attempt to franchise nuclear technology. Yes, the development of nuclear weapons is far more difficult than radiological and biological weapons, but is it reasonable to suppose that entrepreneurs in these forms of WMD can be stopped forever?
If it’s clear enough why the mere threat of WMD can be effective, what about the actual employment of such weapons? Some observers argue, for example, that even if Iran were to develop a significant capacity to deliver nuclear weapons, it is extremely unlikely that the Iranian government would actually use them, given a rational calculation of the likely consequences.
Bobbitt approaches this question by standing back from the specifics of this or that ideological conflict to consider what might be called the deep logic of terror. Terror gives its practitioners a free hand while denying liberty to its victims, because terror so powerfully undermines the human will. This is true both internally in terms of governing a population and externally in controlling one’s adversaries. Terror is therefore the ultimate weapon against states whose legitimacy lies in consent. Take away the free exercise of the will, and states of consent are quickly re-created in the image of those terrorizing them.
In the case of al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists, Bobbitt freely acknowledges that they cannot conquer our territory through force of arms. What Islamic extremism may be able to do, however, is compromise the free world to such a degree that the Islamists could set up states of terror—such as Afghanistan under the Taliban—across the Arab world.
What would happen in the United States if al-Qaeda were able to launch a series of spectacular attacks—attacks that made 9/11 pale by comparison? What if all transactions in the major financial markets were wiped out one day by cyber-attack, a radiological bomb was exploded in a midwestern city the next day, and the following week a genetically engineered flu epidemic started spreading through the West? Would anyone care what the police did as long as public safety was restored? Further, would we have any interest in intervening on behalf of our allies elsewhere? Might we not be inclined to hoist up the drawbridge and create Fortress America?
Bobbitt is not raising this horrific specter in order to dismiss current concerns about civil liberties and how the war against terror has already affected them. He’s asking us to face the increasing threat of global terror in order to harden our consensual institutions and the international rule of law against an unprecedented threat. We need to do this before such attacks come—while we can still reason together—in order for our states of consent to survive as such.
To this end, Bobbitt examines the strategies employed to date in the war against terror, discusses possible revisions of domestic and international law to ensure their healthy functioning, and counsels the wisdom of international alliances and how they might be best maintained and furthered. His examination of the Bush Doctrine draws together many of his concerns and provides a thumbnail of his prescriptions.
The Bush Doctrine asserts that America has a right to defend itself against terrorist attack through preemptive wars against states that harbor terrorists. It also attempts to draw a clear line between anti-terror states and those who in any way abet them, threatening sanctions or worse against fellow-travelers. The Bush Doctrine also goes on the offensive by committing America to the promotion of democracy—meaning free elections—in every nation.
Bobbitt points out, as many have, that the defensive and offensive measures of this doctrine often conflict. The Nazi party seized power in Germany through a free election, just as Islamic radicals surely would in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East. Free elections brought Hamas to power in the Palestinian territory, and after the all-too-brief “Lebanon spring,” Hezbollah has rapidly gained ground.
The whole basis of America’s and indeed the West’s reasoning about international relations, Bobbitt argues, should shift from the promotion of democracy to the protection and advancement of human rights. Societies that protect human rights are always societies of consent, whether they are constitutional monarchies or parliamentary democracies, because they safeguard the individual’s will through the rule of law:
[T]he key concept we must carefully define is not democracy per se but the inalienable rights the protection of which is the purpose of government. Respect for these rights assures a state of inviolable sovereignty, and that sovereignty is a fortiori a limited one. It is limited sovereignty, not simply majority voting, that creates states of consent. Therefore one of our most urgent tasks is to develop legal standards, in constitutional law and in international law, that help us determine what is comprised by the idea of inalienable human rights. When this limited sovereignty is forfeited by acts of a state—against its own citizens, or its neighbors, or against the system of world order that underpins the recognition of sovereignty itself—then the state can be subject to sanction by the international community and attack by the domestic polity.
Bobbitt urges that all states of consent, starting with the United States, the United Kingdom, and the NATO alliance, join together in protecting the civilization of inalienable human rights in which they share. He sees the “multi-polarity” advocated by some among the French as a bad idea, as it threatens to pit nations against one another who fundamentally agree about human rights, in a world where this agreement is precious and threatened.
He further argues that the combination of vital interests and the protection of human rights would provide a surer guide for international intervention in a nation’s affairs. For example, since the acquisition of WMD by Iran threatens the ability of Israel to remain a state of consent, other states of consent could well intervene in Iranian affairs. By this same standard, the international community could intervene in Sudan, because genocide practiced by a government against its own people is a delegitimizing offense against human rights.
As to the shooting-issue of Iraq, Bobbitt believes that a war of “preclusion” against Saddam Hussein was justified both on the grounds of his human rights abuses and the threat he posed to channel WMD to surrogates. But once the United States and the United Kingdom occupied Iraq, we had the gravest responsibility to protect human rights, as this was the basis of the war’s legitimacy. Instead, we did not see securing the peace as part of fighting the war and allowed Iraq to become once again a terror state. We ourselves, if unwittingly, became a party to that terror. Bobbitt also faults other states of consent—particularly the NATO allies—for not coming to the defense of Iraqis’ human rights.
Bobbitt’s analysis is far more impressive and far-reaching than I’ve been able to indicate here. He doesn’t take on straw men; he tackles the best arguments of those who continue to see terrorism as a policing matter. He’s not indulging in prophecies of destruction; he’s trying to think through how we remain free in an increasingly dangerous world.
At the heart of this complex and wide-ranging argument is a single word, “inalienable,” describing human rights. The word reflects that part of the Western tradition that sees human rights as God-given or as deriving from the inherent dignity of the human person. But does this traditional understanding genuinely inform the world’s states of consent today? And if it does not, how can such states, following Bobbitt’s prescription, find sufficient common ground to confront terrorism? We not only need to “develop legal standards … that help us determine what is comprised by the idea of inalienable human rights”; we need to come to an even more fundamental agreement about the nature of those rights—one that remains convicting in the face of terror.
Harold Fickett—with Charles Colson—is the author most recently of The Faith: What Christians Believe, Why They Believe It, and Why It Matters (Zondervan).
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