Dimensions: 9'' x 6.2'' 288 pages St. Martin's Press Publication Date: January 2002 Paperback ISBN: 0312320434 Hardcover ISBN: 0-312-30644-X

January 2002
The War against the Terror Masters
By Michael A. Ledeen

This book assesses America's failure to defend itself from terrorism and outlines a plan for future success based on taking the battle to the state supporters of terrorism. The author argues that American exceptionalism that spurred the United States to its many past victories will drive America to triumph in the war on terrorism. Although always a reluctant warrior, America pursues total victory once drawn into the fight. In this war, America must topple the regimes of the terror masters to eliminate the threat of terrorism

If we look back at the long history of terrorist assaults against Americans and American targets and read the hate-filled rantings of the terrorists and the leaders of the terror states, it seems utterly incredible that our government did not realize what was under way. We really did not need sensitive intelligence to recognize the steady growth of the terrorist threat. We might not know the cave address for Osama bin Laden on a given date, but anyone who followed Middle East affairs knew that he was a true fanatic, had lots of money, and had trained numerous followers quite prepared to die for their mission--which was to kill as many Americans as they could. That knowledge should have driven us to act, and the decision to act would have driven the intelligence people to do their jobs. But there was no such policy commitment from our leaders and, without a mission, the intelligence community was doomed to failure.

The primary failure was thus political, a lack of will to fight a real war against the terror masters. Without a policy commitment, the spies and the analysts took it easy, thereby closing the vicious circle. There was no policy to drive the intelligence, and the intelligence was insufficient to drive policy.

Other causes were lodged deep in our national psyche. Like few before us, we Americans have only a very limited interest in the world outside our shores. We tend to our own affairs, and we have done it so successfully that we are the first people in history to believe peace is the normal condition of mankind. That is one of the two major reasons why we are never ready for the next war. Every time a war ends, we demobilize, believing war itself has been defeated. September 11 revealed that we had once again let down our guard, despite years of terrorist attacks against Americans within and beyond our borders. We just ignored the terrorists and concentrated on the abundant good news.

The other reason we are never ready for war is our radical egalitarianism and our belief in the perfectibility of man. We think all people are fundamentally the same, and, having turned the study of history into a sanitized hymn to the wonders of multiculturalism, we are reluctant to accept Machiavelli's dictum that "man is more inclined to do evil than to do good." Throughout this generation of political correctness, it has been singularly bad form for anyone in America to suggest that there are some truly evil people, and even some thoroughly evil regimes, whose hatred of us is so intractable that "live and let live" will not do. It has to be "kill or be killed."

So we are vulnerable. The other guy always gets the first shot. But he had better get us with that bullet, because we have an amazing capacity to draw together and to postpone our craving for personal success and private satisfaction until the common good has been safeguarded and advanced. Just ask the Germans or the Japanese or the Soviets, or Mullah Omar and the other fallen leaders of the ruined Taliban, all of whom grossly underestimated our enormous capacity to rapidly unite to accomplish a national mission.

Few of us, before September 11, imagined that the American people would react with such vigor, such coherent rage, such determination to destroy the evildoers. Until then, many of us believed, feared, or suspected that our will had been sapped, that our great wealth had made us thoroughly self-indulgent and indolent, and that we might well fail such a test.

The Nature of War

The conventional mantra that the war on terrorism will be a new kind of war, unlike those we have fought in the past, is right about some of the details--we have several opponents, not one, and we will have to fight at home as well as abroad--but it mistakes the pieces for the whole. Our enemies are the terror masters--the rulers of the countries that sponsor terrorism, and the leaders of the terrorist organizations. We must therefore destroy the terrorist organizations and bring down the terror regimes.

This is a very old kind of war, and as luck would have it, it perfectly suits our national character and our unique military and political genius. This is a revolutionary war, reminiscent of the eighteenth century, the very kind of war that gave us our national identity. While we will have to act quickly and urgently against secret terrorist organizations and kamikaze fighters, our ultimate targets are tyrannical regimes, and our most devastating weapons are the peoples they oppress. We will require different strategies in each case. We will need one method and set of tools to bring down Saddam Hussein, and a very different approach to end the religious tyranny in Iran. But the mission is the same in each case: Bring down the terror masters.

There are those who say we are fighting a shadowy, elusive enemy, but they are wrong. None of the terrorist organizations could flourish without state support. Once the terrorists are deprived of safe havens, training camps, sources of travel documents, the use of diplomatic pouches, and really secure communications, they will be easier to eliminate.

This kind of war comes naturally to us; we are an awesome revolutionary force. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture and cinema, to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence--our existence, not our policies--threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission.

Behind all the anti-American venom from the secular radicals in Baghdad, the religious fanatics in Tehran, the minority regime in Damascus, and the multicultural kleptomaniacs in the Palestinian Authority is the knowledge that they are hated by their own people. Their power rests on terror, recently directed against us, but always, first and foremost, against their own citizens. Given the chance to express themselves freely, the Iraqi, Iranian, Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian people would oust their current oppressors. Properly waged, our revolutionary war will give them a chance. You need only listen to the screams of the Middle Eastern tyrants to prove to yourself that they fully understand the import of the struggle. When the Iranian terrorist leader Rafsanjani announces to the entire Islamic world that President George W. Bush has "the brain of a sparrow inside the body of a dinosaur,"--as he did in late February 2002--you know he is scared.

We will succeed, for we excel at destroying tyrannies. The great democratic revolution of the last quarter of the eighteenth century bears an American trademark, and the entire twentieth century shows the awesome power of our revolutionary energies. Again and again we were dragged into war: by the Kaiser into World War I, by Tojo and Hitler into World War II, by Stalin into the Cold War, by Saddam Hussein into the Gulf War, and by Osama bin Laden into the war against terrorism. Each time our enemies chose the time, place, and circumstances under which the war began. They had all the advantages, and we have tossed them all (except al Qaeda, which will soon be tossed) onto history's trash heap of failed lies. We wage total war because we fight in the name of an idea, and ideas either triumph or fail . . . totally. Ask Mikhail Gorbachev.

Lessons from Machiavelli

As we wage this war, we should constantly remind ourselves of the basic rules of political and military conflict, as laid down five hundred years ago by Machiavelli. They are as true today as they were at the beginning of the modern era:

1. Man is more inclined to do evil than to do good.

Do not fall for the fashionable line that all people are the same. They are not. Societies with a majority of good people are rare, and are constantly threatened by the evil-minded world outside. Peace is NOT the normal condition of mankind, and moments of peace are invariably the result of war.

Since we want peace, we must win the war. Since our enemies are inclined to do evil, we must win decisively and then impose virtue on their survivors, so that they cannot inflict further evil upon us.

2. The only important thing is winning or losing.

Do not worry about how the world will judge our strategy. Just worry about winning. Machiavelli tells us that if you win, everyone will judge your methods to have been appropriate. If you lose, they will despise you.

3. If you have to do unpleasant things, it is best to do them all at once, rather than to do a long series of little ones.

Strike decisively, get it over with. Don't listen to the diplomats, who will always say that we can achieve our goals with a little bit of nastiness and a whole lot of talking.

4. It is better to be more feared than loved.

We can lead by the force of high moral example. It has been done. But it is risky because people are fickle, and they will abandon us at the first sign of failure. Fear is much more reliable, and lasts longer. Once we show that we are capable of dealing out terrible punishment to our enemies, our power will be far greater.

5. The world is in constant flux.

Therefore, we must never relax, never believe that we have a winning strategy. Things can change in a millisecond, and we must constantly watch for changing circumstances, and be ready to adapt to the new conditions.

6. Luck can wreck the finest plans.

Machiavelli played cards whenever he had the chance, and he knew that a bad run can defeat the finest player. Machiavelli ruefully admitted that the best one can hope for is to have good luck about half the time. But that should be enough for us because we are a hell of a lot stronger than our enemies.

America's military capacity and history of martial success foretell a victory in this war. Just as in previous conflicts, this one requires determination for total victory and elimination of the terror masters.