Terrorists try a twist on Bush's strategy

[ And who can say they didn't see it coming?  Bah Humbug! ]

http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=511217

Terrorists try a twist on Bush's strategy
Michael R. Gordon NYT
Saturday, March 20, 2004

WASHINGTON There was a cold and calculating logic behind the Madrid
bombings, one that is likely to be demonstrated again in the coming
months. The terrorists have turned the Bush doctrine on its head.

After the attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001,
President George W. Bush declared that any nation that harbored
terrorists would be considered just as culpable as the terrorists
themselves. Putting that doctrine into action, the United States toppled
the Taliban rulers in Afghanistan, who had given shelter to Al Qaeda
members.

Now, the militants have developed their own cruel variant. Their plan is
to attack any allies or international institutions cooperating with the
Americans in Iraq. The aim is to pick away at the coalition until it is
reduced to a few token deployments and one lonely and overstretched
superpower - one that the militants hope will grow weary of its
deployments in the Middle East.

This is both a cunning strategy and a matter of simple expediency.
Whatever relationship may have existed between the Saddam Hussein regime
and terror groups before the American-led invasion, both the United
States and its militant foes now agree on one thing: Iraq counts. The
Bush administration has argued that a democratic Iraq will be a catalyst
for positive change in the Middle East, while terrorists like Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi have cast the American intervention there as an attempt to
impose an alien set of values on Arabs and to protect Israel.

So the militants' aim is not simply to lash out but to deprive America
of the international support it needs to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 35-nation coalition that Washington has assembled to help it in Iraq
is more symbolic than real. The U.S. has some 110,000 troops there. The
rest of the coalition has contributed about 23,000 troops, with about
one-third of those coming from Britain.

That is why Madrid's contribution is important. The Spanish command a
multinational brigade in a Polish-led division and have 1,300 troops in
Iraq, which makes Spain one of the larger contributors of troops to the
American-led effort there.

The Spanish troops can be replaced numerically, but the announced
intention of the incoming Socialist government in Madrid to withdraw
them sends the wrong signal, in Washington's view, just as America is
trying to enlist the support of more nations and perhaps NATO itself.

It is possible to imagine a solution that will finesse the problem of
Spanish troops. The Socialists have said that Spain's forces in Iraq
must be put under United Nations control or be withdrawn. But what if
newly sovereign Iraqi authorities mount an appeal for foreign troops in
July? And what if a UN resolution is adopted endorsing such support? And
what if NATO agrees to a role in Iraq? Would the Spanish troops still leave?

Simon Serfaty, a specialist on Europe at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington, said that after the bombing in
Spain, there would be more agreement on the urgency of dealing with
terrorist threats. But at the same time, he noted, Spain's shift toward
the French and German camp will make American-European consultations on
foreign policy more problematic. In the meantime, Serfaty said, Europe
is likely to be tested.

"Europe, in the end, is more vulnerable," he said. "There are soft
targets all over the Continent. And in Europe, many of the places are a
piece of a nation's identity. You cannot rebuild the Place de la
Concorde in Paris. Next time, the attacks may not be just about killing
people but about undermining the soul of the state."

The New York Times
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