American counterterrorism strategy is too often geared to preventing the last terrorist attack. Terrorists and their sponsors are creative, however. They will not pursue a strategy against which they know the United States is well prepared to defend itself but will instead look to maintain surprise. Eleven years ago, it was using airplanes for suicide attacks. In intervening years, it has been using liquid to construct explosives in flight, or concealing bombs in underwear. Counterterror specialists already worry about the possibility that Al Qaeda doctors could surgically implant bombs in terrorists. Other specialists worry that ship-borne cargo could harbor nuclear or chemical weapons.
The United States is not preparing, however, for a new threat which is, literally, over-the-horizon. Drones have become the counterterror tool of choice for the Obama administration, with devastating effect. But the days when the United States monopolizes drones have already come to an end. China and Russia have built drones, and Pakistan is exploring the technology. Using technology provided by the Obama administration, Turkey is building its own drones and preparing to sell them without regard to U.S. national security interests. After all, Turkey’s prime minister even considers Hamas a viable partner. Iran already has constructed and put into operation a robust drone fleet, perhaps enhanced with technology derived from the U.S. drone lost over its territory. Iran is helping Venezuela build its own drones. While the nightmare scenario for the counterterror community is Iran or other states providing terror groups with unconventional weapons, the likelihood that they might provide drones is greater.
Enemies can launch drones from across America’s borders, or from cargo ships sailing just outside American territorial waters. The drones can carry payloads of increasing lethality, or can simply be deployed into the paths of civilian air traffic.
The next 9/11 could be around the corner. Let’s hope that the Obama administration or its successor will not approach the problem with eyes wide shut. Not every threat can be mitigated by removing shoes or testing colas bought in airports.
Counting on the lummoxes at the TSA to save us was never more than an operation in propaganda and population coercion practice. n n"See? We're doing something! Now listen Granny, get out of that wheelchair and spread 'em."
Hmmm…. let's see now. What do all of the most significant terror threats to the U.S. have in common? n nIRAN. n nWe seem to have no difficulty single-mindedly pursuing the Islamist terror gang Al Qaeda to the literal ends of the earth with unrestricted drone warfare and SOF raids, but when it comes to the Godfather of all Islamist terror— the nation state that has attacked the U.S. and killed thousands of U.S. military members since 1979— we do NOTHING. We take no action to bring down the regime but have spent the last 30 plus years trying to ignore them, contain them, appease them, cut deals with them… everything except get rid of them. n nHow is Iran any less of a cancer on the world than Saddam Hussein? How is it any less a threat than Al Qaeda? n nJust another thing to add to the "Bucket Of Doom."
And, as a side note, look at what we choose to do instead? We take extraordinary security measures and disrupt our economy and political life and liberties in order to try to play defense against every, imaginable attack by Islamists (except, of course, focusing on the demographic most likely to commit terror attacks in our population). Rather than trying to figure out how to defend against drone attacks or otherwise anticipate how Islamists will attack us next, wouldn't it be better to just go attack the !#$!#$! and take them out and eliminate the threat altogether?
That would have been my plan. Carve the words Infidel Bastard across the face of Tehran in letters 5 miles high and a thousand feet deep. Then photograph it from space.
There is an obvious strategy to solving the Iranian problem, but our leaders lack the will to ndo it, until a couple of our cities go up in smoke. I refer, of course, to the Sea of Glass nstrategy.