Security Policy

There is something unique about what has come to be called the War on Terror. In this conflict, as the U.S. government struggles to defeat the enemy and keep our people safe, it is up against not only those who overtly and unambiguously seek to destroy us. It also confronts those who are prepared to reveal classified information and programs, even when doing so makes it harder to vanquish our foes and protect this country.

The latter fall into four principal categories:

O Some call themselves “journalists” who work for traditional news organizations, notably the New York Times. On occasion, they win Pulitzer Prizes for compromising the Nation’s secrets.

O Some are members of what has come to be called the “new media” or “alternative media.” Most traditional journalists detest the idea that their trade is being practiced by people who find in outlets like on-line publications, the Blogosphere, YouTube and FaceBook vehicles to disseminate information worldwide and instantaneously. But the reach of the world-wide web is, well, world-wide and so is the impact of its “journalists.”

O Among those making use of these “New Age” tools are some who use the guise of journalism as a cover for our enemy’s disinformation and propaganda. In fact, some of the most capable users of the Internet routinely engage in information warfare on behalf of Islamofascist terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and their state-sponsors.

O Then there are the individuals who hold positions of trust in the federal government itself. They have been given access to secret data and capabilities on the promise not to reveal such knowledge without authorization. Yet, some choose to violate their oaths in the furtherance of divergent policy agendas. Of course, folks in this category are not journalists. They are called “sources.”

It is imperative to consider these four categories as the U.S. Senate prepares to consider legislation with the unobjectionable-sounding name of the “Free Flow of Information Act (FFIA) of 2007.” The bill, S. 2035, is better known as the “media shield” law. It would be more accurate to call it the “Leaker and Other Enemies Shield Act.”

Freedom of the press is, of course, one of the bedrock principles upon which this nation was founded. And those who dare criticize the media and its efforts to expand privileges it enjoys under the rubric of press freedoms – notably, officials responsible for prosecuting journalists’ “confidential government sources” for the illegally revelation of classified information – generally are subjected to very bad notices.

Still, it is a terrible idea – particularly in time of war – to be providing “media shields” to anyone who can claim to be a journalist and to their law-breaking sources in government. Yet, that is precisely what S.2035 would do.

The FFIA creates a highly problematic journalist’s privilege. It would effectively prevent the federal government from compelling anyone “engaging in journalism” to give testimony or produce any document revealing that journalist’s source, if the source gave the information under cover of confidentiality.

Were S.2035 to become law, investigators and prosecutors charged with bringing to justice sources who have engaged in criminal leaks would have to prove all of the following to the satisfaction of a federal judge: (1) The government has first exhausted all other avenues besides the journalist to obtain a source’s identity; (2) there are reasonable grounds to believe that a crime has taken place; (3) the source’s identity is “essential” to the investigation; (4) the information that was disclosed was “properly classified” to begin with; (5) the person who leaked the information had authorized access to it; (6) the source’s unauthorized disclosure “has caused or will cause significant, clear, and articulable harm to the national security; and (7) non-disclosure of the source’s identity would be contrary to the public interest when weighed against the other public interest in “gathering news and maintaining the free flow of information.”

As a practical matter, as an array of Cabinet and subcabinet officers responsible for keeping us safe and enforcing the law have warned the Senate, no source is going to be held accountable under this law. For example, Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell advised the Senate’s leadership they would be hobbled by myriad Catch-22s inherent in the FFIA.

Consider two of these cited by the AG and DNI: How can a prosecutor show that a person who leaked information had authorized access to it (Requirement 5), without first knowing the identity of the source? How can a prosecutor show that a leak “has caused or will cause significant, clear, and articulable harm to the national security” (Requirement 6), without first having to offer evidence to a judge that will reveal even more classified information?

By assuring “journalists” – the bill’s definition is broad enough to cover all of the first three categories described above – they need not fear having to divulge the source of a leak, sources will feel even less compunction than they do today to break their promises and leak with impunity.

In short, the Free Flow of Information Act is not about freedom of the press. It is about freeing government officials of their legal responsibilities and enabling those who would do us all harm – whether intentionally or in the name of “the people’s right to know.” The President’s senior advisors have rightly indicated that they will recommend his veto should this bill make it to his desk. Senators should ensure that the Leakers and Other Enemies Protection Act never gets there.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for the Washington Times. Ben Lerner, the Center’s Senior Research Associate contributed to this column.

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In response to questions about the Iranian nuclear threat, Democratic Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has recently adopted a dramatic stance. She has taken to talking about how, if she were President, she would “totally obliterate” Iran if it attacks our friends in the region with nuclear weapons.

When asked during her most recent debate with Barak Obama in Philadelphia whether an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel would result in an American nuclear attack on Iran, Senator Clinton responded: “Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States.”

Senator Clinton subsequently went even further. During an interview last week with “Good Morning America,” she declared: “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran….In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

The former First Lady has even offered explicitly to extend the protection of America’s nuclear umbrella to new parts of the world. In the Philadelphia debate, she said: “We should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel….I would do the same with other countries in the region….You can’t go to the Saudis or the Kuwaitis or U.A.E. and others who have a legitimate concern about Iran and say, ‘Well, don’t acquire these weapons to defend yourself’ unless you’re also willing to say we will provide a deterrent backup.”

We can only speculate as to the motivation for these pronouncements. Do they reflect a genuine concern that Tehran will shortly be able to act on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s oft-stated threat to wipe Israel off the map? Are they little more than cynical posturing, animated by the perceived need to demonstrate toughness as a prospective Commander-in-Chief?

Or is Mrs. Clinton staking out a basis for opposing any effort the Bush Administration might make in its last days in office to prevent the Iranian regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon? Is she espousing deterrence in the belief that that a nuclear-armed mullahocracy can be contained via the sort of “balance of terror” that operated during much of the Cold War?

Whatever the rationale, the Senator from New York has helpfully elevated a topic that should be featured prominently in the presidential election now approaching its end-game: Does the United States need a credible nuclear deterrent – for its own security and/or that of its friends and allies? If so, are the candidates espousing policies that will ensure we have such a deterrent?

Certainly, Hillary’s recent statements suggest a conviction that we must have – at least for “the next ten years” – a deterrent that is credible in order to protect ourselves and our allies from the nuclear ambitions of terror-sponsoring states like Iran. Presumably, she would agree that any such deterrent has to be safe, reliable and effective if it is to be able to dissuade successfully.

Yet, Sen. Clinton has long espoused policies with respect to our nuclear arsenal that are undermining our deterrent and rendering ever-more-incredible threats such as those she is now making.

In fairness, Hillary is not alone in her incoherence on nuclear weapons. Her husband’s administration deliberately pursued what Bill Clinton called “denucleari­zation.” At the time, the House Armed Services Committee characterized the Clinton program as “erosion by design” of our deterrent and the infrastructure required to assure its reliability, safety and effectiveness.

Concerns about the Clinton policies prompted a majority of the U.S. Senate to reject their cornerstone: the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). This unverifiable treaty would have made it impossible for the United States to perform the sorts of underground nuclear tests that assure its weapons work when they are supposed to, and don’t when they are not.

Not content with perpetuating a seventeen-year-long, unilateral U.S. moratorium on testing – which has given rise to growing uncertainty on both of these scores, Senator Clinton announced in Foreign Affairs last winter that she “will seek Senate approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) by 2009, the tenth anniversary of the Senate’s initial rejection of the agreement.”

Mrs. Clinton has also staked out other positions dear to the denuclearizers. She told a March 2007 meeting of the National Education Association of New Hampshire: “I will certainly reduce our [nuclear] arsenal….I also am strongly against [the Bush administration’s] efforts to have a new generation of nuclear weapons….I voted against them several times, they want to create these new nuclear weapons, they want to modernize the existing weapons, they want to have a new nuclear weapons program in America, and I think that’s a terrible mistake.”

Sen. Clinton’s record in the Senate bears out these sentiments. For example, she has voted for a ban on low-yield nuclear weapons research and development and against R&D on a nuclear earth-penetrator (“bunker-buster”).

Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama and John McCain – and, for that matter, every other candidate for federal office – must address forthrightly their views on the need for U.S. nuclear deterrence. It is no longer acceptable to simply talk the talk. They must walk the walk, by espousing policies and activities that assure the future of our nuclear arsenal and the infrastructure that makes possible its safety, reliability and effectiveness, and therefore its credibility.

Frank J. Gaffney is President of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for the Washington Times. Ben Lerner, the Center’s Senior Research Associate, contributed to this column.

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By Caroline Glick Guest Writer
CSP Fellow

Speaking in February of the man she knows better than anyone else does, Michelle Obama said that her husband, Illinois Senator and candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination Barack Obama, is the only candidate for president who understands that before America can solve its problems, Americans have to fix their “broken souls.”

She also said that her husband’s unique understanding of the state of souls of the American people makes him uniquely qualified to be President. Obama can do what his opponent in the Democratic race Senator Hillary Clinton, and Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, cannot do. He can heal his countrymen’s broken souls. He will redeem them.

But then, saving souls is hard work, and Mrs. Obama won’t place the whole burden on her husband. He’ll make the Americans work for him. As she put it, “Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zone. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.”

At base, Mrs. Obama’s statement is nothing less than a renunciation of democracy and an embrace of fascism. The basic idea of liberty is that people have a natural right to live their lives as usual and to be uninvolved and uninformed. And they certainly have a right to expect that their government will butt out of their souls.

IN CONTRAST, fascist societies, as Jonah Goldberg notes in the latest issue of National Review, are all about the notions of “unity” and “change” and melding our broken souls into a fixed, united will for change that Obama has made the core theme of his campaign. Goldberg compared “unity” with “patriotism,” and explained that while the latter connotes the willingness to defend the moral values of a society, unity is bereft of any moral content. “The only value of unity is strength, strength in numbers - and… that is a fascist value. That’s the symbolism of the fasces, the bundle of sticks that in combination are invincible.”

Many commentators have argued that Jews in both Israel and the US have a specific reason to fear an Obama presidency. Much attention has been paid to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the anti-Semitic, black supremacist preacher who has served as Obama’s spiritual guide for the past 20 years. Then too, there are Obama’s foreign policy advisors who range from the viscerally hostile towards Israel (Zbigniew Brzezinski, Robert Malley, Samantha Power, Merrill Tony McPeak) to the messianically hostile towards Israel (Dan Kurtzer). Obama’s close associations with Palestinian and pan-Arab champions and jihad apologists like the late Edward Said and Prof. Rashid Khalidi, and his stated intention to have open negotiations with Iran about the mullocracy’s nuclear weapons program, his monetary ties to anti-Israel donors like George Soros and to anti-Israel organizations like Moveon.org are similarly pointed to as reasons for concern.

But the fact is that for all his associations with Israel-bashers, Obama’s stated positions on the Palestinian and Arab conflict with Israel are all but indistinguishable from those of his opponent Senator Hillary Clinton. Both Democratic candidates assert that the Palestinian conflict with Israel is the root of the pathologies of the Arab world. Like President George W. Bush, both embrace the Fatah terror group as a legitimate organization and acceptable repository of Palestinian sovereignty. Both have hinted that they may be willing to open negotiations with Hamas. Both argue that the establishment of a Palestinian state will be a key foreign policy objective of their administrations.

While Sen. Clinton rejects Obama’s desire to openly appease the Iran’s mullahs, her announced strategy for contending with the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran would not necessarily be more effective than Obama’s plan to appease the ayatollahs. Last week, Clinton explained that she believes that the US’s position on Iran should be based on a credible threat of “massive retaliation” in the event that the mullocracy develops and uses nuclear weapons.

THERE ARE two reasons that a deterrence model will be as ineffective in curbing Iranian aggression as Obama’s appeasement model. First, as last week’s 25th anniversary of the Iranian-sponsored bombing of the US embassy in Beirut recalled, Iran has been attacking the US and its allies both directly and through proxies since 1979. To date, not only has the US failed to deter such attacks, it has never made Iran pay a price for them. With this abysmal track record against a non-nuclear Iran, it is hard to see how the US can threaten a nuclear-armed Iran with sufficient credibility to make a deterrence-based strategy successful.

The second reason that basing US policy towards Iran on a deterrence model will likely fail is because Iran’s leadership has made clear that is not necessarily concerned about the survivability of Iran. From Ayatollah Khomeini to Ayatollah Khamenei to Ali Rafsanjani to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s leadership has made clear that they are not Iranian patriots but global Islamic revolutionaries. Given their millenarian, apocalyptic view of their country’s purpose in world affairs, there is good reason to believe that a strategy based on some form of mutually assured destruction would have only marginal impact on Iran’s decision-makers.

So from a foreign policy perspective, there is little to distinguish Sen. Clinton from Sen. Obama. Indeed, there is little that distinguishes the two candidates from a domestic policy perspective. But that gets us back to the messianic business.

OPPONENTS OF Clinton claim that she is a soulless woman who will do whatever is necessary to have power, because she likes power and wants it. But if this is true it is hard to see why a power-hungry president is worse than a president who believes that he is the people’s redeemer. It is hard to see why a leader who wants power because she likes power is less reasonable than a president who thinks he has a right to demand that the American people follow his lead and fix their souls in the name of unity. In the former case, opposition to the leader is a policy dispute. In the latter case, it is apostasy.

When someone wants power for power’s sake, that person tends to be fairly pragmatic. In his first term of office, when former president Bill Clinton - another consummate pragmatist who liked having power - understood his wife’s healthcare plan was about to be defeated overwhelmingly by Congress, he shelved the plan and cut his losses.

A messianic wouldn’t do that. When a messianic leader is faced with failure, his tendency is to castigate the people, or his political opposition, or the media as evil and to continue on unmoved and bring his country down with him. President Woodrow Wilson’s unpopular and unsuccessful championing of US membership in the League of Nations and former president Jimmy Carter’s wooing of American enemies in the name of peace are examples of what happens when messianic redeemer types are confronted with reality.

So with this distinction between the two senators in mind, the question is, how will a President Hillary Clinton or a President Barack Obama respond after being shown that appeasement of the Palestinians has once again failed and that appeasement or deterrence of the Iranian regime has also failed once again? Given their distinct emotional makeup, it can be assumed that Obama will argue that reality is wrong and continue on - Carter-like - into the abyss and drag his country and Israel down with him. Acting in a Clinton-like way, Clinton on the other hand, would be more likely to pick a fight with Serbia - or call for a federal ban on chewing tobacco in a bid to change the subject.

What is most interesting about the danger that Obama constitutes for Israel is how un-unique it is. It is no different than the danger the prospect his presidency constitutes for America. The reason that pseudo-realist Israel bashers and messianic peace mongering Israel bashers support Obama is because they naturally gravitate towards a man on a mission to save the free world from itself.

An empowered, free citizenry will question the realism behind their decision to pretend that the global jihad is the figment of the Jewish lobby’s imagination. A cowed, on its way to being redeemed by Obama’s cult of personality citizenry will be in no position to argue with them.

The same is as true of domestic issues as it is of foreign policy. When the Obama/Clinton tax hikes and economic protectionism exacerbate the current US recession, under an Obama presidency, rather than debating the merits of the administration’s failed economic policies, the American people will be told that they need to have more “discussions” about race to remind them how mean they are and how much they are in need of President Obama’s spiritual healing. If they are again attacked by jihadists, they will be lectured by Rev. Wright’s longtime follower, their president, about how black enslavement, his white grandmother, Israel, anti-abortion senators and their own “cynicism” played a role in convincing the jihadists to kill innocents.

US Jews have always had a weakness for messianic leaders and movements. Sometimes, as in the case of the civil rights movement, that tendency towards utopianism has had good results. More often it has not. In the current presidential race, American Jews, like all their fellow Americans, would be wise to consider if they are truly ready to accept Obama as their savior.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Jimmy Carter’s pathetic need for political rehabilitation following a presidency widely regarded as one of the worst in American history is once again making news. He reportedly will meet this week with Khaled Mashaal, Syrian-based leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian arm, Hamas — an internationally recognized terrorist organization.

Mr. Carter maintains this is no big deal since he has met with Hamas officials before. Indeed, in keeping with his Carter Center’s self-appointed status as global election monitor, the former president did officiate in January 2006 when the Brotherhood’s terrorists defeated those of Fatah led by Yasser Arafat’s longtime crony, Mahmoud Abbas.

In point of fact, it seems there is scarcely a serious bad actor on the planet with whom Jimmy Carter has not met. He is a serial tyrant-enabler, the very personification of Rodney King’s risible appeal, “Can’t we all get along?” Mr. Carter has come to epitomize the notion that “dialogue” is always in order, no matter how odious or dangerous the interlocutor — or the extent to which they or their agendas will benefit from such interactions.

As Barack Obama (whom Mr. Carter has all but endorsed) is as wedded as the former president to the idea of condition-free dialogue with tyrants, it is worth reflecting on just a few of the many example’s of how this Carteresque practice has produced disastrous results:

• In 1979, then-President Carter undermined the shah of Iran and made possible the Ayatollah Khomeini’s return to Iran and subsequent Islamic revolution. However, the uber-mullah returned the favor with the sacking of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and seizure of its personnel that assured Mr. Carter’s would be a one-term presidency. The regime thus born has ever since been a blight on its own people and a state-sponsor of terror and nuclear wannabe that represents an ever-growing menace to its region and the world.

• In 1994, Citizen Carter made a mission to Pyongyang when then-President Bill Clinton was first confronting evidence of North Korea’s illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons. The former president’s intervention gave rise to a deal that lent invaluable prestige to the regime, perpetuated its hold on power and utterly failed to preclude the North’s acquisition of a nuclear arsenal.

• In 2004, Mr. Carter ignored abundant evidence of official vote-rigging and election fraud in a Venezuelan referendum, handing victory to Hugo Chavez and clearing the way for the Western Hemisphere’s most destabilizing accretion of power since Fidel Castro’s communist revolution in Cuba — a model and inspiration for Mr. Chavez.

In short, thanks in no small measure to Jimmy Carter’s proclivities and meddling, the world is a considerably more dangerous place. Following his lead now will make it more so, for three reasons:

(1) First and foremost, “talking” to tyrants legitimates them. Dictators go to great lengths to conjure up the perception of authority and permanence. They are particularly anxious to do so for domestic consumption, to ensure their continued rule. To the extent outsiders recognize, to say nothing of embrace, them, it enhances their stature at home and validates their misconduct on the world stage.

(2) Such efforts generally have the effect of emboldening these thugs. After all, they are being rewarded for bad behavior. The result is predictable: even worse behavior. That can mean redoubled efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, destabilize their neighbors, raise the price of oil and engage in other activities inimical to U.S. interests.

(3) It is ironic but true that even as Carter-style enabling of tyrants makes matters worse it typically encourages in this country the impression that vexing problems with those regimes have been made more tractable. Diplomatic placebos reduce the perceived need and popular support for more effective, albeit more difficult, alternatives.

It is instructive that even an Israeli government known for appeasing terrorists has finally had it with Jimmy Carter. Israel’s ceremonial head of state, President Shimon Peres, met with him Sunday for the purpose of publicly denouncing Mr. Carter’s “activities over the last few years [that have] caused great damage to Israel and the peace process.” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his foreign and defense ministers have declined Mr. Carter’s requests to meet with them.

The one possible upside of the latest instance of tyrant-enabling by Jimmy Carter is that it puts in sharp relief an issue that should feature prominently in the 2008 U.S. elections: Do we want to entrust the job of commander in chief to someone who believes, as Mr. Carter does, that dialogue with our sworn enemies — notably, Iran, and its vassal, Syria — is a good and necessary step?

This is, of course, the oft-repeated position of Sen. Barack Obama and other Democratic opponents of the effort to secure victory in Iraq. Is it the view though of what the former condescendingly calls “ordinary” Americans, people who have generally shown more common sense than the likes of Messrs. Carter and Obama?

In the final analysis, Jimmy Carter will be best remembered by history as a man whose time in and out of high public office was almost unblemished by success. Notwithstanding a Nobel Peace Prize (given by an awards committee avowedly anxious to rebuke President Bush) and assorted good works on behalf of Habitat for Humanity, his role as a tyrant-enabler will be an object of scorn and derision rather than the vindication he so transparently, and desperately, seeks.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy.

The war over Iraq – not to be confused with the conflict actually taking place there – is back in the headlines. This week’s report to Congress by America’s top two emissaries in Baghdad, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, will provide a backdrop for the momentous decisions to come concerning whether and how to pursue victory in Iraq.

Before the politicians and their constituents make such decisions about where we go from here, they should be sure to ground themselves in the facts about how we got to this point. After all, as George Santayana put it, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Fortunately, it has just become considerably easier to understand the history of the decision to make Iraq a central front in the larger War for the Free World and to dissect what was and was not done right – and how to achieve better results in the future. Today marks the publication of an extraordinary new book on the subject, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terror, by former Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith.

Now, Doug Feith has been a valued friend and colleague of mine for twenty-five years. Consequently, I know him to be a man who is scrupulous in his command of the facts, exacting in his analysis and lucidly articulate in his writing.

Still, I was unprepared for the thoroughness of the documentation, the sweeping nature of the narrative and the highly readable prose with which War and Decision depicts the actions precipitated at the highest levels of the U.S. government by the 9/11 attacks. Particularly edifying are Mr. Feith’s exploration of the serious policy differences between various decision-makers and the material contribution those disagreements made to the way in which the preparation, execution and aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime went down.

In contrast to previous books and memoirs on the subject that have been published to date, Feith’s is not aimed at self-promotion or self-vindication. Neither is it an effort to settle scores with those who have, in some cases viciously, attacked the author in their own screeds.

Rather, it is the first attempt by a serious student of history to lay out the myriad, challenging choices confronting a president who, within eight months of taking office, witnessed a devastating attack on this country and resolved to prevent another – possibly far more destructive one – from occurring. The considerations, the competing recommendations and the presidential and Cabinet-level decisions that shaped the Bush Administration’s approach to the terrorist threat emanating from state-sponsored networks are documented in an unvarnished, highly accessible way.

Particularly interesting are the many points on which earlier tomes and conventional wisdom are mistaken. For instance, Mr. Feith demonstrates that the record simply does not support claims that: “Bush and his hawkish advisors” were intent on waging war on Iraq from the get-go; Rumsfeld and his “neo-cons” failed to prepare for post-war Iraq and that the State Department had, only to have its plans spurned by the Pentagon; and Feith’s office tried to manipulate pre-war intelligence about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. Given how central many of these myths are to the current criticism of the Iraq war, the contradictory evidence deserves attention.

Even more critical to this week’s congressional testimony – and what follows on Capitol Hill, on the hustings and, not least in Iraq – are Mr. Feith’s insights into problems that continue to afflict America’s execution of the war. For example:

*On issue after issue, George W. Bush’s decisions on Iraq were undermined by subordinates who opposed the president’s policies. As Feith charitably puts it, Mr. Bush “could…justly be faulted for an excessive tolerance of indiscipline, even of disloyalty from his own officials.” This pattern continues with members of the intelligence community, senior diplomats and even, until recently, a top military officer routinely flouting presidential direction – sometimes openly, on other occasions through malicious leaks to the press.

*There has been an abject failure to address competently and comprehensively the ideological nature of our Islamofascist enemies and their enablers. “…In the fight against terrorism, the effort to counter ideological support remains a gaping deficiency. No one in the Administration…is currently developing and implementing a comprehensive strategy beyond public diplomacy.” Congress has not helped matters, by failing to confirm Jim Glassman or reconstituting a dedicated organization like the U.S. Information Agency to do this work.

*Most importantly, the costs of failures to act – or win in Iraq – continue to be underestimated. “If and when major new terrorist attacks occur in the United States, the public will reexamine the Bush Administration’s strategy for the war on terrorism. The likely criticism then will not be that the President was too tough on the jihadists, the Baathists and other state supporters of terrorism, but that the Administration might have fought the terrorist network even more intensely and comprehensively.

“No dereliction of statesmanship is as unpardonable as a failure to protect the nation’s security. If the head of government underreacts when the country is threatened, history is not likely to excuse him on the grounds that his excessive caution enjoyed bipartisan support.”

Doug Feith has made important contributions to our nation’s security for three decades in public life and the private sector. If his splendid War and Decision gets the reading it warrants, others will be more likely to do so as well.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for the Washington Times.