"A False Sense of National Security"

I think Max Boot hits the nail on the head in his LA Times column Sunday, when he warns that in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death we may be "lulled into a false sense of complacency that will allow Al Qaeda and other radical groups to stage a resurgence."

Echoing points I have made before regarding the need to distinguish between "al-Qa'ida Core" and the broader network of al-Qa'ida affiliates who adhere to "bin Ladenism," Boot writes:

 U.S. government officials are probably premature when they rush to proclaim, as the Washington Post reported, that Al Qaeda is "on the brink of collapse." Such predictions have been made many times before, and each time have been disproved by this terrorist group with its alarming ability to regenerate itself. It does not take much in the way of resources to carry out a terrorist strike (the Sept. 11 operation cost an estimated $500,000), so Al Qaeda does not need much infrastructure to pose a threat. Moreover, Al Qaeda is not the only terrorist organization we have to worry about.

Other Islamist extremists are capable of planning attacks with scant direction or assistance from Al Qaeda Central. These organizations range from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Al Qaeda in Iraq to the Haqqani network, the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hezbollah, Kataib Hezbollah and Hamas. None of these groups have pulled off anything on the scale of Sept. 11, thank goodness, but several of them have undoubtedly killed far more people — and dominated far more territory — than Bin Laden ever did.

Boot later correctly concludes that "by focusing too much on Al Qaeda and its charismatic founder -- now resting at the bottom of the Arabian Sea -- we risk not devoting sufficient resources or attention to these other threats, which are less publicized but ultimately may be just as dangerous."

Well said.

I do have one small quibble with Boot, however.  At the end of his essay, Boot says "the hype over Saddam Hussein being pulled out of his spider hole . . . created a mind-set of triumphalism embodied in the famous "Mission Accomplished" banner displayed behind Bush when he welcomed the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln home from the Persian Gulf."  Besides distorting the timeline badly (the infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech preceded Saddam's capture by more than six months, he mischaracterizes President Bush's reaction to Saddam's capture.  Whereas General Ricardo Sanchez optimistically declared: “I expect that the detention of Saddam Hussein will be regarded as the beginning of reconciliation for the people of Iraq and as a sign of Iraq’s rebirth,” in his address marking Saddam’s capture, President Bush congratulated U.S. forces, but warned: “The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq.  We still face terrorists who would rather go on killing the innocent than accept the rise of liberty in Iraq.”  Having been burned badly more than once by sounding too optimistic regarding Iraq, Bush was extremely careful not to appear triumphalist following Saddam's capture.

But again, this is a small complaint given how cogent the rest of Boot's analysis is.