[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
UNREST IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH
AFRICA: RAMIFICATIONS FOR U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COUNTERTERRORISM
AND INTELLIGENCE
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 6, 2011
__________
Serial No. 112-16
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Peter T. King, New York, Chairman
Lamar Smith, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Daniel E. Lungren, California Loretta Sanchez, California
Mike Rogers, Alabama Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Michael T. McCaul, Texas Henry Cuellar, Texas
Gus M. Bilirakis, Florida Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Paul C. Broun, Georgia Laura Richardson, California
Candice S. Miller, Michigan Danny K. Davis, Illinois
Tim Walberg, Michigan Brian Higgins, New York
Chip Cravaack, Minnesota Jackie Speier, California
Joe Walsh, Illinois Cedric L. Richmond, Louisiana
Patrick Meehan, Pennsylvania Hansen Clarke, Michigan
Ben Quayle, Arizona William R. Keating, Massachusetts
Scott Rigell, Virginia Vacancy
Billy Long, Missouri Vacancy
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania
Blake Farenthold, Texas
Mo Brooks, Alabama
Michael J. Russell, Staff Director/Chief Counsel
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
I. Lanier Avant, Minority Staff Director
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON COUNTERTERRORISM AND INTELLIGENCE
Patrick Meehan, Pennsylvania, Chairman
Paul C. Broun, Georgia, Vice Chair Jackie Speier, California
Chip Cravaack, Minnesota Loretta Sanchez, California
Joe Walsh, Illinois Henry Cuellar, Texas
Ben Quayle, Arizona Brian Higgins, New York
Scott Rigell, Virginia Vacancy
Billy Long, Missouri Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Peter T. King, New York (Ex (Ex Officio)
Officio)
Kevin Gundersen, Staff Director
Alan Carroll, Subcommittee Clerk
Stephen Vina, Minority Subcommittee Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Statements
The Honorable Patrick Meehan, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Pennsylvania, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Counterterrorism and Intelligence.............................. 1
The Honorable Jackie Speier, a Representative in Congress From
the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Counterterrorism and Intelligence.............................. 3
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security.............................................. 4
Witness
Mr. Rick ``Ozzie'' Nelson, Director and Senior Fellow, Homeland
Security and Counterterrorism Program, Center for Strategic and
International Studies:
Oral Statement................................................. 6
Prepared Statement............................................. 8
Mr. Thomas Joscelyn, Senior Fellow and Executive Director, Center
for Law and Counter Terrorism, Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies:
Oral Statement................................................. 12
Prepared Statement............................................. 14
Mr. Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress:
Oral Statement................................................. 16
Prepared Statement............................................. 18
Mr. Philip Mudd, Senior Research Fellow, New America Foundation:
Oral Statement................................................. 22
Prepared Statement............................................. 24
UNREST IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA: RAMIFICATIONS FOR U.S.
HOMELAND SECURITY
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Wednesday, April 6, 2011
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:33 a.m., in
Room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Patrick Meehan
[Chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Meehan, Cravaack, Walsh, Quayle,
Long, Speier, Thompson, Cuellar, and Jackson Lee.
Mr. Meehan [presiding]. The Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence will come to
order. The subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on
the unrest in the Middle East and North Africa and the
ramifications on homeland security.
As is customary, I want to take a moment to make my own
opening statement.
I would like to welcome everybody to today's Subcommittee
on Counterterrorism and Intelligence for this hearing.
I would like to begin by taking an opportunity to thank
Ranking Member Jackie Speier on her first subcommittee hearing.
We will be chairing this together for the first time. I look
forward to working with you in a bipartisan manner on these
important homeland security issues.
I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses on the on-
going unrest in the Middle East and North Africa and its impact
on U.S. homeland security. Just about a month ago, on March 2,
this subcommittee met to hear testimony of the threat posed by
al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula to the U.S. homeland. One of
the key takeaways from that hearing was the level of
instability in Yemen and the surrounding areas.
A lot has changed in just 1 month. Unfortunately, many of
the predictions that we heard from the witnesses have come to
fruition in a very short period of time, including a teetering
government on the brink of collapse in Yemen and a decrease in
counterterrorism cooperation.
In addition to facing an unstable government in Yemen, the
United States has engaged in military operations against Libya.
The Saudis have sent troops to Bahrain. Protests growing in
Syria. The Egyptian military has assumed control of its
country.
So overall, the situation in the Middle East and North
Africa is changing by the day. All you have to do is pick up
the morning's news to see how 24 hours can significantly shape
and impact the region.
This has major ramifications for United States homeland
security, especially as it relates to counterterrorism and
intelligence, the two areas which this subcommittee is
responsible for overseeing.
As I mentioned, events in Yemen present challenges for the
United States' homeland security. Current unrest there has left
the regime of President Saleh on the brink of collapse.
Whatever the impression of President Saleh may be--and there
are many who will argue that he is a flawed leader--he has been
cooperative with the United States on counterterrorism
priorities, particularly the fight against AQAP, providing the
necessary intelligence to go after the enemy. As we speak,
President Saleh struggles against insurrection, defections, and
Yemen harbors safe haven for al-Qaeda.
I am very concerned about what the alternatives will be and
how that affects the United States' ability to search for and
mitigate AQAP's ability to attack this homeland.
In Egypt, the whole world watched peaceful demonstrations
demand change and more individual rights. There were also
multiple reports that prisons were emptied during the unrest
and Islamists who took to violence in opposition to the
previous regime had escaped.
Quite simply, hundreds of radicalized Islamists on the
loose throughout the Middle East and North Africa is dangerous.
I would like to note that it was the 2006 prison break in Yemen
that heavily contributed to the creation of AQAP, the terrorist
organization that has now come dangerously close to attacking
the United States.
Last, events in Libya were completely unforeseen just 1
month ago, and I have concerns about the United States'
commitments that we all jointly are engaged in, but most
importantly for the United States Homeland Security, there is
the possibility that Colonel Gadhafi returning to terrorism,
either as a last gasp at saving his regime or as retribution
for U.S. military action in Libya.
More than most other individuals in the last 30 years,
Colonel Gadhafi has illustrated both his intent and capability
to conduct terrorist attacks against the United States
interests, most notably the bombing of Pan Am 103 over
Lockerbie, Scotland.
Just last week, the NATO supreme allied commander, Jim
Stavridis, James Stavridis, Admiral Stavridis, told Members of
Congress that there were flickers of involvement of al-Qaeda
among Libyan rebels.
This is problematic, and I believe we must exercise due
diligence in figuring out who is included among the rebels and
who we choose to partner with in support among opposition in
Libya. As everyone knows, the United States armed Islamist
opposition groups in the 1980s against the Soviet Union, a
successful policy in the short term, but the blowback was
severe. We must do everything we can to avoid enabling our
enemies to attack our homeland.
I look forward to hearing from this distinguished panel,
and I now recognize the Ranking Member, Ms. Speier of
California, for her 5-minute opening statement.
Ms. Speier. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this
hearing. I, too, look forward to working with you in a very
bipartisan fashion that is consistent with this subcommittee in
the past. I also want to thank our distinguished panel of
witnesses for being here. We know that you will shed great
light on this issue.
Over the last few months, we have witnessed an
unprecedented wave of unrest and revolutionary fervor--furor in
North Africa and the Middle East, including among some of our
long-time allies. We have now joined in military action in
Libya to prevent a humanitarian crisis.
We know the wave of unrest spreading across the region
began with one person's frustration and sense of
disenfranchisement, but the underlying symptoms of corruption,
alienation, and oppression have long plagued the area. In the
blink of an eye, the regimes in Tunisia and Egypt have been
toppled, and protest movements have erupted in Jordan, Bahrain,
Syria, and others, and their fates remain to be determined.
In this hearing, we are examining important questions about
how these events will influence the on-going international
terrorist threat and our counterterrorism efforts across the
region and the implications for our efforts here at home.
For the first time in decades, relationships that we have
relied on in the fight against terrorism are changing. In some
cases, we have to work with new partners who will not
necessarily respect past security agreements and practices. How
do we most effectively bridge the divide between the old and
new governments?
Egypt and Tunisia, for example, have reportedly disbanded
their long-feared state security forces. How will this affect
our long-standing security relationship and joint
counterterrorism efforts?
There may also be political vacuums for prolonged periods
of time in many of these countries, leaving open the
possibility for terrorist groups to exploit the lack of
coordinated operations and intelligence sharing.
Of course, any change, and particularly unplanned-for
revolutionary changes, present us with challenges, as well as
opportunities. It is critical that we work with the new leaders
to ensure that they not only have effective counterterrorism
policies, but they respect the human rights of their own
populations, as well.
For too long, we have supported Middle East regimes with
blinders on, fearing the alternatives would be far worse.
Unfortunately, these blinders resulted in us being caught by
surprise by what was actually happening on the streets, and now
we are left scrambling to answer critical questions like: Who
is taking power in Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen? Who is the Muslim
Brotherhood? Who are the rebels in Libya?
As we seek to answer these basic questions and define our
approach to a reshuffled Middle East and North Africa, we must
support the democratic ambitions of the people, while being
pragmatic in our assessment of the threats to our homeland.
In Yemen, al-Qaeda and the AQAP is already capitalizing on
the unrest by consolidating their power in the tribal regions
outside the capital. We know that President Saleh is too
consumed with his own political survival to make AQAP a
priority and has even diverted counterterrorism forces to
protect the last remnants of his regime. With or without
President Saleh, we must continue to work with Yemen to combat
AQAP as it attempts to plot against the homeland.
In Libya, we must ensure that the flickers of al-Qaeda
activity, as described by Admiral Stavridis, do not grow and
subvert the efforts by the rebels to secure greater freedoms.
Similarly, we must keep a close eye on Colonel Gadhafi, an
unpredictable dictator with a long history of supporting
terrorism, including allowing and supporting terrorist training
camps on Libyan soil.
In Egypt, we need more information on the thousands of
inmates that were released or escaped from prison during the
protests and whether they have ties to terror organizations.
But before we jump to conclusions, we must have the facts
to differentiate terrorist groups from other legitimate and
indigenous political organizations. In Syria, we have a state
sponsor of terrorism that could fall, opening the door for
Hamas and Iran-backed Hezbollah to take advantage of the chaos.
While the outlook may appear grim and the uncertainty
overwhelming, many still believe that democracy is not a friend
to al-Qaeda or its affiliates. Some jihadist propaganda,
including the latest edition of AQAP's Inspire magazine, is
saying otherwise, so we must better understand what we can do
to ensure that these democratic movements do not develop into
potential recruiting grounds for violent extremism.
Overall, we still know very little about how the terrorist
threat may evolve, so we must keep a watchful eye as the events
continue to unfold. We cannot afford to be caught off-guard
again, as was the case when the protests started. Once we
learned that the terrorist threats are changing, so must our
counterterrorism efforts. We must take a hard look at our old
and new partners in the region and re-evaluate our
counterterrorism strategy as necessary.
While protecting the homeland also begins abroad, we must
also ensure our Federal, State, and local officials here at
home are aware of the change in security environment and have
the information and resources they need to keep America safe.
With that, I look forward to hearing from the witnesses
about the challenges and opportunities ahead, and I yield back.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Ms. Speier.
We are also very grateful that we have in attendance today
the Ranking Member, Mr. Thompson of Mississippi, and as the
tradition of the committee, we will invite Mr. Thompson to make
an opening statement, if he would like to do so.
Mr. Thompson. I would. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding
this timely hearing.
First, I want to welcome the gentlewoman from California,
Ms. Speier, the new Ranking Member of the subcommittee. I look
forward to working with her.
I would also like to recognize some uniform fire service
people from my home State of Mississippi, who are also in
attendance at the hearing this morning.
I have no doubt, however, that Ms. Speier will continue the
great work on this subcommittee and look forward to working
with her in her new role. As I understand, this is your maiden
hearing.
Ms. Speier. It is my maiden hearing.
Mr. Thompson. Absolutely. Okay. So I am also looking
forward to our witnesses and their testimony today.
There are many questions about how the events unfolding in
the Middle East and North Africa will impact us at home today.
The situation is changing every single day, and tyranny is
being challenged in all corners of the region.
Two countries have already removed their leaders, and the
people have begun the process of rebuilding their countries in
a more equitable way. In Yemen, the people are still fighting
to change the status quo and gain more economic and political
freedoms for all. In Libya, rebels, with the help of NATO, are
struggling to end the 42-year rule of a ruthless dictator.
Because of the fragile conditions in the region, however,
we have to be smart about how we frame the issues and how we
react to developments. We must work to ensure that our words
and actions do not inflame an already hostile environment. We
also must operate with facts and sound intelligence, not
hyperbole and speculation.
While we embrace the spread of democracy across the Middle
East and North Africa, we must also be realistic about the
challenges ahead. Many countries have suspended their
constitutions, dismissed their governments, and replaced their
ruling parties. In some cases, we will have a blank slate to
work with. In many, we may need to build new alliances to forge
effective counterterrorism partnerships.
But with a growing thirst for democracy now on our side,
these challenges can be more freely addressed. Nonetheless, the
terrorists also seek to take advantage of the chaos. Al-Qaeda
and their affiliates have also applauded the unrest just as
loudly as we have, but their applause rings hollow.
Like many experts, I believe the uprising represents the
people's aspirations for greater political rights and economic
opportunities, not for extremism and violence. These terrorists
seem to be grasping for relevancy in a mass movement that is
largely passing them by.
Still, we must remain vigilant and guard against these
small, but vocal strains of evildoers, because while the threat
of terrorists exploiting the instability is real, the
possibilities for good are endless.
Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield back.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Thompson.
I want to remind the other Members of the committee that
they may submit opening statements for the record, if they
would choose to do so.
Now, we are pleased to have what will ultimately be four
distinguished witnesses before us today on this important
topic. Mr. Mudd informed us that he would be on his way earlier
yesterday, and I am looking forward to the testimony from each
of you. Let me remind you that the entire written statement
that you give today will appear in the record.
Today's first witness is Mr. Ozzie Nelson. Mr. Nelson is
the director of homeland security and counterterrorism program
and a senior fellow in the International Security Program at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Mr. Nelson
is a former Navy helicopter pilot with over 20 years of
operational and intelligence experience, including assignments
on the National Security Council and at the National
Counterterrorism Center. His work at CSIS focuses on
counterterrorism, homeland security, and defense-related
issues.
Mr. Nelson, you are now recognized to summarize your
testimony for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF RICK ``OZZIE'' NELSON, DIRECTOR AND SENIOR FELLOW,
HOMELAND SECURITY AND COUNTERTERRORISM PROGRAM, CENTER FOR
STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Mr. Nelson. Thank you very much.
Chairman Meehan, Ranking Member Speier, Members of the
committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify.
Context is important when considering how unrest in the
Middle East and North Africa will influence al-Qaeda
specifically and Islamist terrorism generally. It makes little
sense to talk in vague terms about recent events signaling the
demise or revival of al-Qaeda in the region, because al-Qaeda
and its affiliates differ significantly based on the local
environments in which they operate and the local grievances
that drive their agendas.
Al-Qaeda's senior leadership has proven time and time again
to be a creative and adaptive adversary. Where chaos exists, so
too does opportunity. Moving forward, I will touch on Libya,
Egypt, and Yemen.
In Libya, much remains unknown about the rebels and their
political organization. Still, there have been reports that at
least some members of the opposition forces are affiliated with
al-Qaeda. This raises some important considerations.
First and foremost is the possibility that al-Qaeda
elements could seize power in a post-Gadhafi Libyan government.
Fortunately, the rebel movement appears diverse enough to
forestall this possibility. A far more realistic possibility is
that a protracted Libyan civil war may produce sufficient chaos
to allow for the development of legitimate terrorist cells in
the eastern part of the country.
Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, its allies notoriously exploit
territories with weak central governments, carrying out--
carving out physical safe havens that facilitate training and
operational planning. Nascent terrorist cells in eastern Libya
could still further destabilize already turbulent North Africa
by creating a new base of support within the larger al-Qaeda
movement.
There are also concerns about Gadhafi returning to his
rule, and the Chairman and the Ranking Member mentioned that.
This gives us few appealing options for U.S. counterterrorism
policy as it relates to Libya. Despite his about-face on
combating terrorism in Libya, Gadhafi's actions make his long-
term presence untenable.
Officials understand that any sort of ground invasion would
only serve to fuel al-Qaeda's toxic narrative of a war between
West and Islam. Al-Qaeda uses this narrative as a major
recruiting tool, so the Obama administration has been smart to
reject outright the idea of large-scale intervention.
In deploying force, the United States and NATO have also
wisely resisted calls to immediately arm rebel forces.
Officials may eventually decide that this is the right course
of action. Until then, the no-fly zone is buying time for
authorities to learn more about the goals of the rebel forces.
In Egypt, terrorism-related concerns are focused squarely
on the role of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is likely to play
a role in a post-Mubarak government and society. The uprisings
in Egypt have been met with public concern over the possibility
of the Muslim Brotherhood coming to control the affairs in
Cairo.
Were the Muslim Brotherhood actually to gain power in
Egypt, it would face the burden of governing a society that is
demanding jobs and reliable services and openness in
government, the same underlying demands that have ignited the
revolution. It is reasonable to expect that the burden of
governing would temper the Brotherhood's Islamist political
ambitions.
Many of the fears--growing protests--moving on to Yemen--
growing protests against the rule of President Saleh pose
legitimate questions about how AQAP may take advantage of
regime change in Yemen. Saleh and the security services have
been the lynchpin of U.S. counterterrorism strategy in Yemen.
As such, recent commentary on Yemen's political crisis has
tended to focus on the risks inherent in a Saleh's resignation,
specifically, that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula would
enjoy even more freedom to operate.
I would argue that political upheaval in Yemen is a concern
with regard to AQAP irrespective of any damage done by the
removal of Saleh. It is not at all clear that the Yemeni
president has been an effective partner in combating terrorism.
One Middle East observer recently noted that Sana'a's
government has failed to capture or kill a single al-Qaeda
leader in the last 2 years.
Instead, the regime has directed much of its attention to
Yemen's other security challenges, which include an insurgency
in the north and the separatist movements in the south.
Yemen's litany of political, social, and economic
challenges, combined with AQAP's growing strength, means that
there are no easy counterterrorism solutions. To the greatest
extent possible, the United States must engage local Yemenis
directly affected by AQAP's activities, not just the government
in Sana'a, as an attempt--an attempt to isolate AQAP.
Beyond the limited scope of counterterrorism operations,
the United States and its partners must address the underlying
political, and social, and economic sources of Yemen's
instabilities.
Regarding broader considerations for U.S. counterterrorism
policy, recent events give us--in discussing how terrorism
threats intersect with regional unrest, there has been a
tendency to worry about a terrorist takeover of certain
governments or states. In reality, this should never be the
chief concern.
Despite their potential for major attacks with
destabilizing consequences, al-Qaeda and its affiliates remain
marginal movements within the Middle East and North Africa.
These groups will never command anything close to the popular
support necessary to govern a modern state.
Instead, we should--still, we should not underestimate al-
Qaeda's lethality and maniacal focus on attacking the United
States and the West. Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations
most stand to benefit from the emergence of a chaotic,
factious, and ungoverned territories, whereupon these groups
seek to establish safe havens for training and operational
planning.
I look forward to answering of the committee's questions,
and again, I appreciate your time.
[The statement of Mr. Nelson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Rick ``Ozzie'' Nelson
April 6, 2011
Chairman Meehan, Ranking Member Speier, Members of the committee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify today. The past several months
have brought extraordinary change to the Middle East and North Africa,
and it is most appropriate that we examine how a broad array of
political, social, and economic transformations in the region may
affect U.S. National interests, particularly as these interests relate
to homeland security and counterterrorism.
Context is important when considering how unrest in the Middle East
and North Africa will influence al-Qaeda specifically and Islamist
terrorism generally. It makes little sense to talk in vague terms about
recent events signaling the demise or revival of al-Qaeda in the
region, because al-Qaeda and its affiliates differ significantly based
on the local environments in which they operate and the local
grievances that drive their agendas. I commend the committee for
framing today's hearing in a manner that allows for discussion of
specific countries, and in this vein, I will begin my remarks by
examining the terrorism dimensions at play in Libya, Egypt, and Yemen,
respectively.
As committee members and my fellow witnesses also know, al-Qaeda
senior leadership has proven time and again to be a creative and
adaptive adversary; where chaos exists, so too does opportunity. Given
al-Qaeda's transnational operations and aspirations, I will conclude my
remarks with some broader observations about the implications that
today's unrest have for U.S. counterterrorism strategies in the Middle
East and North Africa.
terrorism concerns in libya, egypt, and yemen
Concerns over terrorism underpin one of the most pressing questions
surrounding U.S. and NATO involvement in Libya: Whether the Obama
administration and its European counterparts should more actively
support rebel forces in their bid to depose Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi.
Much remains unknown about the rebels and their political organization,
the Transitional National Council. Still, there have been reports that
at least some members of the opposition forces are affiliated with al-
Qaeda. This fact raises some important considerations for U.S. and NATO
policy in Libya.
First and foremost is the possibility that al-Qaeda elements could
seize power in a post-Qaddafi, putatively rebel-led, Libyan government.
Fortunately, the rebel movement appears diverse enough to forestall
this possibility. A far more realistic possibility is that a protracted
Libyan civil war may produce sufficient chaos to allow for the
development of legitimate terrorist cells in the eastern part of the
country. Al-Qaeda and its allies notoriously exploit territories with
weak central governments, carving out physical safe havens that
facilitate training and operational planning. A chief concern is that
Algerian-based al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a formal al-
Qaeda affiliate, might team up with Libyan rebel factions sympathetic
to terrorism. Even absent coordination with an al-Qaeda affiliate like
AQIM, nascent terrorist cells in eastern Libya still could further
destabilize already turbulent North Africa by creating a new base of
support within the larger al-Qaeda movement. Finally, given the recent
history of Libyan extremists traveling to Iraq as foreign fighters, the
growth of terrorist cells in the eastern part of Libya could mean
another influx of foreign fighters into other conflict zones across the
region.
As if deciphering rebel intentions were not enough, there are also
concerns about whether Qaddafi might return to terrorism should he
maintain his rule. In his lengthy reign, Qaddafi has been implicated in
state-sponsored terrorism on multiple occasions, as with the bombing of
Pan Am Flight 103. In recent years, he has combatted Islamist terrorism
within Libyan borders, often working in harmony with Western goals. But
now that hostilities have reignited between Qaddafi and the West, it is
entirely conceivable that the Libyan leader may abandon that sort of
cooperation should he remain in power.
These facts suggest few appealing options for U.S. counterterrorism
policy as it relates to broader Western strategies in Libya. Despite
his about-face on combatting terrorism within Libya, Qaddafi's recent
actions make his long-term presence in the country untenable. Even
though the United States and NATO do not seem to be currently
discussing military operations in terms of regime change, we should not
be surprised to see Western policy ultimately evolve to include a
broader set of options for removing Qaddafi from power. Until then,
deliberative action--like that currently being pursued by the United
States and NATO--offers the surest course to mitigating terrorism risks
in Libya.
Officials understand that any sort of ground invasion would only
serve to fuel al-Qaeda's toxic narrative of a war between the West and
Islam. Al-qaeda uses this narrative as a major recruiting tool, so the
Obama administration has been smart to reject outright the idea of
large-scale intervention. In deploying force, the United States and
NATO have also wisely resisted calls to immediately arm rebel forces.
Officials may eventually decide that this is the right course of
action; until then, the no-fly zone is buying time for authorities to
learn more about the makeup and goals of the rebel forces, which is
essential to do before arming any group of militants with possible
terrorist connections.
Egypt, meanwhile, faces a much different set of issues than does
its neighbor to the west. While terrorism-related concerns in Libya
center on a largely-unknown threat, those in Egypt are focused squarely
on the role that the Muslim Brotherhood is likely to play in a post-
Mubarak government and society. The uprisings in Egypt have been met
with public concern over the possibility that the Muslim Brotherhood,
one of the world's oldest, largest, and most influential Islamist
political groups, might come to control political affairs in Cairo.
These fears are founded on the Brotherhood's historical ties to
terrorism and the organization's belief in Sharia, or Islamic law.
Still, the Muslim Brotherhood long ago renounced violence, and the
organization has an antagonistic relationship with al-Qaeda, especially
its No. 2 in command, Ayman al Zawahiri, himself an Egyptian. Were the
Muslim Brotherhood to gain actual power in Egypt, it would face the
burden of governing in a society that is now demanding jobs, reliable
services, and openness in government, the same underlying demands that
ignited the revolution. It is reasonable to expect that this burden to
govern would temper the Brotherhood's Islamist political ambitions.
Finally, the Egyptian military remains firmly entrenched, and is likely
to cede power to elected civilians only through a gradual process of
reforms. It is hard to imagine a situation in which the Egyptian
military would abide a civilian government, especially one controlled
by the Muslim Brotherhood, which moved to become a state sponsor of
terrorism.
A more serious terrorism threat is posed by the categorical release
of thousands of Egyptian prisoners, some of whom have extremist
connections, over the past few months. In early March, it was reported
that as many as 17,000 prisoners had been freed since Egypt's uprisings
began.\1\ While there are no reliable statistics on what percentage of
these individuals are tied to terrorism, there have been reports of
former prisoners associated not just with the Muslim Brotherhood, but
also with Hamas and Hezbollah. The impact of categorical prison
releases, then, may be felt not just in Egypt but in the larger region,
in places like Israel and Lebanon, as recently-freed militants
reconstitute connections with known terrorist groups or forge new
partnerships.
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\1\ Michael Scheuer, ``Why the Mideast revolts will help al-
Qaeda,'' Washington Post, March 4, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/04/AR2011030402322.
html.
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Many of the fears surrounding prison releases in Egypt stem from
the recent experience in Yemen, the third country under consideration
at today's hearing. A February 2006 prison break in Sana'a freed a
number of jailed militants, injecting key leaders into al-Qaeda's
efforts to reconstitute its capabilities on the Arabian Peninsula. The
prison break ultimately facilitated the unification of disparate Saudi
and Yemeni terrorist cells under the banner of al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula (AQAP) in 2009. Today AQAP is considered one of the most
lethal al-Qaeda affiliates; the group's potential for regional and
global attacks helps explain why so many counterterrorism experts view
political instability in Yemen as one of the most challenging
developments in the Middle East and North Africa.
Growing protests against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh
pose legitimate questions about how AQAP might take advantage of regime
change in Yemen. Saleh and his security services have been the lynchpin
of U.S. counterterrorism strategy in Yemen, especially since the 2009
``Christmas day'' plot, after which the Obama administration doubled
counterterrorism assistance to the government in Sana'a. As such,
recent commentary on Yemen's political crisis has tended to focus on
the risks inherent in a Saleh resignation--specifically, that AQAP
would enjoy even more freedom to operate.
I would argue that political upheaval in Yemen is a concern with
regard to AQAP irrespective of any damage done by the removal of Saleh.
It is not at all clear that the Yemeni president has been an effective
partner in combatting terrorism. One Middle East observer recently
noted that the Sana'a government has ``failed to kill or capture a
single al-Qaeda leader in the last two years.''\2\ Instead, the regime
has directed much of its attention to Yemen's other security
challenges, which include an insurgency in the north and a separatist
movement in the south. As Saleh has remained preoccupied with these
domestic battles, Yemen's economy, which already was facing looming
natural resource shortages, has continued its nosedive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Ellen Knickmeyer, ``So Long, Saleh: Let's be honest: We don't
need the Yemeni president to fight al-Qaeda,'' Foreign Policy, February
10, 2011, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/09/
so_long_saleh?page=full.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yemen's litany of political, social, and economic challenges,
combined with AQAP's growing strength, means that there are no easy
counterterrorism solutions to be had in the country. To the greatest
extent possible, the United States must engage local Yemenis directly
affected by AQAP's activities, and not just the government in Sana'a,
in an attempt to isolate AQAP. Beyond the limited scope of
counterterrorism operations, the United States and its partners must
address the underlying political, social, and economic sources of
Yemen's instability; doing so will have the greatest long-term impact
in mitigating extremist violence in the country. Working through
entities like ``Friends of Yemen,'' a collection of Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) members and Western nations, will be essential to success
in this endeavor. For example, Saudi Arabia channels up to $2 billion
per year in development aid to Yemen; the United Arab Emirates
contributed just under $1 billion last year. These countries can prove
particularly helpful in implementing political and socioeconomic
reforms, given their deep ties to Yemen's people and institutions.
broader considerations for u.s. counterterrorism policy in the middle
east and north africa
While the cases of Libya, Egypt, and Yemen differ in significant
ways, recent events in those three countries suggest some broader
considerations for U.S. counterterrorism policy in the Middle East and
North Africa. In discussing how terrorism threats intersect with
regional unrest, there has been a tendency to worry about a terrorist
``takeover'' of certain governments or states. In reality, this should
never have been the chief concern. Despite their potential for major
attacks with destabilizing consequences, al-Qaeda and its affiliates
remain marginal movements within the Middle East and North Africa. The
groups will never command anything close to the popular support
necessary to govern a modern state.
Still, we should not underestimate al-Qaeda's lethality and
maniacal focus on attacking the United States and the West. Al-Qaeda
and other terrorist organizations most stand to benefit from the
emergence of chaotic, factious, or ungoverned territories, whereupon
these groups seek to establish safe havens for training and operational
planning. This was the case in Iraq in the mid-2000s, and it is the
case in Yemen today. Outside the region, al-Qaeda affiliates have taken
advantage of political instability to establish training zones in
places like northwestern Pakistan and Southeast Asia.
This trend has important implications for U.S. counterterrorism
policy in the Middle East and North Africa today. American policy has
long leveraged relationships with friendly autocrats in the region;
these arrangements were thought to provide the stability necessary to
ensure U.S. economic and security interests. Especially since 9/11,
these partnerships have often produced tangible counterterrorism
successes. At the same time, however, such policies have served as a
key component of al-Qaeda's ideology--that the United States is
purportedly complicit in supporting so-called ``apostate regimes'' and
denying freedoms to Muslim peoples. Furthermore, the recent uprisings
have demonstrated that an over-reliance on autocrats can actually lead
to great instability, just the opposite of what American policymakers
seek.
We are now faced with a rare historical moment--and a strategic
opportunity--in which the political, social, and economic aspirations
of Middle East and North African publics are aligned more closely with
U.S. interests than ever before. Long-term, the best deterrent to al-
Qaeda and other terrorist groups will be the development of stable,
prosperous, and free societies in the Middle East and North Africa.
That goal is far easier said than done, and how to formulate a
comprehensive strategy is beyond the scope of my testimony. Still, I
want to close by reflecting on one issue, in particular: the continued
importance of U.S. engagement and investment in the region.
It may be tempting to view the recent uprisings, especially those
against U.S.-backed authoritarian regimes, as a repudiation of American
policy in the Middle East and North Africa. But such an assessment
would miss an important part of the story. Here, it is helpful to
reconsider Egypt. As mentioned earlier, the Egyptian military remains
the one consistent, stabilizing force in the country, and is being
relied upon to help implement progressive reforms. The military is in a
position to guide the country through its present turmoil largely
because of decades of U.S. and international bureaucratic and financial
investment in Egypt's security structures. For the United States, the
problem in its policies toward Egypt has not been so much the fact of
partnership with the ruling powers, but rather the decision not to make
American support contingent on the implementation of gradual reforms in
Egyptian society.
Libya and Yemen, on the other hand, demonstrate how a lack of long-
term U.S. investment can limit American options in times of crisis.
After successfully convincing Qaddafi to give up nuclear weapons in
2003, the United States had an opportunity to further cultivate its
relationship with Libya around more than just a narrow counterterrorism
construct. Enhanced engagement with Tripoli could have included a major
push for political, social, and economic reforms. Instead, an
opportunity was missed and the United States is now forced to confront
a chaotic, war-torn Libya. In Yemen, the United States has stepped up
its engagement in recent years, but problems of the magnitude that
Yemen faces require a comprehensive, long-term strategy for engagement
with meaningful investments in political, social, and economic reforms.
To this end, the United States must work with those partners that have
a vested interest in regional stability, especially GCC members.
Right now, the Obama administration has a narrow window in which to
better align U.S. counterterrorism goals with the aspirations of
millions of Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa. The key to
doing this will be in understanding that security assistance and
liberalization are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary. I
want to thank the committee for inviting me to testify today, and look
forward to taking your questions.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Nelson.
Our next witness is Mr. Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow
and executive director for the Center for Law and
Counterterrorism at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Mr. Joscelyn is a senior fellow and executive director of the
Center for Law and Counterterrorism at the foundation. He is a
terrorism analyst and a writer living in New York.
Most of his research and writing is focused on how al-Qaeda
and its affiliates operate around the world. He is a regular
contributor to the Weekly Standard and is a senior editor of
the Long War Journal. His work has also been published by the
National Review Online and the New York Post, and a variety of
other publications.
Mr. Joscelyn is an author of ``Iran's Proxy War Against
America,'' a short book published by the Claremont Institute
that details Iran's decade-long sponsorship of America's
terrorist enemies. He makes regular appearances on radio
programs around the country, as well as on MSNBC.
Mr. Joscelyn, thank you for being here today, and we will
now recognize you to summarize your testimony.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS JOSCELYN, SENIOR FELLOW AND EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR LAW AND COUNTER TERRORISM, FOUNDATION FOR
THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES
Mr. Joscelyn. Well, thank you, Chairman Meehan, and thank
you, Ranking Member Speier, for having me here today. I am not
going to read from my written testimony. I am just going to
talk a little bit about your opening statements, because I find
a lot of room for agreement, actually, with what you had
brought up, particularly Ms. Speier, when it comes to the long-
term blinders that you see in our society in terms of dealing
with these regimes in the Middle East.
Really what we are seeing here is really the tension
between long-term strategic interests and short-term National
security concerns. I would say in the long term, dealing and
backing a lot of these dictatorships has not produced the type
of stability or produced the type of security that we would
want.
As we can see, you know, Hosni Mubarak was a decades-long
dictator in Egypt. He was toppled by some protestors in Tahrir
Square in a matter of weeks. That is not stability.
So looking at our strategy going forward, I think America
and the United States has to stand for something beyond just
the short-term approach to dictatorships and backing them and
sort of giving them sort of carte blanche to deal with their--
the way they deal with the internal dynamics of their
societies.
That said, looking at the short-term National security
concerns--and this is why I think this is a homeland security
issue--each one of these revolutions, each one of these
protests does raise legitimate National security concerns in
the short term.
I would say--let's start with Libya, where I think the
Obama administration has rightly intervened to prevent a
humanitarian crisis. As my colleague here said and noted
correctly, I would say, there is a lot unknown about the rebels
in Libya, but I would say this. The Transitional National
Council--and if you look at the senior leadership there--they
are not al-Qaeda, obviously. You can look at who they are and
what they stand for. They are not, you know, the types of
people we should be worried about, in my opinion.
If you look, however, at the Darnah crowd in eastern Libya,
who is increasing--to press reports have noted are providing
the muscle, basically, for the opposition in fighting against
Gadhafi's forces, there are legitimate concerns about who those
people are. I can talk a little bit further about that, if we
get into it.
But if you look at the leadership there in Darnah, which is
a long-term hotbed for Islamists and jihadist beliefs, if you
look at the leadership of who is running Darnah, who is
training the rebels in Darnah, there are legitimate concerns
about these people. Going forward, I would say that the United
States has to take an approach of, we have to be concerned
about what we do with this crowd. You know, do we arm them? Do
we do any of the types of things that have been discussed? You
have to be very careful in dealing with these people and who we
are actually backing.
All that said, Libyan dictator Gadhafi is not exactly a
partner in the war on terror. You know, he has sort of been
portrayed this way in the on-going politicized debate over
this, but I want to provide one quick note in the--my written
testimony that I would like to bring to the fore on this.
Colonel Gadhafi, in fact, back in 2003, got into a shouting
match on international television with Crown Prince Abdullah of
Saudi Arabia, after which Gadhafi turned to al-Qaeda and hired
al-Qaeda for $2 million to try and kill Crown Prince Abdullah.
This is all documented by the U.S. Treasury Department, court
records, various press accounts.
That is the type of dictator you are dealing with in Libya,
okay? This is not a guy who is a valid partner, I would say,
against al-Qaeda. Even though al-Qaeda would love to, I am
sure, off Gadhafi tomorrow, this is not the type of guy who you
can count on to be a real partner in the war on terror.
Going to Yemen, it is an incredibly complicated situation.
President Saleh is an uneven and duplicitous character, I would
say. His cooperation has been incredibly problematic.
I understand why there is this real tentativeness about
dealing with Saleh and calling for his ouster or calling for
the end of his regime, but I would say there, if you look at
his whole history and the people who back him and his power,
his power--his political--the political people who back him are
in many ways the people we are concerned about anyway. In other
words, if he were to fall, if he were to--if his regime were to
come to an end tomorrow, if he were no longer the president of
Yemen, basically the people who were backing him are probably
the people who would orchestrate the guy who would supplant
him.
It is his dealings with those people that are really the
problem in Yemen anyway. We can get into that a little further.
In Egypt, I would say, my big concern with Egypt is, is
this: I think in the short term and in the long term,
obviously, the Muslim Brotherhood is going to acquire some
representation in whatever new form of government comes to
power. I think that is understandable.
The problems I have there are two-fold. One, I think that
we have to worry about the military, and the Muslim Brotherhood
basically co-opting and putting an end to all the other types
of dissidents and opposition and legitimate political interests
that we have to--that should achieve representation in Egypt.
On the second hand, we should--as Bernard Lewis recently
said in a Wall Street Journal column, during an interview, we
should have no delusions about what the Muslim Brotherhood is
or what it represents or what it wants. You are talking about
one of the institutions that is one of the foremost advocates
of suicide bombings on the planet.
So in the short run, I think we are going to have real
problems in terms of how Egypt pans out, in terms of our
counterterrorism cooperation there. But, again, going back to
the long-term interests that I think Ranking Member Speier has
rightly addressed, it doesn't mean that you look the other way
or don't stand for something else in Egypt or any of these
other countries.
With that, I will conclude my testimony.
[The statement of Mr. Joscelyn follows:]
Prepared Statement of Thomas Joscelyn
April 6, 2011
Mr. Chairman and Members of the subcommittee, I want to thank you
for asking me to testify today.
Understandably, there is widespread trepidation about the events
unfolding in the Middle East. Many fear that the removal of the
region's longstanding leaders will lead to something worse--that is,
the rise of al-Qaeda or like-minded organizations. However, while there
is always potential for al-Qaeda to take advantage of political
instability, we should not view recent developments as purely a contest
between dictators (or autocrats) and jihadists. From Yemen to Tunisia,
there are other political actors struggling for a say in how their
country is run. It is important that America and the West embrace these
people and lend them support where appropriate.
After all, the current unrest was not started by al-Qaeda, or any
other malevolent actor. It began when a Tunisian street merchant set
himself on fire to protest harassment by the local police. The mass
protests that followed have exposed a fundamental truth about the
Middle East that is often missed: The region's regimes were not stable
because there are millions of Muslims who do not wish to live under an
autocracy.
This is an important observation to keep in mind when discussing
America's counterterrorism efforts. For too long, policymakers have
assumed that unequivocal support for men such as Hosni Mubarak is our
only option. But it is obvious now that relying on such leaders is not
a viable long-term solution. The faux stability of Mubarak's regime
was, for instance, swept away in just a few short weeks after decades
of rule.
With that perspective in mind, there certainly are bad actors who
seek to capitalize on the unrest. Below, I will briefly outline some of
the issues that may arise, from a counterterrorism perspective.
libya
The Libyan opposition is comprised of various interests and
personalities, many of whom are secular-minded and no friend to al-
Qaeda.
The most worrisome rebels, however, are located in eastern Libya.
The city of Derna, in particular, is a known jihadist hotspot and
contributed a large number of fighters to the Iraqi insurgency. Derna's
rebel forces are currently led by three former members of the Libyan
Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a known al-Qaeda affiliate.\1\ And the
man who is reportedly training Derna's rebels, Sufyan Ben Qumu, was
formerly held at Guantanamo.\2\ In declassified memos prepared at
Guantanamo, U.S. officials alleged that Qumu joined al-Qaeda in the
early 1990s, after leaving the Libyan Army, and spent the next decade
serving the jihadist terror network in various capacities.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Charles Levinson, ``Ex-Mujahedeen Help Lead Libyan Rebels,''
The Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2001. The article is available on-
line here: http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB10001424052748703712504576237042432212406.html.
\2\ Thomas Joscelyn, ``Ex-Gitmo detainee training Libyan rebels in
Derna,'' The Long War Journal, April 2, 2011. The article is available
on-line here: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/04/ex-
gitmo_detainee_tr.php.
\3\ A copy of the declassified memos can be found on-line here:
http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/557-abu-sufian-
ibrahim-ahmed-hamuda-bin-qumu/documents/5/pages/480.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the United States and NATO move forward, extreme caution should
be exercised when dealing with the Derna faction of the Libyan
rebellion. Every effort should be made to minimize their role in
shaping Libya's political future. And that is assuming the rebels can
even overtake Col. Muammar Qaddafi, which is far from a certainty at
this point.
A wounded Qaddafi could easily turn to terrorism to punish those
who opposed him, both at home and abroad. During the 1980s, Qaddafi was
one of the world's foremost sponsors of terrorism. After the September
11, 2001 terrorist attacks, some have looked upon Qaddafi as a partner
against al-Qaeda because the LIFG targeted his regime. It is true that
Qaddafi and al-Qaeda are not friends. But I would inject a note of
caution here.
In 2003, Qaddafi successfully hired al-Qaeda terrorists to kill
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. Qaddafi and Abdullah had a televised
shouting match concerning the war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. During
the course of that argument, Abdullah insulted Qaddafi, which the
Libyan dictator did not take lightly. His intelligence operatives
reached out to a contact living in the United States who successfully
brokered a deal with al-Qaeda operatives living in the United Kingdom
to kill Abdullah. Libyan intelligence officers and an al-Qaeda cell
were caught in Saudi Arabia as they planned the operation.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Thomas Joscelyn, ``The Libyan Terrorist: Muammar Qaddafi,''
WeeklyStandard.com, February 24, 2011. http://www.weeklystandard.com/
blogs/libyan-terrorist-muammar-qaddafi_552474.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This example is an important reminder that Qaddafi is willing and
able to use terrorism to punish his perceived enemies. We should expect
nothing less from a dictator who ordered the downing of Pan-Am 103 in
1988.
yemen
Of all the countries currently in turmoil, al-Qaeda is strongest in
Yemen. As Obama administration officials have rightly noted, al-Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is the most dangerous al-Qaeda
affiliate outside of South Asia. The failed Christmas day 2009
terrorist attack and a host of other plots have demonstrated the
group's capability and intent.
In order to counter AQAP's growing threat, America has partnered
with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who came into power in 1978
and has led a united Yemen since 1990. But President Saleh is an uneven
and duplicitous partner in the fight against terrorism.
On the one hand: Saleh's regime provides some valuable intelligence
against al-Qaeda; provides cover for unpopular American airstrikes; and
Yemeni government forces have fought against al-Qaeda operatives. On
the other hand: Saleh refused to take action against Sheikh Abdul
Majeed al Zindani after Zindani was designated an al-Qaeda supporter by
the United States and United Nations in 2004; al-Qaeda operatives have
repeatedly been let out of prison or ``escaped''; Saleh's government
vocally supported the Iraqi insurgency and, at a minimum, looked the
other way as Yemenis went off to fight American forces; and Saleh has
allowed terrorist organizations such as Hamas to operate in the open.
Thus, President Saleh is far from an ideal partner in the fight
against terrorism. And in the nearly 10 years since the September 11
terrorist attacks, al-Qaeda has grown only stronger in Saleh's Yemen,
not weaker.
Regardless, the U.S. Government has partnered with Saleh because it
fears that his replacement may be even worse. This is, in part,
understandable. Jihadist organizations, including al-Qaeda, have
longstanding ties to Yemen's military establishment. For instance,
General Ali Mohsen al Ahmar, who helped bring Saleh to power, backed
Osama bin Laden for years and has been known to use jihadists in the
fight against southern secessionists and Houthi rebels.\5\ If General
al Ahmar, or someone like him, were to come to power, it is likely that
the Yemeni government would be even less helpful. Similarly, if a
member of Yemen's Islamist establishment were to assume Saleh's mantle,
American interests would undoubtedly suffer in the near-term.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ See, for example: John F. Burns, ``Yemen Links to bin Laden
Gnaw at F.B.I. in Cole Inquiry,'' The New York Times, November 26,
2000.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
However, President Saleh's political power has always rested on his
alliances with actors such as General al Ahmar and Sheikh Zindani, who
is one of the heads of Yemen's Islah party, the main opposition party.
As a matter of straightforward logic, Saleh could never be a true
partner against such men, who have extensive terrorist ties, because
they ensured his continued rule. Now that al Ahmar, Zindani, and other
powerbrokers have repudiated Saleh, it remains to be seen what
political capital Saleh has left. It may be the case that Saleh's days
as Yemen's ruler are numbered in any event, in which case the U.S.
Government will find itself scrambling for a new partner.
egypt
President Hosni Mubarak was a partner against al-Qaeda and
affiliated organizations. And the Egyptian military, which continues to
play a large role in defining Egypt's politics, has no interest in
seeing jihadist organizations take over the country. However, American
counterterrorism efforts will likely be complicated should the Muslim
Brotherhood assume a greater share of political power.
Muslim Brotherhood leaders openly advocate jihad, and have endorsed
terrorist violence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hamas, which was designated
a terrorist organization in the mid-1990s, is a branch of the Muslim
Brotherhood. The Brotherhood's founding father, Hassan al Banna, called
on Muslims to embrace what he called the ``Art of Death.'' He believed
that Muslims should love death more than they love life. It is no
surprise, then, that we find Muslim Brotherhood leaders justifying
suicide bombings to this day. And, of course, Hamas regularly employs
suicide bombings as a weapon.
Should the Egyptian military and Muslim Brotherhood enter some sort
of power-sharing arrangement, it will undoubtedly complicate American
counterterrorism efforts.
I look forward to discussing all of these topics, and more, during
the hearing.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Joscelyn.
I would like to turn now to Mr. Brian--is it ``Katulis''?
Is that----
Mr. Katulis. Yes, sir, ``Katulis.''
Mr. Meehan. Thank you. Mr. Brian Katulis, a senior fellow
for the Center for American Progress. Mr. Katulis is a senior
fellow there, where he focuses on United States National
security policy in the Middle East and South Asia. He served as
a consultant to numerous U.S. Government agencies, private
corporations, and nongovernmental organizations on projects in
more than two dozen countries, including Iraq, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, and Colombia.
From 1995 to 1998, Mr. Katulis lived in the West Bank, the
Gaza Strip, and Egypt and worked for the National Democratic
Institute for International Affairs.
Mr. Katulis received a master's degree from Princeton
University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International
Affairs and a B.A. in history in Arab Islamic studies from a
little school in the 7th Congressional District in Pennsylvania
called Villanova, which I would like to note is where I am. Mr.
Katulis was a Fulbright scholar in Jordan, and he co-authored
``The Prosperity Agenda,'' a book on U.S. National security.
We are very grateful to have you here today, Mr. Katulis,
and look forward to you summarizing your testimony.
STATEMENT OF BRIAN KATULIS, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR AMERICAN
PROGRESS
Mr. Katulis. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank you and all of the Members of the committee
for taking the time for this hearing, because I think it is
extremely important for you to do this today, but then to
repeat it again and again, because 3 months into the uprisings
in the Mideast, I see the U.S. Government slipping into a
tactical crisis management emergency mode. I think it is
important to use these hearings to take a step back
periodically, assess the situation strategically, and not get
caught up on each of the individual countries, which I think is
what we are trying to do today.
At the start of this year, I would say that the Middle East
is in the beginning of a transition that I think will take
years and perhaps the rest of this decade to unfold. I
characterized the current uprisings as the start of a strategic
shock akin to what we saw in the 1979 Islamic revolution in
Iran, the 1991 Gulf War, and the start of the 2001 global war
on terror.
Each has had security implications for the Middle East on
the whole, and they have had implications on the fight against
terrorist networks. There are a lot of risks, which I will turn
to.
But the greatest opportunity, which I think there is strong
unanimity here, is that these popular uprisings give us the
chance to help move beyond the autocratic governments that have
permitted terrorist threats to fester alongside endemic
poverty, weak governance, and corruption.
The opportunity here is what I sometimes call as moving
beyond our addiction to dictators. For decades, we have been
addicted to dictators, and it is like our addiction to foreign
oil that a lot of people talk about. We know it is bad for us.
We know we need to move beyond it. We simply haven't yet
figured out how to move beyond it.
I don't want to repeat what other witnesses have said
today, but I think there are four leading terrorist challenges
that we should focus on. People have talked about Yemen, and I
think we need to continue to focus on this day to day, for all
of the reasons that other witnesses have highlighted.
I would also highlight the fact--the worrisome trend in
Yemen for years now of senior figures in the current
government, actually, having ties to the al-Qaeda movement. I
will point to the May 2010 air strike last year that killed a
number of AQAP fighters. It also killed a deputy governor of
the Marib government, Jabir al-Shabwani.
There are also worrisome links between some of the
political parties, Islamist political parties, and terrorist
movements in Yemen, and we need to, I think, discuss that and
probe that more clearly.
I think the second leading threat, which has been discussed
already, are the threats posed by the Libyan civil war, which
is on-going.
The third I would highlight, which we haven't discussed,
but I think is important for the United States and its allies,
are the terrorist threats in states and territories bordering
Israel. The prison breaks in Egypt and in Libya, I think, have
some implications for our ally, Israel, and we are seeing signs
already of possible renewed conflict along Israel's southern
and northern borders driven by not only Hamas and Hezbollah,
but also challenging Islamist groups, Salafi jihadist groups
that are challenging groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and trying
to push them towards more aggressive action.
Finally, we should not forget about Iraq, which had been
the focus for so many years. Just last week, al-Qaeda in Iraq
claimed credit for a horrific attack in Tikrit, which killed
nearly 60 people in the provincial council headquarters.
I outline in my testimony integrated strategies for dealing
with this threat and certain advantages, four key advantages.
No. 1, al-Qaeda to date has been irrelevant in the popular
uprisings and has been left behind. No. 2, there are sharp
divisions between and within the radical and violent Islamist
terrorist groups, and we can discuss that. No. 3, Islamist
political organizations and political parties in particular
that play by the rules of the road could further marginalize
these extremist fringes. The fourth strategic advantage I think
we have in this fight is that key countries, including Jordan,
Saudi Arabia, the emirates and many gulf countries, are in this
fight with us today.
In conclusion--and I think we have a tough policy challenge
ahead. Based on my own experience, living and working in the
Middle East for more than 5 years in the 1990s, one of the key
challenges is having an integrated approach, marrying our
military-to-military and intelligence-to-intelligence
partnerships with efforts to increase better governance,
democratic oversight, and a range of issues that fight
corruption in these societies.
Having that integrated approach requires full funding of
organizations like the State Department and USAID. We can't
move into this fight without them being fully equipped.
Then, second, I think we need to actually learn to live
with political Islam. They will become an increasing voice in
societies that open up. There is a variety and diversity of
views among these groups, and we need to learn to deal with
those that abide by the rules of the democratic game and are
nonviolent.
I will close my testimony here, and I look forward to your
questions. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Katulis follows:]
Prepared Statement of Brian Katulis
Mr. Chairman and Members of the subcommittee: More than 3 months
into the Middle East uprisings, the United States faces dangerous
threats on a daily basis from that region of the world. Fast-moving
events in the Middle East risk pulling our country deeper into the
tactical, reactive, and crisis management mode that has frequently
characterized U.S. foreign policymaking in the Middle East for decades.
That is why it is important to take opportunities like today's
hearing to step back from the daily events and assess the security
implications of the recent changes in the Middle East.
At the start of this year, the Middle East entered a transition
period that will likely take years to unfold. There may not be full
clarity about the full implications of the changes underway until the
latter part of this decade. The changes underway represent the fourth
major strategic shock to the Middle East experienced at a regional
level since 1979--the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, the 1991 Gulf
War, and the 2001 start of the global war on terrorism. Each had their
own ripple effects on the region. But the current uprisings and battles
underway could do more to change the daily lives of people in the
region for the better than those previous events.
A major regional transformation appears inevitable given the
overwhelming economic, political, and social problems many countries in
the region face. The United States has a choice: Attempt to preserve an
unsustainable status quo that started crumbling years ago, or use its
considerable powers to shape outcomes in ways that make Americans safer
while increasing security and prosperity for the people of the Middle
East.
The risks in this transition are considerable--civil wars,
prolonged insurgencies, and new regional wars could open the space for
terrorist networks to operate more freely. In addition, all of the
problems that existed before these uprisings--Iran's nuclear program
and support for terrorism, the unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict, and
Iraq's reintegration into the region--remain major challenges and more
complicated in light of recent events in the region.
But the opportunities in this transition are also great--the
greatest opportunity presented by the popular uprisings is to help key
countries transition from the autocratic governments that permitted
terrorist threats to fester alongside endemic poverty, weak governance,
and corruption towards a more democratic system. The pathway ahead in
the coming months and years is fraught with considerable risks that
should not be downplayed, but standing by the autocratic regimes is no
longer a viable option in many parts of the Middle East.
leading terrorist threats at the start of the middle east's transition
The top threat that the United States faces as a result of the
uprisings and turmoil is the possibility that various terrorist
networks could exploit the political unrest to sow wider chaos in the
region or to plot new terror attacks against the United States or other
U.S. allies. If regional intelligence and law enforcement agencies are
distracted or weakened by internal political fights, this could present
an operational opportunity for terrorist networks.
The United States needs to keep focused on four key fronts in the
coming weeks:
1. Unrest in Yemen.--Prior to the Middle East uprisings, the threat
posed to the United States by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or
AQAP, surpassed threats from al-Qaeda affiliates operating in Pakistan
and Afghanistan. The on-going political instability in Yemen over the
past several months has diverted the Yemeni security establishment's
attention and resources away from the efforts to deal with AQAP.
Following the attempted bombing of a U.S. plane in Detroit in December
2009, the United States more than doubled its military assistance to
Yemen in an effort to help government security agencies to deal with
the increased threats.
At the time of this prepared written testimony, events in Yemen are
very fluid, with a great deal of uncertainty about the likely outcome
of a possible leadership transition in the Yemeni government. The
central challenge facing U.S. policymakers is maintaining and building
counterterrorism and security cooperation with officials in key Yemeni
security agencies while assisting in quiet efforts to help Yemen
develop a roadmap for political and economic reforms that respond to
the people's concerns.
2. Libya's civil war.--A protracted internal conflict in Libya
presents two possible distinct threats to U.S. National security. The
risk that the Qaddafi regime may remain in power and return to global
terrorist attacks as it has in previous decades, and risks associated
with supporting rebel groups that contain terrorist elements. In
previous Middle East civil wars--Iraq last decade, Algeria in the
1990s, and Lebanon in the 1980s--terrorist networks contributed to
prolonged instability that led to the deaths of more than 100,000
people in each of these conflicts. On balance, the violence associated
with these terrorist groups in these past conflicts was focused on
internal battles with these countries, but the instability presented an
opportunity for terror networks to build their operational and
ideological capacities.
3. Terrorist threats in States and territories bordering Israel.--
In the Gaza Strip and Lebanon during the past few weeks, there have
been increased signals that terrorist groups such as the Palestinian
Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah, and more radical Islamist groups may be
preparing for another conflict with Israel. Iran appears to continue
its effort to ship weapons and offer financial support to terrorist
organizations operating along Israel's border.
In addition, recent prison breaks in Egypt and Libya during the
unrest in both countries present an additional terrorism risk--
estimates of the number of terrorist suspects who escaped during the
unrest in both countries range from several hundred to several
thousand. Sami Chehab, a member of the Lebanese Hezbollah who escaped
from an Egyptian prison, is reportedly back in Lebanon--Chehab had been
arrested on suspicions that he was helping supply weapons to militants
in the Gaza Strip. In February, Ayman Nofal, a senior Hamas commander,
escaped from an Egyptian jail and made his way back to the Gaza Strip.
These high-profile escapes may be just the tip of the iceberg of a
larger number of terrorist suspects who are no longer in detention and
may seek to upset a fragile security situation in the region.
4. On-going terrorist threats linked to the turmoil in Iraq.--
Although Iraq has faded from U.S. policy and political debates, the on-
going violence in Iraq as U.S. troops continue to withdraw from the
country represents a fourth threat. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, or AQI, claimed
responsibility for last week's raid and hostage situation that killed
nearly 60 people in the provincial council headquarters in Tikrit--and
this was just the latest in a series of high-profile targeted attacks
by AQI. In addition to the threats AQI poses to stability in Iraq, the
continued threat posed by foreign terrorists who fought in Iraq and
returned to their home countries remains a major challenge for
countries such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Libya.
developing integrated u.s. strategies to deal with terrorist threats at
a time of change in the region
Executing political and economic reforms in this combustible
regional security environment will be no easy task.
The current situation presents four main advantages that will make
the tasks of dealing with these terrorist threats outlined above while
marginalizing radical Islamist groups and advancing pragmatic political
reforms manageable yet still difficult:
1. Al-Qaeda's irrelevance in uprisings.--For nearly the past 20
years, al-Qaeda, or AQ, has tried to build its ideological platform on
two core pillars--tapping into popular discontent with the region's
autocratic and corrupt governments and fomenting anti-American and
anti-Western attitudes. The fact that AQ and its affiliates had
virtually nothing to do with the removal of leaders in places like
Egypt and Tunisia and the widespread calls for political reform has
further weakened its credibility.
Looking ahead, it seems that AQ's popular appeal will remain low
given that most of the protesters in key countries support democratic
political reforms, something that AQ leadership opposes. The most
radical Islamists view democracy as anathema to their agenda, yet the
people of the region widely support democratic political reforms
according to public opinion polls. If al-Qaeda continues to be opposed
to democracy and uses violence to oppose democratic change, they will
likely further marginalize themselves and be viewed as a threat to
newly democratic states in the Middle East as much as they are in the
United States.
2. Sharp divisions within radical and violent Islamist terrorist
groups.--The leading Islamist extremist groups lack a common strategy
and remain sharply at odds with one another over matters of strategy,
tactics, and operations. Although al-Qaeda central and its affiliates
such as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb have worked to enhance their coordination, the movements lack a
common military and political agenda and are facing challenges from
fringe Salafist groups.
3. Islamist political organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood
could further marginalize extremist fringes.--The third opportunity
presented by the political openings in key countries of the Middle East
is that democratic reforms could further lead to internal debates
within more mainstream Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood that
contribute to further marginalizing fringe Islamist groups. Although
the Muslim Brotherhood and groups like al-Qaeda share a common
intellectual and political lineage, the ties between the different
strands of today's Islamists groups have frayed considerably and they
disagree on core foundational principles. For example, Ayman Al-
Zawahiri, AQ's second in command, wrote a book attacking the Muslim
Brotherhood for its willingness to participate in democratic politics.
4. Strategic security and counterterrorism cooperation continues
with key partners in the region and will likely continue in the coming
years.--Despite the additional threats presented by the distractions
and diversion of resources away from counterterrorism efforts in
certain places like Yemen and Egypt, the United States still maintains
strong coordination and partnerships with key countries in the region
and it continues to work with leaders in the security establishments of
most Middle East countries. In particular, bilateral security and
counterterrorism cooperation between the United States and Jordan,
Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and most countries of the Gulf region
remains strong. For decades, the United States has invested resources
and efforts at enhancing coordination, and democratic political
openings won't lead to quick and fast erosions of cooperation with most
countries.
Even as key countries open up to political reforms in the coming
years, it will likely remain in the strategic self-interest of the
countries and people of the region to protect themselves from violent
extremism and terrorism. Countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq,
and Yemen share a common interest with the United States and other
global powers to make sure that radical nonstate actors don't further
undermine stability in their countries and weaken an already fragile
regional security environment.
Weighing these advantages against the risks, the United States
should seek to adapt a new regional security approach that encourages
pragmatic political and economic reforms while working to maintain
security cooperation with existing institutions. In managing its
interests in what is likely to be an extended period of transition, the
United States will need to tailor its approaches to the unique
circumstances of each country and our own security interests involved.
Egypt and Tunisia have not been models for how we deal with Yemen or
Bahrain, nor should they be. Each country has different internal
dynamics and features, and our security interests vary from country to
country. Here are two common principles and approaches that could be
applied across the region and tailored to the circumstances of each
country:
1. Work for political and economic reform within existing
institutional frameworks.--The leaders and people of the region are the
ones who need to shape the reform agendas--and the United States should
prepare to adapt the way it has done business in the region for
decades. The transition in most Middle East countries will likely be
gradual, and so will the changes in U.S. policy. The United States
should leverage its existing relationships--particularly the military-
to-military contacts and the strong ties it has with key countries in
addressing common security challenges like terrorism--to support
efforts to reform in systems so they can address the long list of
problems.
For decades, the United States has made substantial investments in
security sector reform and support in a range of Middle Eastern
countries--Iraq is just one example. It also has had long-standing
programs of security sector support throughout the region, working to
build the capacity of military and intelligence agencies throughout the
Middle East. The challenge now facing the United States is adapting
this decades-long policy approach in the face of future democratic
openings. Instead of attempts at wholesale replacement of institutions
like we saw in Iraq in 2003 with the disbanding of the military, the
United States should develop policies that work to connect security
systems to executive, judicial, and legislative authorities that can
provide oversight and accountability.
By adopting an integrated approach, the United States could help
countries establish stronger foundations for better governance and
anticorruption through governing. Security sector reform can promote
better practices within governing systems--including fair and balanced
oversight from democratic legislative branches and better working
relationships with judicial authorities. This requires developing
incentives to advance reform in implementing the rule of law. This will
also require making investments in other types of U.S. power--
diplomatic, development, and economic efforts--in order to have a more
integrated approach that avoids the ``stovepiping''--U.S. agencies not
coordinating efforts with other U.S. agencies. In essence, the United
States will need to develop a more comprehensive and integrated
approach that links efforts by our military and intelligence agencies
with efforts by the State Department and USAID.
2. Prepare for the role of political Islam to increase in the
Middle East.--Second, the United States will need to learn to live and
deal with political Islam, which is likely to see its influence grow as
societies open up to reform. The recent U.S. experience in Iraq
demonstrates that the United States can learn to work closely with a
range of Islamist political groups to enhance stability and advance
U.S. strategic interests. The leading political parties in the current
Iraqi government are Islamist. During the civil war in Iraq, the U.S.
military and intelligence agencies exploited cleavages among Islamist
groups and used these divisions to reduce the threat of groups like AQI
and make them marginal and tactical threats, as opposed to strategic
threats.
Similarly, in other parts of the Middle East already experiencing
reforms like Egypt or other countries likely to experience political
change such as Jordan, Islamist parties and forces have become better
organized and garnered stronger popular support. The United States
should develop two bright red lines when it comes to offering support
to a country in which Islamist political parties and forces play a role
in the government. First, it should seek guarantees that Islamist
movements would respect a broad range of universal democratic values as
outlined in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. The notion that
Islamism and democracy are fundamentally incompatible is outdated and
needs to be tested as does the idea that Islamism represents an
ideological challenge akin to that of communism during the Cold War.
Seeking to isolate Islamist political parties before they have had a
chance to prove themselves in political systems that are opening would
be counterproductive.
Second, the U.S. Government should maintain its policy of not
working with Islamist groups currently on its foreign terrorist
organization list. It must continue to make a distinction between those
groups that have explicitly renounced violence and groups that have
not. For those that have not renounced violence, it should press
regional allies and other interlocutors to encourage those movements
that espouse violence as a means for bringing about political change to
update their views to reflect universal principles of respecting human
rights and supporting nonviolent means.
conclusion
The popular uprisings of the Middle East have brought the region
across a new threshold, and the changes underway will likely take years
to unfold. The unrest has presented the United States with some new and
pressing terrorist threats but the old way of doing business in the
Middle East is no longer sustainable. America's security need not come
at the cost of supporting dictatorships and authoritarian governments
that are corrupt and do not respect the rights of their people. The
United States can enhance counterterrorism cooperation in the long run
if it works with a wider range of institutions and accepts the reality
that Islamist political groups could be among the most important allies
in marginalizing and defeating Islamist extremists and terrorist
groups.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Katulis.
Since we began, I am very pleased--Mr. Mudd, thank you for
taking the time to make it out to us today. We are very pleased
to have you here today.
Mr. Mudd is a senior research fellow at the New America
Foundation. Mr. Mudd joined the Central Intelligence Agency in
1985 as an analyst specializing in South Asia and then the
Middle East. He began working at the CIA counterterrorism
center in 1992 and served on the National Intelligence Council
and as the deputy national intelligence officer for the Near
East and South Asia. In 2001, Mr. Mudd served as director of
gulf affairs on the White House National Security Council.
After 9/11, he served in Afghanistan and became deputy
director of the CTC from 2003 to 2005. In 2005, Mr. Mudd was
appointed to serve as the first-ever deputy director of the FBI
National Security Branch. Mr. Mudd resigned from Government
service in 2010. He is the recipient of numerous CIA awards and
commendations, including the Director's Award. Mr. Mudd also
graduated from a place in the 7th Congressional District--there
must be some kind of pattern here--called Villanova University,
with a B.A. in English literature and an M.A. in English
literature from the University of Virginia.
So, Mr. Mudd, you are now recognized to summarize your
testimony for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF PHILIP MUDD, SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, NEW AMERICA
FOUNDATION
Mr. Mudd. Thank you for having me, and thanks for being
patient for me getting here. The traffic out there--I wish this
were the Transportation Subcommittee--is horrible.
A couple of thoughts. You can read the testimony if you
would like, but I will give you some thoughts that are maybe in
addition to it.
I remember when I was deputy director of the
counterterrorism program at CIA when we still had our own
facilities and were questioning people like Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed and talking to the interrogators, as I often did. They
talked about people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He is not a
terrorist. That is too small. He is a revolutionary. These guys
were committed and smart and far longer in vision than many of
us Americans are. They looked at the world in terms of decades
and centuries and never anticipated that the revolution they
started would end in their lifetimes.
So as we assess this, I think we have to look at it with a
long view, because these guys are persistent and they will be
around for a while. I don't think their view right now is
terribly positive. I have seen what the North African militants
have said about what is happening in Libya. I have seen what
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has said out of Yemen. They
are supportive of these revolutions publicly. I think they
suffered a significant setback, not just to terrorism, but to
the revolution.
Let me tell you why, and let me close with a few thoughts
on things that I would be thinking about if I were in your hot
seat.
When al-Qaeda set out on September 11 to stoke the
revolution, they intended not just to do everything themselves,
they intended to get other people to act as they acted. We
started to see that after 9/11. Affiliated groups in places
like Indonesia started to attack Western targets in ways that
they had never attacked these targets in the past.
The Indonesian militants had been around for decades. They
had local targets earlier. They wanted to oust the local
government in Jakarta. Al-Qaeda convinced them that the real
problem was the head of the snake. So as al-Qaeda succeeded in
9/11, after 9/11, affiliated groups started to succeed.
Then as I sat at the threat meetings for 4\1/2\ years with
Director Mueller and three attorneys general, I saw the
movement shifting to this country, and it shifted not
necessarily with al-Qaeda core, although we had that problem
there, or with affiliated movements. It also shifted with like-
minded kids, New York, Dallas. We had them here.
So in a way, the revolution was metastasizing, but it
suffered a few setbacks, two in particular. One is they killed
too many innocents. If you look at polling data out of the
Middle East, it is mixed over the past years. Pew does it;
Gallup does it. But polling data shows you that all these
countries that had people who might have said, ``Hooray for al-
Qaeda,'' on September 12, 9\1/2\ years ago started to say,
``No,'' not because they love us, but because al-Qaeda made the
same mistake militants made in Algeria and Egypt in the 1990s.
They killed too many innocents, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan. We
can go on and on.
So the first setback they have suffered--and they are still
reeling from this; I don't believe they will ever recover from
it--is they lost recruiting pools and financiers because they
killed too many innocents.
The second thing they have lost in the last 3 months is the
opportunity to tell recruits that they can be recruited to go
back into a place like Egypt and oppose a corrupt regime.
Pretty tough to do that now, except--and this is significant--
in the gulf sheikdoms. I wonder--this is a bit of an aside--
whether the gulf sheikdoms are going to face more focus from
al-Qaeda, because they are not going to focus obviously on
Tunisia, Egypt, hopefully not on Libya soon.
But they also faced the potential rise in political
groups--Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood--whom they despise. I
know there is a lot of commentary about the Muslim Brotherhood
in this country. If you look at the statements between--
publicly between al-Qaeda leadership and the Muslim
Brotherhood, they hate each other.
So al-Qaeda is sitting here saying, ``We love this. We have
got to be with the people.'' I don't think they have much
option but to say it. What are you supposed to say, if you are
trying to recruit a Libyan kid today?
But I think the dynamic of the loss of popular support
between the killing of innocents and the loss of the prospect
of having and influencing these governments, they are sitting
back saying, ``I don't like this so much.''
A couple of things to worry about. These countries have
endemic economic problems, and too many people out there in
these countries are too optimistic about the prospect that
political reform automatically means jobs. I think that is--
short term, I think we will be okay on terrorism. Yemen is a
significant problem; we ought to come back to that. But North
Africa I think will be okay, because kids now potentially have
a voice and al-Qaeda doesn't.
Mid-term--I am talking 2, 3, 5 years--I am worried some of
these kids are going to say, ``Shoot, this democracy thing
didn't work out so well, either.''
So to close, in your seat, we have got to think about aid
and we have got to think about support for U.S. industry. They
are going to be asking for free trade agreements in an
agreement that is going to make us politically comfortable,
because guaranteed these governments with an Islamist influence
are going to come out saying things like, ``We don't like
Israel.''
So you are going to have a choice. The choice is to say, do
we look long-term and understand the political processes lead
to--people we don't like? Because we have got to create
economic environments where these kids don't become a
recruiting pool again.
We have made terrific progress in the last 10 years. This
organization, this revolutionary movement is slowly dying out
in a way when I was deputy director of counterterrorism I
didn't think was happening. It is today. Let's not lose it.
[The statement of Mr. Mudd follows:]
Prepared Statement of Philip Mudd
6 April 2011
The threat from North Africa and the broader Middle East has
evolved profoundly during the past 20 years, with multiple stages of
violence over decades that illustrate how susceptible this region has
been to unrest and the call of violent jihadists, including al-Qaeda.
The series of events include:
The concentration of North African extremists who went to
Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight the Soviets, and then the
Soviet-backed Afghan regime, and who absorbed al-Qaeda ideology
during their time there;
The return of these extremists to fuel anti-government
violence, particularly in Algeria and Egypt, during the 19909s,
with a parallel rise in networks that attacked in Western
Europe, particularly France;
The migration of extremists from North Africa to Iraq, where
jihadists of North African origin were overrepresented among
foreign fighters;
The shift of local North African groups from local
motivations and linkages to affiliation with al-Qaeda, and its
focus on Western targets, during the past decade; and
The prospect that the extremists who come from this highly
violent history will find a way to use the more recent unrest
as a springboard to regain momentum they have lost during the
past few years.
With this backdrop, there is no disputing that North Africa has
been one of the hotbeds of violent jihad, but experts differ over
whether the recent unrest will offer jihadists an opportunity or a
setback. In general, I would judge that these developments are a net
negative for al-Qaeda and other jihadists who view the United States
and its allies as legitimate targets for attack. To start, some of the
key justifications for recruits to turn to an al-Qaedist message have
disappeared: Leaders viewed as un-Islamic and corrupt are gone, and
Islamists will have some sway within new governments. Youth who
previously looked at bleak prospects and unresponsive regimes might see
a reason to participate in this new change, and violent extremists
would have little sympathy now in attacks that local populations would
see as an assault on their revolutions.
Al-Qaeda and its affiliates have come out publicly in support of
these rebellious populations, but there is little doubt that they are
uncomfortable with these changes. First, they have a history of well-
documented animosity toward the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots,
such as Hamas, and the Brotherhood most likely will have significant
influence in elections and new governments. Second, al-Qaeda is no fan
of democracy. The statements of support are simply signs that the
leadership of the last few decades of violent jihad cannot be seen as
opposing what are so clearly popular revolutions. So they will pretend
to ally with the will of the people, and bide their time.
This is not to say that violence will subside. The disarray among
security services might provide an opening for a spike in criminal
activity. And the history of elections in the Middle East--Algeria,
Iraq, and Lebanon--is rife with examples of political parties defined
by religion and ethnicity. Similar fissures in the new, hopeful
democracies may lead to the same, almost guaranteeing political
violence.
Over the longer term, economics will help decide whether these
countries provide opportunities resulting in growth and job creation
that might mitigate the threat of restive youth. For now, the picture
is not good: Investment will slow with the unrest, and this slowdown
might accelerate if foreign investors shy away longer term as a result
of the uncertain climate. In general, these countries have high youth
unemployment, low GDP growth rates, and large percentages of their
populations under the age of 15. These youth probably see democracy as
a rapid route to economic reform, and they may have mistaken
expectations that new governments can quickly spark economic growth. If
they are disappointed--and particularly if new governments are seen as
corrupt--they may again be vulnerable to calls from extremists who will
target the United States.
Western actions might influence whether these violent extremists
can ever take advantage of what emerges from these revolutions. New
governments will see continuation of foreign aid as a sign that the
United States respects the will of voters, even as it questions the
ultimate aims of some Islamists. Meanwhile, in their push for rapid job
creation, new governments will look for trade benefits from Washington,
again as a way to placate populations who see democracy as a panacea
for profound economic problems.
We may well witness statements from some of these Islamists--during
an Egyptian electoral process--that make us uncomfortable, such as
questions about peace agreements with Israel. The emerging local, non-
al-Qaeda Islamists are unlikely, however, to contribute to the jihadist
threat to the United States, at least in the short term. They are going
to have to deliver at home, and quickly, on the expectations of youth.
They abhor al-Qaeda, and they will not countenance al-Qaeda statements
of support. And, as is the case with many parties when they take power,
they will immediately face practical questions--such as ensuring that
they can attract foreign investment--that prod them toward pragmatism.
Unrest in the Gulf has different dimensions. The Gulf leaders have
more legitimacy than the presidents-for-life in countries such as
Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, and they have economic
advantages as well. They are not immune to the wave of unrest--Bahrain
is the prime example, but Morocco, Oman, and others have also witnessed
protests--but these protests often call for reform, not revolution.
This is not to say that this year's picture is the same as next
year's. These countries too have an unusually high percentage of
teenagers, and these youth, like their counterparts elsewhere, are not
finding jobs they think are suitable to their degrees. Over time, job
creation, foreign investment, and diversification may be as important
in the Gulf as in the countries that have already gone through revolts.
For now, though, the characterization of an ``Arab Spring'' across the
Middle East is misleading: This unrest is far more focused on autocrats
than on monarchs. In addition to providing opportunities, some of the
future will hinge as well on how governments react to violence: The
Moroccan king's subtle approach has worked well, but in other areas,
the quick resort to force by security services has alienated
protesters. If there are more protests, one key indicator of their
longevity will be not only the legitimacy of their demands but the
question of whether the Moroccan approach becomes the norm.
Our time horizons are shorter than those of al-Qaeda and its
affiliates. They think of time in terms of decades and centuries, while
we tend to look at weeks, months, or a few years as significant. Our
annual threat assessments in this country during the past decade, for
example, have at times characterized al-Qaeda as resurgent or on the
ropes, rapid turnarounds in assessment that mask how the group views
itself. A few years' pressure is not a lifetime, and the jihadists we
face are both smart and resilient. So while we watch the emergence of
new democracies, and inevitably turn our attention elsewhere--a new
nuclear crisis, humanitarian disasters, debates on immigration, health
care reform--we can bet that our adversaries are waiting to see if they
can seize an advantage.
If we are to match the patience of jihadists, then, our reaction to
this upheaval in the Middle East will require patience, and the art of
the long view: Supporting nascent democracies but then recoiling when
elections result in political posturing that makes us uncomfortable
will risk losing an opportunity with the new democrats. And withdrawing
economic support might accelerate a decline that will persuade possible
jihadists to lose hope. As it stands, al-Qaeda is off-guard: So far, so
good. But ``so far'' is just a few months at most: Years of engagement,
patience, and a willingness to understand that our form of democracy is
not universally viewed as successful will help us ensure that, years
from now, we still see these revolutions as having a positive effect on
mitigating threat to the U.S. homeland.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Mudd.
Thank you to each of the Members of the panel for your
testimony. So at this moment, I will recognize myself for 5
minutes of questioning.
I am sort of encouraged by the approach that each of you
has taken and the recognition that we need to monitor this in
the immediate, but look simultaneously in the long term.
But one of the challenges that we have--particularly
sitting on a committee like this--that this isn't foreign
affairs. This is in intelligence. We are looking at the impacts
on our homeland.
One of the concerns that I think we all share is trying to
interpret this changing environment, not just in one place, but
in multiple locations, and then try to project back how it will
have an impact on us.
Mr. Mudd, you know, in your written testimony, you--in your
comment right now--you talked about al-Qaeda is off-guard. You
know, it is not doing so good. That was sort of an encouraging
observation. But we also know that al-Qaeda likes to--in the
words of one of the panelists--it will navigate to areas where
there is a vacuum.
So we know there are vacuums in many of these locations. My
question for you is, as we are looking at the long-term
picture, we simultaneously have to deal with--you know, the
increasing threat to our security. May we may be concerned--and
what ought we be watching for as these events change to see if
we are doing the right things to protect ourselves from acts of
terrorism?
Mr. Mudd. I think there are a couple things that I would
look at if I were you. I can tell you, I will be looking at
myself, and a lot of these you can find in the open source. The
first is what the popular attitudes are towards the new
governments in these countries and whether people believe they
are being given jobs, which I think is the bottom line here.
Some 23-year-old with three kids who has got a college degree
and no job, that is a problem.
The second is their perceptions of us. As you know, they
view us now--or they viewed us in the past as the head of the
snake. You have got kids from the--from the LIFG, the Libyan
group now, saying, well, maybe these guys aren't so bad,
because they went and bombed Gadhafi. I think that is a short-
term issue if they don't see us as continuing to invest,
assuming they take over Tripoli. So it is attitudes toward
their own governments, economic performance, in light of huge
population change.
Mubarak comes in 30 years ago. In 1980, Egypt had 42
million--roughly 42 million citizens. In 2000, 30 years later,
85 million. A lot of people earn less than $2 a day.
So we can talk about al-Qaeda ideology, but a lot of what
my friends in the security business say is, increasingly kids
who are joining these movements aren't ideologues. They are
angry kids who don't feel like they have an opportunity.
So economic performance is--a couple minor things, not
minor, but more tactical. You look at problems that I saw when
I was at CIA in terms of al-Qaeda and its affiliates can
operate in, you have got two characteristics. One is safe
haven, that is, places governments can't go, and one--and the
second is where you have some Islamist influence, Sahel, Horn
of Africa, in the past, you had places maybe like southern
Indonesia, southern Philippines. Yemen has that prospect with a
group that has shown itself willing and capable of reaching the
United States.
So I think that is the most intriguing place to watch. I am
not sure al-Qaeda will do well there, for reasons we can talk
about--I won't go on too long.
The final thing I would watch out for is remembering that
Europe is visa waiver territory. The European countries have a
much greater presence of people from--emigrants from the
countries that we are concerned about in North Africa, in
particular, I am talking about partly Libya, but also Tunisia,
if you go into Italy, Morocco, and Algeria, if you go into
France.
If we go ugly, over the course of the next 1, 2, 3 years in
North Africa, I would be concerned in working with my European
security services to say, is anybody going to catch a flight
from Paris to the United States, a Moroccan or Algerian,
because he is ticked off about what the United States just did
in Algiers?
Mr. Meehan. Thank you.
Mr. Nelson, in your testimony, you had talked a little bit
about al-Qaeda being a marginal movement, sort of similar to
what Mr. Mudd said right now, but in some ways, might that
inability to affect things directly within their own country
make them in some ways a greater threat to us in the form of
their desire to find a way to be relevant by acting out and
carrying out acts against the United States and its interests?
Mr. Nelson. Thank you, Chairman, for the question.
Absolutely. Again, and that is where they thrive. Al-Qaeda
thrives in the margins. They thrive, as Phil said, in these
safe havens. I think this is the chaos which they are going to
try to exploit.
One of the many things that are problematic with safe
havens is the idea of training, as well. Phil mentioned the
visa waiver countries. One of the reasons that al-Qaeda has not
been successful in its affiliates in attacking the United
States have been, you know, tactical ineptitude, the inability
to execute operations effectively.
With a safe haven where they can get training and conduct
operations and become more tactically proficient, we could see
a greater threat in the United States, with more successful
attacks, if those training grounds are allowed to manifest in
these countries.
Mr. Mudd. If I could correct the record, I didn't say
marginal. I said they are hurt. I think these guys are still--I
believe--and if I had to bet in Vegas, I would say there will
be an attack in this country. I don't think it will be al-
Qaeda; I think it will be some kid inspired by al-Qaeda. But
they are not down. They are just hurt.
Mr. Meehan. Well, thank you for that clarification.
Let me just--before I move to Ms. Speier, I would like to
ask unanimous consent that the gentlelady from Texas, Ms.
Jackson Lee, a Member of the full committee, we are very
pleased that she has joined us today and that she be allowed to
sit in the dais for the purpose of this hearing. Without
objection, so ordered.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Ms. Jackson Lee, I appreciate your
being here.
At this point, let me turn it over to Ms. Speier for her
questions.
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Stunning testimony from all of you. I am trying to
synthesize it all, so I am going to ask a series of short
questions and ask you each to confirm or deny what I have heard
from you.
I think it was Mr. Katulis who referenced that al-Qaeda is
really irrelevant at this point. Is that a fair comment about
something----
Mr. Katulis. Yes, I would say ideologically they are
irrelevant, they are on the ropes, yes.
Ms. Speier. Okay. Is that something that is agreed to by
all of you?
Mr. Mudd. No.
Ms. Speier. Okay.
Mr. Joscelyn.
Mr. Joscelyn. No, although I understand where Mr. Katulis
is coming from, and I agree that they are not the prime mover
behind the revolutions. They are not the prime actor that
started this off. However, they are relevant. They do have
cards to play in this, and that is what I am concerned about.
Ms. Speier. Mr. Nelson.
Mr. Nelson. That is correct. The al-Qaeda ideology is still
very toxic and still very much a threat.
Ms. Speier. The reference made to--excuse me--living with
political Islam was kind of a startling thought that I hadn't
really considered before. I think that was you, Mr. Mudd, who
made that statement?
Mr. Katulis. It was me.
Ms. Speier. That was you, Mr. Katulis, okay. How do the
rest of you feel about that?
Mr. Mudd. I would just say sort of. We are going into
elections. If you look at polling data again--and I try to draw
as much as I can from facts as opposed to supposition--in many
of these countries, polling data will tell you that more than
90 percent of the population supports a significant role of
religion in government.
So my point would be not just that we have to handle
political Islam--I think that is right--we have to handle who
people elect. In the Gaza Strip, they are going to elect Hamas.
We didn't like that too much. Now expand that to Libya,
Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere. They are going to elect people
we don't like.
Ms. Speier. Mr. Joscelyn.
Mr. Joscelyn. Yes, I would say that that is--political
Islam encompasses a number of different belief systems within
it. I would say that there--if you are talking about the hard-
line Islamists who, you know, have an extremist ideology, then
I would say, we should be very uncomfortable in some of these
areas if political Islam comes to rule.
There are, you know, differences from country to country.
It gets very complicated, unfortunately. But I will give you
one quick example.
The Obama administration's ambassador to Yemen, Mr.
Feierstein, recently said, you know, that one of the concerns
that he had would be if somebody like Sheikh Zindani, Abd Majid
Zindani, who is a very prominent sheikh in Yemen, were to come
to power somehow through the process. He said, correctly I
would say, that the Obama administration would have a problem
with that. That is an area where that would be ``political
Islam'' coming to power, which would be very problematic.
Ms. Speier. Mr. Nelson.
Mr. Nelson. It is the old adage, ``Be careful what you ask
for, you just might get it.'' If we want democracy, then we
have to let the countries vote the people they want into power.
You can use the Turkey example from 2003, a democratic
Turkey. The parliament voted not allow U.S. forces through
Turkey into northern Iraq. We didn't like that answer at the
time for the purposes, but that is what the democracy decided.
So going forward, if you want democracy, which I believe is
the key to stability over the long term in these nations, in
the near term, it might be slightly more dangerous than we
would like it to be.
Ms. Speier. We have spent billions and billions of dollars
in that region supporting dictators. With the internet and the
ability to access information, I worry that you have got a very
youthful population looking at us and thinking that we have
unclean hands.
So a number of you have spoken about economic aid. How do
you think we should fashion aid that will actually get to the
people that will generate the jobs that will then create the
kind of environment that a democracy would flourish in?
Mr. Katulis. First, if I could start, I would start with
trade and economic development through the private sector,
because I think we have done a lot of assistance to the Middle
East and to some of the most impoverished countries. We are not
very good at it, at this stage. I think the things that create
jobs, I have noticed, in places from Pakistan all the way to
Morocco, have been when the private sector can flourish.
I think aid should be viewed as a bridge to helping these
societies stand on their own, deal with the immediate crises.
But if it is not viewed--if it is viewed as something more than
a bridge, then we have got a problem. We will potentially
perpetuate the cycles that we have lived through for the last
30 or 40 years. So it has to be an integrated approach.
If I could clarify, on the political Islam point, my point
is this, is that as these societies open up--and I have seen
this in my work on democracy promotion throughout the Middle
East in the 1990s--you will have more parties that will
participate that have an Islamist flavor.
The notion that we can simply select and hand-pick secular
democratic opposition is foolish, because Islam informs a lot
of the political culture and, in fact, some of our best allies
in the fight against terrorists have been rather Islamic.
If you look at Turkey, if you look at Saudi Arabia, it is a
country that is ruled by the Koran, and it has had different
problems with terrorism, but to this day, I think most people
would agree that on most issues, the United States and Saudi
Arabia have been working closely on counterterrorism--it is not
perfect--but they are a key ally.
But back to your aid question. I think it is essential that
we invest more in helping these societies stand on their own,
but it needs to be connected to a long-term strategy that
involves the free market and creating jobs that way.
Ms. Speier. My time is up, but if you have some quick
response, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Joscelyn. Well. I would just say in Yemen, which I
think you have highlighted very appropriately, is this great
case where a lot of our aid has been tied to counterterrorism.
We have seen that counterterrorism aid misused.
Yemen is a country--it is a Kalashnikov country, where
there are two to three guns for every man, woman, and child.
You know, the average person earns $1 to $2 a day. They are
running out of water. They are running out of oil. This is one
of the most dire situations on the planet, I would say.
The idea that you can just throw some money around for
counterterrorism and ignore the greater long-term picture of
what is going on there, I think, is foolish. That is basically
what we are dealing with right now in Yemen.
Keep this in mind, that President Saleh is growing more and
more unpopular. As a friend of mine who lives in Yemen says,
for the United States of America, President Saleh is the face
of America in Yemen. So as all the problems are blamed on
President Saleh for what is going on there, they see that we
have not proposed anything in the longer term to really sort of
address the real concerns that the average Yemeni has. That, I
think is a big problem.
That is where al-Qaeda and affiliated ideological groups
can take advantage of the situation to basically say that
America doesn't stand for anything beyond just these narrow
interests of Saleh.
Mr. Nelson. If I could, Ranking Member, one thing that is
important, look at the comparison between Egypt and Yemen and
Libya. We have invested hundreds of millions--billions of
dollars in Egypt. We are seeing a return on that investment
now, in that Egypt is relatively stable. We have an army that
is maintaining stability. We are seeing that return on
investment.
Where we haven't invested, in Yemen and Libya, we are not
seeing a return on investment. We haven't, but we are seeing
very unstable areas.
Mr. Mudd. A couple comments. I think the comment about
trade is dead-on. If I were you, I would be thinking about aid
in terms of trade policy. How do you allow people to export
clothes to the United States, for example?
The second--I am not a huge believer in aiding a country
that has 85 million people, but if you are going to provide
aid, let me be blunt, since I am out of government. A lot of
the people who most effectively deliver services in these
societies are Islamists. They deliver better medicine and
better health care, better food sometimes, better emergency
response.
So one of the things I would be thinking about is, they are
very efficient and they don't want to waste money. It is going
to make people uncomfortable. I talk to them. So, you know,
like I say, but the kind of aid you are talking about with the
population sizes here, I think the much more significant issue
is jobs, and you are not going to get jobs from aid.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you. The Chairman now recognizes the
gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Cravaack.
Mr. Cravaack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for the panel. This has been a very insightful
conversation, and I thank you very much.
Mr. Nelson, being a fellow rotor head, if you don't mind, I
will pick on you first and pick your brain a little bit. You
are the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. How do you
advise the President right now in the current situation with
Libya in how we are to engage?
Mr. Nelson. I won't be so bold as to put myself in that
position, as I retired as a commander, but--and I don't have
all the operational intelligence to make that. But I would say
what we need to do right now is we need to--the international
community, not just the United States, needs to buy time in
order to determine what exactly is transpiring on the ground.
We need to understand who these rebel forces are before we
commit resources further than what we already have.
I guess we also have to make sure that there is not a
humanitarian disaster, like a massacre or something like that,
as well. So I think that the no-fly zone, I think some of the
limited activities that have been mentioned in the media, to
give us that--what is important.
Mr. Cravaack. After analyzing that data, would you
recommend a boots-on-the-ground strategy?
Mr. Nelson. Absolutely not. I think that we have--what the
last 10 years have shown us is that a large-scale military
intervention regarding counterterrorism is not a politically
feasible option or an economically feasible option these days.
Mr. Cravaack. Okay. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Mudd, that was a very insightful testimony. Thank you
very much, really practical, down to Earth----
Mr. Mudd. You made my day. My dad is watching.
Mr. Cravaack [continuing]. Common sense. I am on T&I
Committee, so I will take your mention for action here.
One of the things that--the complexity of this problem is
just overwhelming to me. So when it starts getting into the
weeds, such as it is, I like to take a look at a 30,000-foot
level and kind of look down. You kind of expanded on it.
If you are the Secretary--and I know we are usurping
privileges here--but if you are the Secretary of State, how
would advise the President right now in dealing with the
complexity of this region, rather than the individual
countries?
Mr. Mudd. I would say we have to engage. We have to make
choices about who we are as a country. There are American
values issues here at stake. The value is--and this comes
partly as an American citizen, but partly as a counterterrorism
professional. I don't want any more environments where kids are
vulnerable to recruitment.
So they are going to speak with a voice. First, we have to
give them support to do that when they are in environments they
are going to vote for people we don't like. Once they vote for
people that we don't like, we are going to have to bite the
bullet and say, look, we support elections. Sometimes that
leads to discomfort. Pick your choice. If it is an autocrat who
provides security versus a democrat who provides an election,
pick your choice.
The last thing I would say is, we have got to engage
economically with people we don't like. So squeeze them with
that money, but nonetheless talk to them.
Mr. Cravaack. Do you think those lines of communications
will remain open? Or do you think it will be such a situation
like in Iran? That is what I am afraid of.
Mr. Mudd. No, I don't think so. I mean, I think the
revolutionary government in 1979 is different than the kinds of
people you are looking at in North Africa. Let's not forget:
They need investment badly. I mean, I spend part of my new
professional career as a private citizen talking to companies
that invest out there. They are all nervous.
So that, on the one hand, you are talking about already--
look at Egypt--a decline in investment and a decline in
economic performance, when you have people coming to power who
are going to be elected to provide jobs. So what are those
people coming to power going to say? They are going to say,
``We need investment.'' Even if they are just uncomfortable
with us sometimes, they need us.
Mr. Cravaack. That kind of dovetails on my next point. We
all know that a revolution has passion and has focus, but it is
the mundane-ness of peace that is tough to keep. What you said,
Dr. Katulis--if I pronounced it correctly--one of the things
I--you made a, Ms. Speier said, a startling statement in
regards to that we must start to consider political Islam.
I have a question how you define political Islam. Do you
consider it Sharia law as political Islam? If so, how would
that--that is a theocracy. It is really not any type of
democracy that I know of. How would that dovetail with the
democracies of the United States?
Mr. Katulis. Sharia law, no, if it means the repression of
religious minorities, of women. In my testimony, my written
testimony, I was very clear that there should be two bright,
red lines. No. 1, any political Islamist movement that respects
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the full range of
political rights and civil liberties that you and I enjoy in
this country, and, No. 2, non-violence, strict adherence to
non-violence.
You have many of these Islamist groups in countries like
Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and the vast majority I think of
the Muslim world, you have these actors. What I would hesitate
to do is lump all of these trends together, which I think we
did a couple of years into the global war on terror, and I
actually think it was counterproductive, because some of our
best allies in defeating the radical Salafists, the ones who
turn to violence, will be those who are battling this in the
Islamic world, and some of those will be Islamist parties.
Mr. Cravaack. Just a real quick yes-or-no, does the Muslim
Brotherhood embrace those democratic values?
Mr. Katulis. It depends on who you are talking to. It
really does. If I could--because you can't answer it as a yes-
or-no.
Mr. Cravaack. Okay.
Mr. Katulis. The Muslim Brotherhood is a diverse
organization that spreads not only from Egypt to Tunisia, but
in places like Jordan. I met with some of the leadership a
couple of weeks ago in Doha, Qatar, and what struck me is that
they are out of touch with their own base and out of touch with
this new generation that could care less--this is my own
impression--about some of their harangues of Israel and their
statements about Sharia law.
You have a new generation of Islamists potentially who
represent demographically the majority of the populations in
these countries. We don't know enough about these people who
were involved in the Facebook revolutions. Many of them are
Islamists and they don't like the old-line Muslim Brotherhood.
So why I won't say yes or no is that I think all of these
organizations, like all political organizations, are dynamic
and are open to the possibilities of change. My view is, the
more our nongovernmental organizations, the more, you know,
groups like the National Democratic Institute, the
International Republican Institute are able to engage them, you
know, in unofficial contact, but to shape their agendas and
push them to become more democratic, the better off we will be
and these societies will be.
Mr. Cravaack. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Cravaack.
The Chairman now recognizes the gentlelady from Texas, Ms.
Jackson Lee.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, let me thank you again for
your courtesy. I, too, want to add my appreciation for this
hearing, along with the Ranking Member. I am just excited about
your partnership with Ranking Member Speier. This is a very
important committee.
I am in between the Judiciary Committee, and I want to
thank the witnesses, as well, and just begin on a note that
reflects some of the testimony that I was able to hear. I
simply want to say that I have had the privilege--I co-chair
the Algerian Caucus and have the privilege of being in most of
the Mideast countries that have been mentioned or engaged in
the revolution that we now see, just came back from Israel and
was, frankly, in Israel the day of the bus bombing that was the
first bombing of that kind for about 7 years, although they are
repeatedly receiving rocket fire now more than they have ever
done before. So we live in different times.
I happen to believe that there is something to this whole
issue of engagement and negotiation. I want to raise my
questions around that, particularly as it relates to Yemen and
particularly as it relates to Libya.
Egypt, for example, I think turned out differently for the
very reason of their connectedness to the United States and,
more importantly, when Mubarak had a chance to reflect this
constant interaction with the West, training of his children in
the West, had to have some impact on, do I really want to end
this way? And he left. He made one commitment, is he didn't
want to leave the country, and I understand that he is
protected by the military, but he is on Egyptian soil. And we
wish for them the best, but there will have to be a lot of
investment in Egypt, as well, as they reconstruct their
government.
Yemen, I walked the streets of Yemen and have seen the
throngs of unemployed young men who are boxed in on the border
by Saudi Arabia, who will not allow them to cross anymore. The
economy is in shambles, and they spend their time smoking khat.
And I think that it is important that we try to understand the
culture, because culture impacts, if you will, the National
security of the United States and how we negotiate.
So I would ask these questions, first, on Libya. Do we--I
supported, as a progressive, if I might say, the cease-fire on
humanitarian grounds. When I say the cease-fire, the no-fly
zone. The question is: Do we have something to negotiate with
now?
Former Congressman Curt Weldon is in Libya as we speak. The
Libyan government, Gadhafi was secular. Do we have the ability
to have any level of negotiation? Will that be a value to us?
I do think al-Qaeda has life. I think terrorism is
franchised, and I don't think you need thousands to do damage.
You can have one person who is either inspired or either
calling themselves al-Qaeda.
So let me start with you, Mr. Mudd. Negotiations with
Gadhafi or his agents at this present state, is there any
value? Does that have an impact on National security in the
United States?
Mr. Mudd. Yes, it does. I can't see a future with Gadhafi.
We don't like to talk about regime change because it goes back
to Iraq, but that is what we are up against. There is no way we
are going to be sitting around in 2 years saying, ``Well, we
negotiated a cease-fire, and the long-term solution is
Gadhafi.''
So if negotiation is to get him out of there, I think that
is fine. If it is about continuation in power, I would say,
heck no.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me just--can I get quick answers like
that? Because my time is running.
Mr. Katulis. I agree.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Okay.
Mr. Joscelyn. Yes, no, I am in total agreement with that. I
would also add that, in terms of negotiation, which I think you
have rightly pointed out is very important, we should reach out
to the Transitional National Council and the members there.
Part of the point is, you talked about al-Qaeda having life in
Libya and elsewhere. Part of the reason why we need to do that
is work with the parties that are not al-Qaeda in order to
bolster their hands in Libya and elsewhere.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Sir.
Mr. Nelson. Yes, I agree with Phil, just ensure that it is
international involvement.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Right. My point to the negotiations is,
the negotiations can result in departure, but there needs to
be--let's get in here and get this dialogue going so that we
can reason our way out on either departure from government,
allowed to stay somewhere. We understand aging despots who may
want to be in the country.
So I do think we have to find an endgame. I think that
impacts our National security.
Let me go straight to Yemen. I think it was you, Mr.
Joscelyn, who mentioned--or someone mentioned the ugly face of
the present leadership of Yemen, and that being in the United
States. I truly agree.
But there is a point about the idea of investing in a
country and doing something constructive, meaning creating
jobs, providing medical care. Are those elements of a face that
provides us with an opportunity to improve our plight as it
relates to our National security?
Let me ask a follow-up question that is quite as strange.
We have a gentleman who has the rights under the First
Amendment who considers it his challenge and duty to burn the
Koran. One of the ideas would be to completely ignore him, and
most people were ignoring him and going about their daily
business. It is difficult to ignore when you have the murder of
seven U.N. officials, innocent officials, and mass confusion in
Afghanistan.
What do actions like that, in the face of our First
Amendment rights--and as a lawyer, I know the Supreme Court
decision that says you can't holler ``Fire'' in a crowded
theater--I, frankly, believe statements are important about
whether or not we value or accept the actions on that side of
it.
But what do those kind of actions do, as well, as we are
trying to haul in a new image, but also haul in all these
revolutions to make them at least geared toward the cultural
democracy that would be best for them?
Let me start at this end, which I think is--it is not in
order, and I cannot see. Mr. Nelson, I am sorry.
Mr. Nelson. Okay. Thank you very much for the opportunity
to respond.
As far as Yemen is concerned, it is important that they get
a democratically elected government in place, that the people
have to get ownership of their country back. The country has to
go back to the point where they could have some semblance of
stable government that goes out beyond the city of Sana'a.
With that said, the solution in Yemen is going to be
international, and particularly at GCC, a Gulf Coast there,
Arabian Peninsula problem, where they need to continue to be
encouraged to invest. Saudi Arabia gives $2 billion about a
year and the UAE $1 billion. That is the kind of investment it
is going to take over the long term to ensure that we can solve
or at least help address some of the economic problems that
drive this instability in Yemen.
Again, as we see, when we don't invest in a country, the
international community and the United States, we get
instability. When we invest, we get stability.
As per your second question, the Koran burnings are just
not helpful. I am not a lawyer, so I can't, you know, just, you
know, comment on the legality of it. I just think, again, as an
American perspective, it is just not helpful.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Not helpful.
Mr. Nelson. It is not helpful at all, and it drives--it
plays right into al-Qaeda's narrative. Al-Qaeda needs the
narrative that the United States and the West are at war with
Islam to survive, and every time a Koran is burned or something
like that happens, we play into their narratives and we help
al-Qaeda's message.
Thank you.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Can anybody just be quick? I thank the
Chairman for his indulgence.
Mr. Meehan. Yes, from the Chair, let me say, I think we are
fortunate to have your opportunity here, and I would--I am
pleased to indulge the gentlelady from Texas the time to allow
you to elaborate on her question.
Ms. Jackson Lee. You are very kind, Mr. Chairman, very
kind. Thank you.
Mr. Joscelyn. Let me just say, with respect to Yemen, you
know, one of the issues that was brought up was trade and
encouraging trade. The problem I have there--and I totally
agree that we need to encourage free trade amongst all these
countries and engage in trade with them--the problem I have
with Yemen, which is what makes it such a dire situation, is I
am not sure what Yemen's going to trade. You know, I mean, this
is a nation that is really bankrupt in every way you can
imagine.
So--and there are problems, obviously, we know with dumping
aid into Yemen or any country. There are all sorts of issues.
But we have to do it in order to try and build something there
that is beyond what we have today.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Okay.
Mr. Joscelyn. With respect to the Koran burning incident,
obviously, this is not helpful. You know, basically a nut job
pastor in Florida has, you know, set off an international
controversy.
You know, the idea there is, as he can exercise his First
Amendment right to do that, I think we can exercise our First
Amendment right to condemn him, you know, for doing that.
But by the same token, I would highlight one thing real
quick. Notice how our enemies were able to take this incident--
--
Ms. Jackson Lee. Right.
Mr. Joscelyn [continuing]. Which was by one guy who does
not represent any sizable percentage of the American population
and seize on that to justify mass murder. I think that is
something in the communications war and the propaganda war that
really has to be highlighted here. They were able to take this
guy, who doesn't represent anybody, you know, besides himself
and a few, you know, whatever in Florida, and, you know,
basically turn that into a justification for mass murder.
Mr. Katulis. Really quickly on the jobs and economic
development, the one point I would like to stress is the need
to have an integrated political and economic reform approach.
In many countries I have worked, like Egypt, Pakistan, and
other places, these are stovepiped in the U.S. Government and
we kind of look at economic reform in one box and then
political reform, largely tied to an electoral calendar, and
the election in another box.
Forcing the agencies--and I know this is not the purview of
this committee, but I know you, ma'am, also focused on this in
Pakistan and other places--really having an integrated
approach, because oftentimes we don't look at how our economic
assistance might benefit certain structures and centers of
power and how that relates to the possibilities for political
reform of their democratic system.
That is a hard thing to do. We have never gotten it right.
But where I first started in the Palestinian territories, in
that small microcosm, I saw what I call our addiction to
dictators. Yasser Arafat, we shoveled cash to him and his
security services while there was a democratic opening, with
the legislative council, and we were never really able to bring
the two together in an integrated way.
I don't want to speak too much on this fool who burned the
Koran, but I would say it is notable that the most and sharpest
reactions come in the places where you have weak and failing
states, where there is this sense of a lack of strong national
identity. We have seen this repeatedly in Afghanistan. It is
astounding to me that nearly 10 years into Afghanistan, we
still, after the hundreds of billions of dollars we have poured
into there, we don't have state structures that are existent in
there to help deal with these lawless areas, which I think
relate to people's sense of who they are.
When they see an incident like this, I think we have seen
this in our own political culture, where the radical fringes
play off each other. I agree with what Thomas has said here, is
that we need to actually condemn it as strongly in as possible
terms.
Mr. Mudd. Quick thoughts on the Florida thing. I hate to
even talk about it, but----
Ms. Jackson Lee. I agree.
Mr. Mudd [continuing]. I think that is--to me, as a non-
lawyer, it is a question of incitement and whether the law
covers incitement. Free speech I believe in. Doing things that
purposely lead to the killing of innocents, not so good.
Second, on Yemen, there has been enough said about
economics, but I agree with. A quick political comment that we
haven't made, that country was divided until relatively
recently and faced multiple international security challenges.
I am not an expert on Yemeni tribes here, but I would be
thinking about ensuring, if we go down the road as we are of
ousting him and going to elections, of ensuring that we think
about what happened in Sudan, because I have got to believe
there are people who are going to be saying we don't want to
live together anymore and how do we deal with that?
Last, since I have the mike for a moment, somebody was
asking earlier about things we could do and things this
committee might do. For all these places that are
transitioning, it is a small issue, but in my view significant
for the future, I would be looking at how many slots we provide
incoming military officers in U.S. training programs here in
the United States, you know, lieutenant colonels, colonels.
Those folks come and get trained on how democratic societies
work and, furthermore, down the road, they become very good
interlocutors for the United States.
It is a small issue, but those schools are tough to get
into. That would be a great program for us.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much. That is a very
good point. Those are very effective schools.
I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you.
At this point in time, I would like to recognize the
gentleman from Missouri--or ``Missouri,'' depending on which
part of the State you are from--Mr. Long.
Mr. Long. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am from ``Missouri,''
for the record.
I want to thank you all very much for your testimony here
today and taking time to be here with us. Start with Mr. Nelson
and just work down, if I can, with kind of the same question
for all of you. How legitimate do you think that the worries
are about al-Qaeda opportunistically inserting themselves in
the Libyan civil war? Is our involvement there going to
exacerbate that?
Mr. Nelson. Again, I think that--thank you very much for
your questions--I think that al-Qaeda will insert itself in the
civil war, to the extent it will try to recruit and the extent
that it will try to carve out some sort of area of operation
for training and operations and planning. Again, I do not think
that al-Qaeda will once or will put itself in a position to
take any sort of governance role in Libya.
Your second question was on the----
Mr. Long. I just said that, if they--our involvement there,
does that--I can't pronounce it--exacerbate the problem?
Mr. Nelson. Well, that is a very----
Mr. Long. Or is our involvement in Libya, is that just
going to be another reason--of course, they are going to be
taking advantage everywhere they can--but do you think that our
involvement there is going to help that effort for al-Qaeda?
Mr. Nelson. It is a great point, and I think we have to
balance that. It cannot be a U.S. heavy-handed presence in
Libya. It needs to be international, encouraged the Europeans
want to take lead on this, support the Europeans taking lead or
at least the international community taking the lead. A heavy
U.S. presence in Libya could serve to undermine our strategic
goals, as some of the other panelists and Members have stated.
Mr. Long. Okay, thank you.
Mr. Joscelyn.
Mr. Joscelyn. I would agree with what Mr. Nelson said. I
would say that, you know, if you look at--for example, I would
say al-Qaeda already is there in Libya. They are already
players. They are not the dominant players, but in terms of the
muscle of the opposition, there are worries some reports that
they are, in fact, training and heavily involved.
In fact, I was reporting on this former Guantanamo detainee
who had--allegedly started serving Osama bin Laden in the 1990s
who, in fact, is training some of the rebels in Darnah, 300-
strong crew. That is very worrisome.
Mr. Long. That is the people we are helping?
Mr. Joscelyn. Well, I would be careful, because, see, the
thing is that there are multiple parties in the opposition,
okay? In the National Transitional Council, for example, you
can look at the leadership there, they are not al-Qaeda. They
are the types of people that we should be engaging, negotiating
with, encouraging, trying to help as we can.
The problem is, if you were to talk about U.S. involvement
to the extent to where we are going to have, you know, boots on
the ground, for example, I think you would very quickly find
that we would exacerbate the problem. You would have places
like Darnah where we would be fighting a counterinsurgency,
which would be very problematic.
So I think it depends on how America moves forward, how the
United States actually looks to approach the opposition. We
have to be very careful in terms of, you know, what we are
calling for to do. I think that the terms of--you know, there
our leaders in the opposition that are worth engaging, worth
working with, but others we have to try and ostracize or
minimize.
Mr. Long. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Katulis. Yes, I mean, clearly, al-Qaeda in some
presence is part of the rebel group. I had the leader or the
representative of the Libyan opposition at my center on Monday
for discussion. He is the former ambassador of Libya to the
United States. It was clear to me that he didn't know what the
command-and-control structures were among the military. There
is a lot of lack of clarity.
That is why I am glad at these reports that we have CIA
agents on the ground, people representative from the CIA. I
hope they were there for a long time, because we don't know
what we don't know in eastern Libya at this point. I would
strongly oppose boots on the ground. I think it would help
become a rallying cry--Libya become a rallying cry for al-
Qaeda. I would oppose arming the rebels at this point, because
we just don't know who they are.
Mr. Long. Thank you.
Mr. Mudd. Quick comment. I think al-Qaeda is probably a
chump change player in the opposition right now and wouldn't be
top on my list of things to worry about. I think that would
change if there was a presence on the ground as opposed to in
the air, and I think it would change significantly.
What we haven't mentioned here is that, especially eastern
Libya, but North Africa in general was overrepresented with
foreign fighters going into Iraq a few years ago. So folks
right now are saying, ``We like this air cover.'' Remember, a
few years ago, they were saying, ``Let me go to Iraq and kill a
bunch of Americans,'' so that is a tenuous level of support we
have out there.
But I think there would be popular opposition to an
American presence. It is not just the al-Qaeda guys. You would
be facing a serious problem on the ground.
Mr. Long. Okay, thank you. I appreciate your comments very
much, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Long.
With the unanimous consent of the committee, at this point,
I am asking indulgence as the Chairman just to ask one more
very limited amount of questions myself, because of some of the
issues that you have raised up, and then we will close down the
hearing.
But I am very intrigued by the idea of us--of your
proposals to look as one of the ways we address us developing
the economies in those regions, and particularly the concern
that, Mr. Mudd, you have pointed out about the disparity that
we have, where there are so many sort of youths that are in
those areas that don't have any kind of long-term prospect.
But look at the most flourishing not just democracy, but
economy we have in that region as being tied to Israel. How do
we reconcile the fact that we have got to be concerned about,
you know, the growing tension that exists with numbers of
these--especially, you know, Hezbollah, Hamas, others that may
actually be more encouraged if we see some of this expansion of
room for them to move, while simultaneously they threaten
Israel?
Mr. Mudd, do you have a thought, or anybody else, on that
particular issue?
Mr. Mudd. Yes, quickly, you know--this is going to be
painful--but groups that take power sometimes feel
accountability in ways that constrains them from acting--what
am I saying? When groups come to power, sometimes they get to
be realistic.
These guys may not like Israel, they may not like us, they
may have indifferent attitudes toward us. Their primarily
responsibility is they just sparked a revolution where people
are saying, ``Hey, great. Now we have political change. Where
is my job?''
So I wonder whether--you know, as you look at Hamas, I
would say they are more realistic than they were 10 years ago,
still not people we like, but, heck, they got voted in, and
they are--the guys firing rockets off into Israel now aren't
Hamas. This is Islamic Jihad.
So I think one of the answers is, people are going to vote
them in. Get over it, until they prove otherwise. The
alternative is to say, well, yet again, we supported autocrats,
but when the democrats vote, we don't like them. We can't be
there.
Mr. Katulis. I was in Israel the week Hosni Mubarak stepped
down as president of Egypt, and there is serious concern about
the loss of strategic partnerships there. But I think there is
a recognition that the changes are coming in the Middle East
purely because of demographic, economic, and political
pressures, and that we need--Israel needs to change its view to
a certain extent.
I would--I am glad you mentioned Hamas and Hezbollah. I
would dig a little bit deeper. I think there are some immediate
threats coming from some of the Salafist jihadist groups that
are in the Gaza Strip right now, including Jaysh al-Islam and
Jund Ansar Allah. These are groups that actually are
challenging Hamas' grip in the Gaza Strip. I think they are,
you know, affiliated with Islamic Jihad.
Mr. Meehan. Do you think that they could serve as a
counterbalance, be sufficient to be able to not only deal as a
political voice, but to be able to back off what we are seeing,
and we are seeing rockets from Gaza right now?
Mr. Katulis. No, these are the guys that are responsible
for the rockets. What I am saying is that Hamas, they are more
pragmatic, building on what Mr. Mudd said. There are some
voices in Hamas that are much more pragmatic, because they are
feeling pressure. You know, there is internecine violence among
these Islamists.
My worry today--and my top worry is Yemen. We have all
talked about that, for the U.S. homeland security. My second
leading worry in the Middle East right now is not necessarily
Libya, because I think that will play itself out in a certain
way, and it is still unclear. I think there are real clear
signs that there could be another regional war or some sort of
conflict of the sort that we saw in 2006 on multiple borders of
Israel. This could spark in many different ways.
In some ways, we have already seen it in the last couple of
weeks with some of these rockets into Israel and a response
from Israel. That is a spark that I think could lead to a wider
conflagration in the Middle East at a time where I think the
Obama administration is doing the best that it can, but, again,
it is in a tactical reactive crisis management mode.
The last thing I would say--somebody asked, if Phil was
Secretary of State, what would you do? I think the one thing
that is missing from this Presidency--and I support him on many
issues--is the lack of broader long-term vision, what we are
talking about in this committee here, of where do we see the
Middle East in about 10 or 15 years?
We, I think, lack concrete long-term goals for the region.
We have interests we talk about. We talk about reacting to
situations in the Middle East. But what I think we need to hear
from this President is, how do all of these pieces fit together
in a broader strategy that will help this region move through a
transition in its own way?
He tried to do that a bit in his Libya speech a week ago or
so, on Monday, but he didn't succeed, in my view. We should
press this administration on how it is going to deal with this
region strategically.
Mr. Joscelyn. Your question actually raises an interesting
thought. In the last several weeks, I have been talking to
people I trust, analysts who follow these things very closely,
inside government, who I--and they send me things that they say
are--they are in open source they say I should read.
One of the things they sent me was an account in the Asia
Times by a Pakistani journalist named Syed Shahzad, who is very
piped in to sort of what is going on, on the ground in northern
Pakistan, I would say much more so than most journalists.
His account I would encourage every Member of this
committee to read, and I can forward it to you to read. It, in
fact, raises the possibility--and I have seen some evidence of
this myself in al-Qaeda's public writings--that they are
currently undergoing a transition in terms of debate internally
of how they are going to position themselves for the long term.
What is happening is there are some people in al-Qaeda,
including leadership members who just returned from Iran in the
last couple years, who are arguing that al-Qaeda needs to be
more like Hamas, more like Hezbollah, more patient, more cagey,
in terms of how they come to acquire power and consolidate
their power.
This is worrisome in a variety of ways, because I think
that, you know, while the nihilistic brand of al-Qaeda, the
dead-ender brand of al-Qaeda certainly had mass appeal to a
certain extent in the Muslim world, although not nearly
anywhere close to a majority--you know, there was a significant
minority that supported it--that tactical shift that al-Qaeda
could go through could, in fact, allow it to consolidate power
and become an even more worrisome enemy.
That is who I think you have to worry about here. You could
see this in--you know, I think it was Ranking Member Speier who
brought up al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's most recent
edition of Inspire. You can actually see traces of this debate
there in Inspire, where Anwar Awlaki is basically arguing that,
you know, we need to do things a little bit differently, but at
the same time try and take credit for what is going on and say,
you know, al-Qaeda does have some cards here to play.
I would take a look at that very carefully if I were in
your shoes, in terms of how al-Qaeda adjusts its strategy going
forward.
Mr. Meehan. Thank you, Mr. Joscelyn.
Mr. Nelson, my time is up, unless you have a very quick
observation. Just with unanimous consent, I will turn it to Mr.
Cravaack for one last, quick question.
Mr. Cravaack.
Mr. Cravaack. Only one? This has been a great, great
dialogue. Once again, I really appreciate it.
We touched a little bit about Israel. Can we ever have a
developing relationship with some of these different factions?
Because we are always going to support Israel. Can we ever have
an open dialogue with these different factions? You kind of
stole some of my thunder of what the Middle East is going to
look like in about 4 or 5 years. Can we have a dialogue with
them and be able to support Israel at the same time?
So I was wondering if you could comment on that.
Mr. Katulis. Well, I think the simple fact of the matter
is, we already do have a dialogue with them, not the
governments, but the non-government to non-government dialogue.
Understanding them and understanding the motivations of the
variety of Islamist groups I think is important to do. I am not
so keen on, you know, sending our ambassadors to--particularly
when I talked about those red lines.
Those groups that don't support a non-violent agenda and
that don't support the full basic human rights, I don't think
our Government should be in any business of dealing with them
in any official capacity, as much as possible.
What I do think we need to do is get smarter, particularly
with this under-30 crowd, because we don't know anything about
the Facebook revolutionaries in Tahrir Square. Some of them are
Islamist, some of them aren't.
I lived and worked in Egypt in 1997-1998, and this is the
generation that is coming to power, and I think, at the end of
the day, we are already engaging them in some sort of way, best
to be done by nongovernmental organizations that understand and
appreciate freedom and democracy as ideals and push them into a
political context where they actually--those that are most
extremist drop that, drop the violent kind of agendas.
We can engage in that sort of way, and it need not be just
the U.S. Government.
Mr. Cravaack. I think I agree with Mr. Mudd. In some of the
travels I had in the Navy, the majority of people in this
world--90 percent of us--just want to have a safe place to
raise our kids, have a halfway decent job, have clean water to
be able to drink, and be able to just have a halfway decent
life.
I think by promoting that, I think it will be great
inroads. But the question I have is, the Middle East that you
see in about 4 or 5 years, can we have direct dialogues with
these--whoever is going to emerge--and still, you know, be
supporters of Israel, as well, and hopefully be able to squelch
what is going in the Middle East right now?
Mr. Katulis. I think we can, but we have to be realistic
about how easy it is going to be, because it is not going to be
very easy. You are increasingly going to see countries that I
think are like the Turkish government, which I think is a
strong ally on some issues, but actually is quite difficult to
deal with on other issues, like Iran, like Israel, and other
things.
This will require a different way of thinking about
statecraft and diplomacy in the Middle East. Rather than black
and white, we are going to have to engage in shades of grey and
align our policies with new types of governments and try to
shape and influence them.
I think the notion that we can just simply isolate
countries for a long period of time, I think the strategic
thrust of what we do in the Middle East over the next 5 years
should be trying to connect this region with the rest of the
world. This region has been largely left behind by the waves of
globalization, and also trying to deal with the internal
divisions within the region, up to and including the Arab-
Israeli conflict.
As difficult as that is today--you know, Shimon Peres, the
president of Israel, is in town--I think we need to keep the
notion of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace alive, as grim as
it looks today, because you won't have that integration of the
Middle East with the broader part of the world. You will see a
different face of leadership, and my answer to you is that we
can shape and change that leadership through smart engagement
with those who come to power.
Mr. Cravaack. Yes, my hope is that we can all agree to
disagree, but live in peace. That is my hope for the region.
Mr. Mudd, real quick, Mr. Gadhafi, last gasp of trying to
maintain power, do you see him using weapons of mass
destruction as a tool?
Mr. Mudd. No, I do not, unless you are talking about things
like tear gas and chemicals to keep people off the streets. But
I don't think so. I think, actually, he is doing all right,
right now, and it is going to take a heck of a move to get him
out of there.
Mr. Cravaack. Okay. Thank you, sir.
I will yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Meehan. Well, thank you, Mr. Cravaack. Thanks to each
of our panelists for very, very valuable testimony. I
appreciate not just the work that you put into preparing
testimony for here, but for each of you, the work that you put
in to your study of this very important region. It has been a
great value to those of us on the committee.
Members of the committee may have some additional
questions, and if they do, they will ask you to be responsive
in writing if they do. The hearing record will be open for 10
days.
Thank you for being here today. Without objection, the
committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:01 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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