Beyond Predator Strikes: Defeating al Qaeda Attacking Terrorist ...

Andy Johnson

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Beyond Predator Strikes: Defeating al Qaeda Attacking Terrorist ...

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The National security Program

November 9, 2010

TO:

Interested Parties

FROM:

Andy Johnson, Director, National Security Program

RE:

Beyond Predator Strikes: Defeating al Qaeda by Attacking Terrorist

Recruitment and Radicalization

As US and allied forces ramp up efforts to seek out and strike terrorists in the

Afghanistan border region, Osama bin Laden and the rest of al Qaeda central are

hanging by a thread—dangerous and determined, but depleted daily by lethal missile

and special operations strikes.

Public opinion in Arab and Muslim nations has turned sharply against bin Laden

and his movement’s use of suicide bombings, which increasingly target innocent

Muslim men, women and children. The war in Iraq, once a source of strength for al

Qaeda recruitment, no longer serves the terrorist narrative.

As the kinetic war rages and al Qaeda is further isolated and besieged, a window of

opportunity has emerged to deliver a decisive blow against the terrorist threat. Al

Qaeda’s ability to recruit and radicalize new terrorists capable of promoting violent

extremism and self-initiating plots remains its lifeline. Cutting off al Qaeda’s capacity

to promote its jihadist message and replenish its ranks will hasten its demise.

Counter-radicalization efforts are not a substitute for aggressive capture and kill

operations striking at terrorists where they live and plot or for robust homeland

security and border protections. But they are no less urgent or necessary if we are

going to defeat al Qaeda.

In this memo, Third Way argues that we have reached a critical juncture in the

fight against terrorism and that the US and its allies must double-down on efforts

to attack this terrorist recruitment lifeline and build on the battlefield

momentum in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Attacking Terrorist Recruitment and Radicalization

Engagement and Outreach

—meaningful discourse and interaction with

the Muslim world weakens the terrorist narrative

The Obama administration has made considerable strides at rebuilding US

standing with the Muslim-majority nations around an agenda of common interests, in

the process rejecting the false narrative of terrorists that the West is at war with Islam.

A policy of sustained engagement establishes a broad foundation of cooperation that

promotes a positive agenda in contrast with al Qaeda’s message of violence.

Engagement with the Muslim community inside the US must be strengthened as well,

particularly in the aftermath of the incendiary rhetoric in the Park 51 debate and the