Reuel Marc Gerecht (Continuación)

MundoAmérica

Over the next few weeks, the Opinion section will publish a series of Op-Ed articles by experts on the challenges facing Barack Obama when he takes office. Homeland security and improving our intelligence agencies is the focus of today's articles.

1) 'Terror' Is The Enemy. The threat has changed; our tactics should, too.

2) Safe At Home. How worried should we be about Al Qaeda?

3) Out Of Sight. Barack Obama will come to see the value of rendition.

4) Big Brother Hasn't Won. We need to know the scope of eavesdropping.

5) Intelligence Boosters. The C.I.A. needs help from the real world.

MundoAméricaInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional

Few post-9/11 issues have produced more anxiety and revulsion than the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of “aggressive interrogation” and the extrajudicial rendition of terrorist suspects to countries that practice torture. President-elect Barack Obama has promised to ban waterboarding and other pain-inflicting soliciting techniques, as well as rendition. He has also promised to close the Guantánamo Bay prison.

More broadly, liberal Democrats in Congress intend to deploy a more moral counterterrorism, where the ends — stopping the slaughter of civilians by Islamic holy warriors — no longer justifies reprehensible means. Winning the hearts and minds of foreigners by remaining true to our nobler virtues is now seen as the way to defeat our enemies while preserving our essential goodness.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

For those who believe — as I do — that the clerics who rule Iran must never have an arsenal of nuclear weapons, the United States’ course of action ought to be clear: The Bush administration should advocate direct, unconditional talks between Washington and Tehran. Strategically, politically and morally, such meetings will help us think more clearly. Foreign-policy hawks ought to see such discussions as essential preparation for possible military strikes against clerical Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The consensus among Iran’s ruling elite is that a hard-line stance on the nuclear question has paid off: uranium enrichment, the most industrially demanding part of developing nuclear weapons, has rapidly advanced.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente PróximoInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional,

Among Democrats and even many Republicans, it is by now accepted wisdom that the war in Iraq brought huge numbers of holy warriors to the anti-American cause. But is it true? I don't think so.

Muslim holy warriors are a diverse lot, reacting with differing intensity to the hot-button issues that define contemporary Islamic militancy. For many fundamentalists, what is seen as an unrelenting Western assault on Muslim male honor and female virtue is the core infuriating offense. For others it may be the alienation that second-generation young Muslim men encounter in an immigrant-unfriendly Europe. And for still others, Iraq, Afghanistan, the tyranny of U.S.-backed…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

In the United States and in Europe, there is a widespread belief that the Bush administration has failed to engage Iran diplomatically. Among the advisers to the Iraq Study Group, of which I was one, most believed that the Bush administration, not the mullahs’ regime, was the most culpable party in foreclosing dialogue between Washington and Tehran after 9/11.

Iran’s American-educated longtime ambassador to the United Nations, Javad Zarif, has tirelessly suggested that the administration missed opportunities for improving relations and is tone-deaf to his country’s peaceful intentions.

Yet it ought to be clear that just the opposite is the case.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Once again American officials are growing dissatisfied with an Iraqi government. In Baghdad and in Washington, officials privately and the press publicly suggest that the Bush administration would prefer that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki fell, and that Adil Abdul Mahdi, a French-educated economist who is a vice president, would replace him. Mr. Maliki is politically too dependent, the reasoning goes, on the young Shiite militia leader Moktada al-Sadr, a scion of a prestigious clerical family and the boss of a pivotal bloc of votes in Iraq’s Parliament.

Mr. Mahdi may look like a good bet for Washington. He is a far more amiable gentleman than Mr.…  Seguir leyendo »