Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From Martin Kramer

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, entitled “Target: Pakistan,” mourned Benazir Bhutto, whom it described as “the highest profile scalp the jihadists can claim since their assassination of Egypt’s Anwar Sadat in 1981.” The editorial then offered this analysis:

With the jihadists losing in Iraq and having a hard time hitting the West, their strategy seems to be to make vulnerable Pakistan their principal target, and its nuclear arsenal their principal prize.

This take is problematic. The jihadists claimed a major scalp after Sadat: two days before 9/11, two Arab suicide bombers posing as journalists assassinated the anti-Taliban leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Massoud. Famous as the “Lion of Panjshir,” Massoud helped to drive the Soviets from Afghanistan, and then resisted the Talibanization that swept the country. The CIA worked sporadically with Massoud, but never made the most of him. In April 2001, Massoud addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg, and told a reporter: “If President Bush doesn’t help us, then these terrorists will damage the United States and Europe very soon—and it will be too late.”

Massoud’s assassination turned out to be the opening act for the 9/11 attacks two days later. So we must be grateful to the French writer Bernard-Henri Lévy, author of a book on the murder of Daniel Pearl, for this passage in today’s Wall Street Journal:

Benazir Bhutto is dead, and mindful of Sept. 9, 2001, the day Massoud was assassinated, I cannot help wondering what gruesome scenario her assassins might have planned. I cannot help wondering what this major event, this thunderbolt, might be the prelude to.

In other words, it would be a mistake to assume that Bhutto’s assassination means the terrorists have made Pakistan their “principal target.” Al Qaeda is perfectly capable of attacking targets on more than one front. Bhutto’s assassination isn’t just a reminder that the terrorists are still out there on the other side of the world. It’s precisely the kind of success that has always emboldened Al Qaeda to reach still further. The United States remains as much a target as Pakistan. Indeed, in the wake of Bhutto’s murder, Al Qaeda’s sights may be fixed squarely on us.