The Sanford School of Public Policy held a debate Wednesday between two counterterrorism experts on terrorist threats. The debaters were Fran Townsend, former assistant to President George W. Bush for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and ambassador Daniel Benjamin, former coordinator for counterterrorism at the U.S. State Department during Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State. The Chronicle's Jenna Zhang sat down with Benjamin to discuss the current state of terrorist threats in the U.S. and abroad.
The Chronicle: How would you say the terrorist threat has changed or evolved in the past decade or so since 9/11?
Daniel Benjamin: Big question. There have been a number of trends. One of them has been that two successive administrations have achieved a real diminution of what might be called the high-end threat—the catastrophic attack by al-Qaeda, in particular, against the U.S. at home, and that is a major change. I would say that we are safer, generally, than we used to be. The threat is more diversified now—more geographically diverse with al-Qaeda affiliates or franchises in Yemen, in Maghreb [and] like-minded groups in Nigeria, in Iraq and Syria, and so there’s been some spread there. But at the same time, most of those groups, while quite brutal and repellent, are not capable of attacking the U.S. at home. al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has tried hard with aviation plots, but it has not succeeded. And right now, of course, there’s a great deal of concern about the rise of the Islamic State, or ISIS, or ISIL, or whatever you call it, but this group too has not demonstrated an ability to strike outside of its own region.
TC: There has been a lot of attention directed at ISIS recently. In what ways does the threat posed by ISIS differ from that posed by other terrorist organizations we’ve faced in the past, notably al-Qaeda?
DB: Well, first of all, it’s important to note that ISIS is a direct descendant of al-Qaeda in Iraq. It’s the same group, just 10 years later. It’s going through a number of changes at the top. It’s gone through a long period of first decline during the Sunni awakening and revival during the Syrian civil war. It is different from groups we’ve considered terrorists in the past in that it is a very effective insurgent group. It has obviously claimed a lot of territory in Iraq and Syria. Its interest in covert terrorist operations has thus far been pretty limited. When it was al-Qaeda in Iraq, it carried out attacks in Jordan, but other than some efforts to strike at Hezbollah in Lebanon, it uses terrorist tactics in the service of its insurgency, but it hasn’t really tried to carry out attacks in Europe or against the United States. So in that regard, thus far it is quite different. My view is that although it may come to a plot against the United States, up to this point, it’s overwhelmingly focused on its ambitions in Iraq and Syria.
TC: ISIS has made threats against the U.S. in the recent execution videos of two American journalists. What do you think is the likelihood that they will carry out these threats on U.S. soil in the near future?
DB: One of the things you learn from working in counterterrorism is never say never. It is a possibility, but having said that, I think that in the near term, the greater likelihood is that it won’t be ISIS so much as sympathizers of ISIS who may want to show that they too are part of the picture, who carry out a domestic attack on the United States. There’s also the possibility that some foreign fighters might come here and carry out an attack, but the director of the National Counterterrorism Center has termed the likelihood of damage from such attacks as rather small.
TC: Should we be concerned about the possibility of a homegrown terrorist threat?
DB: Well, we do need to be concerned, and from time to time, there will be homegrown terrorists who seek to carry out attacks. There’s been a steady drip of arrests over the last 10 years, and many of those people were not terribly competent, but they were interested in carrying out attacks, and they wound up being caught in sting operations. But the worst attack of the last decade was the Fort Hood shooter, who was very much a homegrown phenomenon, who very much wanted to carry out the kind of individual, personal jihad that the late Yemeni preacher al-Awlaki advocated. So, I do think that we will see things like that, but I don’t think that they are, shall we say, major threats to order in the United States in the way that a catastrophic attack might be.
TC: From what we’ve seen of ISIS—most recently and notably the execution of two American journalists—it appears that this is an organization that will resort to virtually any means to achieve its ends. Up against a terrorist group whose actions seemingly have no limits, should we observe limits in our response?
DB: So the first thing to remember is that these decapitations were truly grisly but not new. In 2004, there were a whole string of them carried out by al-Qaeda in Iraq, and I think what we’re seeing now is a variation on that theme. We shouldn’t view this as something unprecedented. And of course, there was the execution by decapitation of the journalist Daniel Pearl [in 2002], and there have been others, in other places, at other times.
We’re civilized, that means we’re going to conduct this effort by the rules of the laws that govern us. So I don’t believe we should torture, I don’t believe that we should bomb indiscriminately, I don’t believe that we should try to sow terror. The great chief justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, a man named Aharon Barak, said that civilized countries conduct counterterrorism with one arm tied behind their backs. And I think he’s absolutely right—we would be betraying our values and little better than the terrorists if we just threw all of our values overboard to defeat them.
TC: There’s been some concern that we may have to go to war to address the threat posed by ISIS. What’s the likelihood we’ll have to put troops back on the ground?
DB: There are two questions—what’s the likelihood we’ll do that, and what’s the likelihood it’ll be necessary. I don’t think that it’ll be necessary, and I very much hope that we won’t do it. I think that working with partners in the region, supporting the Iraqis in particular as they take on this threat, we can avoid having to put our own troops on the ground, and I think that would be wise policy. I do think that U.S. air power will likely be involved, and I think the president is going to announce that tonight. And I think at some point, we will see a drone campaign. Actually having U.S. soldiers in the field in combat missions is, at this point, not necessary and, I think, rather unlikely given the nation’s weariness with war.
TC: What has and hasn’t worked as Bush and Obama administrations have been dealing with terrorist organization since 9/11?
DB: Very targeted operations that rely on intelligence and very precise use of force have worked pretty well, and we’ve seen the core al-Qaeda in Pakistan greatly reduced as a result. I think other things that get less press have also worked. Helping countries build up their rule of law institutions is really important. You know, one of the countries we talked about as a possible casualty to terrorism back at the beginning of the decade was Indonesia. There were lots and lots of attacks, but the United States and Australia worked very closely with the Indonesians to strengthen their police, their counterterrorism units, but also their courts, their prosecutors, and their legislation. Now, no one talks about Indonesia being in any peril. The United States just worked with a number of partners through something called the Global Counterterrorism Forum to establish a rule of law academy in Malta for states that want to improve their capabilities in this area, and I am hopeful that this kind of initiative will pay real dividends.
TC: It’s been more than a decade since 9/11, yet we are still caught up in this ongoing struggle against terrorism. Will there be an end to the war on terrorism?
DB: So, of course the Obama administration doesn’t refer to it as a war on terrorism. It’s been a war against al-Qaeda, and it looks like it’ll soon be a war against al-Qaeda and ISIS. I think a global war against terrorism is a bad idea. I think [it] doesn’t recognize terrorism is a phenomenon of modern times, and it’s not going away. The question really is: will we reach a point where our capabilities are sufficient to manage the problem. We need to get to a point where this is just one of the threats we have to deal with. And we manage it downward, so we’re not in a national state of panic all the time. I think that right now, there’s a lot of hyperventilation going on about the ISIS threat, and I think it undermines our ability to make good policies.
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