Snow on the roof.

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In the Nevada caucuses, with 95.3 percent of the counties reporting, Hillary Clinton picked up 52.7 percent and Bernie Sanders picked up 47.2 percent of the vote.[1] This is an important victory for Hillary Clinton after Sanders tied her in Iowa and thrashed her in New Hampshire.

That isn’t the same as saying that it was a total loss for Sanders. A year ago, in February 2015, 58 percent of self-identified Democratic voters in Nevada favored Hillary Clinton, while 4 percent favored Bernie Sanders. In March 2015, 61 percent favored Clinton, while 7 percent favored Sanders. In July 2015, 55 percent favored Clinton, while 18 percent favored Sanders. In October 2015, 50 percent favored Clinton, while 34 percent favored Sanders. In December 2015, 51 percent favored Clinton, while 39 percent favored Sanders. In January 2016, 47 percent favored Clinton, while 43 favored Sanders. In early February 2016, they were tied at 45 percent each. In mid-February 2016 they were pretty much where they ended up, with 53 percent favoring Clinton and 47 percent favoring Sanders.[2]

Clinton’s numbers were pretty steady for a year, although there was a certain amount of erosion. Sanders’ numbers, however, shot up. Where did he get these voters? Mostly, they came from people who had previously favored Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden or Tommy Carchetti, or who had been undecided. Thus, Clinton has a hard core of steady support. There also appears to be a substantial Anyone-But-Clinton (ABC) group among Democratic voters.

Nevada actually is a big blank space on the map. Three-quarters of the state’s population lives in or around Las Vegas, the county seat of Clark County. In Clark County, Clinton won 54.9 percent and Sanders won 45.1 percent. According to the 2010 census, Clark County’s racial makeup was roughly 61 percent white, 29 percent Hispanic, 10.5 percent African American.[3]

Although African Americans made up 10.5 percent of the Clark County population in 2010, they turned out at a higher rate than did other groups, totaling 13 percent of the people at the caucuses. Then they voted overwhelmingly for Clinton (76 percent) over Sanders (22 percent). Clinton also did better among older voters than did Sanders.

The ABC movement is centered among younger people and Hispanics. Sanders crushed Clinton among under-30 voters (82 percent-14 percent); and among under-45 voters (62 percent-35 percent).[4] Among Hispanics, Sanders beat Clinton by 8 percent. While, 29 percent of the population is Hispanic, they turned out in much lower numbers, representing only 19 percent of the people at caucuses. Perhaps this represents the Clinton heavy use of Hispanic surrogates in the last stage. This may have suppressed part of the Democratic vote. Had Sanders found a way to fully mobilize the Hispanic vote, he might have won. Whites turned out at a rate of 59 percent, a hair below their share of the population. Clinton and Sanders essentially split this group.

Probably, this will not block her from winning the nomination. Will it affect Democratic turn-out in November? Does Clinton speak only for older people and African Americans?

[1] See: http://graphics.latimes.com/election-2016-nevada-results/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statewide_opinion_polling_for_the_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016#Nevada

[3] Yes, I know it doesn’t quite add up and leaves out Asians, etc. It’s the effect of the White, non-Hispanic versus White Hispanic mishagosh.

[4] Abby Philip, John Wagner, and Anne Gearan, “Black vote key in Democratic caucus in Nev.,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 21 February 2016.

CrISIS 6.

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The Turks want the Assad regime gone as a first order of business, and they are attacking Kurdish forces as a second order target. The Saudis want the Assad regime gone and they are attacking Houthis in Yemen as a second order target. The Russians want the Assad regime to remain in place and they are attacking non-ISIS opponents of the regime. The Iranians want the Assad regime to remain in place and they have committed both their own military advisers and client Hezbollah forces from Lebanon to that end. The Shi’ite government if Iraq isn’t making any concessions to the Sunnis of Iraq in order to win them away from ISIS. In the past year, Germany has received about a million refugees from the Syrian civil war. The Kurds are fighting ISIS, even if the rest of the Iraqis are making a half-hearted effort, but that’s because they are trying to establish the territorial basis for an independent Kurdistan. Germans are more concerned about the behavior of Muslim hicks toward European women than they are about the undoubted dangers of terrorist wolves hiding among the refugee sheep. In short, nobody—except American politicians—seems very concerned about ISIS these days.

The common assumption on the Potomac seems to be that ISIS has gigantic ambitions and will seek to wreak havoc in Western countries through terrorism. However, ISIS has little chance of expanding its territory. It made big gains in areas where the opposing forces were rotted by demoralization or were pre-occupied with other conflicts. There is little chance that it can make similar progress against the armies of Turkey, Iran, and Israel. It may not even want to make huge gains. In the words of one observer, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “wanted to create an Islamic state in Syria—sacred land that, according to Islamic prophecy, was to be the site of the apocalypse.”[1] (See: Islamism as a Story.) That’s not quite the same as conquering the whole of the Middle East.

Heightened security in Western countries can limit the danger of ISIS terrorism, even if it cannot totally prevent it. The Israelis have lived with this danger for decades. OK, it hasn’t done their society and politics a lot of good. Still, Israel is still there. ISIS poses no existential threat to Western countries.

That isn’t the same as saying that ISIS hasn’t created problems. The European vulnerability to the flood of Syrian (and other) refugees has opened a means for other states to pressure the Europeans. Turkey started the process, but the Russians are in a position to either add to or to reduce the flood. What would the West give Russia to get it to play ball in Syria? Probably it will not be much fun to be a Ukrainian.[2] Probably it will involve a climb-down on sanctions. Probably it will involve letting the Assad regime survive or transition out on Russian and Iranian terms.

[1] Sohrab Amari, WSJ, 9 February 2016, p. A11.

[2] At the same time, Western democracies already seem to be experiencing buyer’s remorse over their support for Ukraine. Pervasive corruption and a very halting program of economic modernization are angering many people who didn’t look closely at the Ukraine or at its quarrels with Russia before the most recent revolution.

CrISIS 5.

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There is a certain irony in the conquest of much of Syria by ISIS.[1] After 9/11, the Assad regime declined to join the American “global war on terror” (GWOT) in any serious way. Instead, it harbored Sunni Islamists. After the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, large numbers of foreign fighters passed through Syria on their way to join Abu Musab al Zarqawi. One Islamist leader explained Assad’s tolerance for these terrorists: “we [are] focusing on the common enemy, America and Israel.”

In 2007, the balance of forces in Iraq suddenly shifted. Zarqawi’s fundamentalism and his savagery had estranged many Sunnis in Iraq. This led to the “Awakening” movement that greatly reduced the need for American forces while offering much intelligence to the American Special Forces man-hunters. The George W. Bush Administration surged in reinforcements that allowed the US to restore order in Iraq and to pursue the Islamists. The situation began to improve. The Americans killed Zarqawi. Soon, his surviving followers took shelter in eastern Syria, beyond the reach of the man-hunters and the bombs. This allowed many American decision-makers to start looking for an eventual escape route. For his part, Assad seems to have started rounding-up Syrian Islamists whose usefulness had now declined.

Then came the “Arab Spring.” Popular uprisings—generally non-violent—began against the tyrants who ruled (and still rule) much of the Middle East. These movements rocked Tunisia, then Egypt, then Syria, and then Libya. The Tunisian regime soon struck its tents, but it took various types of American pressure to bring “reform” to Egypt and Libya. America had no such leverage in Syria.

At first, Bashar al-Assad responded to the popular challenge by force. This might well have done the job if he had stuck to his last. His faced a loose coalition of talkers-more-than-doers who were often at odds with one another. Like the young Egyptians of Tahrir Square, they seem to have had little support among the populace at large.

Instead, however, Assad tried to tar the rebels as Islamists. To this end, he released a lot of experienced Islamists from his jails. As expected, they took up arms against the regime. Assad then cast his government as the only viable barrier against jihad. Meanwhile, the surviving Iraqi Islamists had reconstituted themselves in eastern Syria as ISIS, with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as their leader. As the civil war dragged on, ISIS took control of much of the eastern part of Syria. Then, in Summer 2014 it attacked into western Iraq, routing Iraq’s army.

The results of Assad’s policies has been appalling. Huge numbers of deaths, hordes of miserable refugees, and a society laid in ruins. Many observers regret that the powers had intervened early on to replace Assad and create some kind of viable successor state. There are reasons to question this view. On the one hand, Assad followed a particularly disastrous version of the same course that is being followed more successfully by Egypt.   There the army turfed the Muslim Brotherhood out of power and has used the struggle against radical Islam as cover for a revived military dictatorship. So far, that approach seems to be working, mowing down young secular opponents of the old regime with as much enthusiasm as Islamists. So, it was not a foregone conclusion that Assad’s policy would fail.

On the other hand, the “coulda-woulda-shoulda” view ignores the reality that the Syrian civil war is a proxy war for Shi’ites and Sunnis. It also ignores the reality that Russian agreement to yet another American intervention-overthrow would have been necessary to get UN approval. That wasn’t likely to happen after the Libyan imbroglio.

[1] Charles R. Lister, The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Evolution of an Insurgency (OUP, 2015)

Explaining Bernie Sanders—and Perhaps Donald Trump.

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Two-thirds of Americans believe that there is at least one presidential candidate who would make a good president in the current crop. Most (75 percent) of Republicans believe that Donald Trump could win a general election—even though only about half of Republicans want him as their candidate. Virtually all (83 percent) Democrats believed that Hillary Clinton could win election–before Bernie Sanders ran even with Clinton in Iowa and then torched her in New Hampshire. Among the less-favored candidates are Ted Cruz (60 percent of Republican); Marco Rubio (55 percent of Republicans); and Bernie Sanders (54 percent of Democrats).[1]

In theory, Hillary Clinton wipes the floor with the leading Republican candidates when it comes to dealing with terrorism. Americans preferred her to Donald Trump (50-42), Marco Rubio (47-43), and even Jeb Bush (46-43).[2] On the other hand, that means that 43 percent of Americans want anyone-but-Hillary, no matter how clownish or inexperienced, to deal with terrorism. Is it the same for other issues? If it is, then she has remarkably high negatives for someone running for president. Still, so did Richard Nixon. Oh. Wait.

On the other hand, Independents fail to share this enthusiasm. Only 58 percent of them believe that there is anyone who would make a good president. (If Independents sit out in large numbers, then that might leave the November 2016 election in the hands of party regulars.)

Why are Americans so rabid for anti-establishment candidates?

In 2003, the net worth of the average American was $87,992. In 2013, the net worth of the average American was $56,335 in 2013. That amounts to a 36 percent fall in net worth, before allowing for nugatory inflation.[3] On the other hand (2003-2014), the net worth of the top five percent of earners increased by 14 percent over the same period.[4]

About one-third of Americans have no savings accounts at all.[5] Twenty percent of people aged 55 to 64 have no retirement savings. Almost half (45 percent) of people surveyed expected to live on whatever Social Security paid them.[6] Almost half (44 percent) of Americans don’t have an “emergency fund” to cover basic expenses for three months. Almost half (43 percent) of American workers would be willing to take a pay cut IF their employer would increase the contribution to the 401k retirement savings plan.[7] In August 2014, about 77 million Americans had a debt “in collection.” The median amount owed is $1,350.[8]   That’s not a lot of money. Unless you don’t have it.

If the “Great Recession” had not occurred, then college graduates entering the job market might have expected salaries 19 percent higher. The “normal” penalty for graduating in a recession is about 10 percent.[9] The recent unpleasantness has been unusually unpleasant. Also, state aid to public colleges has fallen during the recession. That means that students have been graduating with much larger debt loads than previously. They have to service those debts out of smaller starting salaries.

People hiring employees tend to favor those who are narcissistic over the humble.[10] Apparently, they are right to do so. “Narcissistic” CEOs make an average of $512 million more over their careers than do those who are not.[11] Will it be the same for voters? Hard to think of anyone more narcissistic than the Clintons. Unless it is Donald Trump.

[1] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 5 February 2016, p. 19.

[2] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 4 December 2015, p. 19.

[3] “Noted,” The Week, 8 August 2014. P. 14.

[4] “Noted,” The Week, 8 August 2014. P. 14.

[5] “The bottom line,” The Week, 15 February 2013, p. 32.

[6] “Noted,” The Week, 22 August 2014, p. 16.

[7] “The bottom line,” The Week, 22 August, 2014, p. 32.

[8] “The bottom line.” The Week, 15 August, 2014, p. 31.

[9] “The bottom line,” The Week, 1 August 2014, p. 31.

[10] “The bottom line,” The Week, 27 June 2014, p. 32.

[11] “The bottom line,” The Week, 1 August 2014, p. 31.

A Road to Aleppo Experience.

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We’re at a dicey point in Syria.[1] When Al Qaeda-affiliated rebels made gains against the Assad government in Summer 2015, the Russkies greatly increased their support for Assad in September 2015. The Obama administration predicted that this would turn into an Afghanistan-like “quagmire” for the Russkies. It still may, but that isn’t what has been happening recently. Instead, the Russian-backed offensive[2] by the Assad government has cut the major supply routes from Turkey to the northern anti-Assad groups. It may go on to crush its opponents in Western Syria and bring that part of the war to an end.

Alternatively, other powers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia could pile on so that the effort to unseat Assad continues. Intervention by Saudi Arabia and Turkey would not be just for spite. The Sunni-Shi’a civil war within Islam provides the context for this decision.[3] To see Assad survive in control of western Syria would mean that a client-state of Iran had tightened its grip. The Wall Street Journal‘s Yarolslav Trofimov reports that such an outcome would be regarded as a “catastrophe” in the minds of Turkish and Saudi leaders. “Can we accept Russia and the Iranians calling the tune in the region?” asked one Turkish diplomat. Many Sunni observers appear to believe that Russian intervention will trigger greater intervention by the Sunni powers.

How? For one thing, the primary supply line into Syria appears to run through Turkey. If that line is cut, will the Saudis try to open (or expand an existing one) through Jordan? For another thing, the key element in the Russian effort has been air power. Would Turkey or Saudi Arabia commit their own air forces against the Russians? Well Turkey did in November 2015, when it shot down a Russian strike jet that had invaded Turkish airspace on a bombing run. The Turks have been quaking in their boots ever since.

There are many questions, great and small.

The ground-based air-defense systems (anti-aircraft missiles) of Turkey and Saudi Arabia come from the United States. Would the US sign-off on transferring these to Syrian opponents of the Assad government?

Even if the Russkies were to back away, would Iran and Iraq? They are front-line states in the Muslim civil war. The outcome in Syria is just as important to them as it is to Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Would Turkey (and possibly Saudi Arabia) launch a conventional ground-force intervention? The Turkish military has been under attack by the Erdogan government. Their price for agreeing might be high. The Saudis haven’t been in a real war for many decades.

One of the key long-term purposes of both the NATO and Warsaw Pact alliances was to rein-in the foreign policy independence of the client states of the United States and the Soviet Union.[4] Has the ending of the Cold War unleashed the client states to do any damn-fool thing that seems to be a good idea at the moment?

The 2003 invasion of Iraq looks worse and worse all the time. If that is possible.

[1] Yaroslav Trofimov, “Russian Victories Mark Turning Point in Syria,” WSJ, 12 February 2016.

[2] I suppose you can think of it as “inhumanitarian aid.” However, what is more “humanitarian” in this context: to end the war now or let it drag on along the same awful lines of the last five years?

[3] In the early days of the Iraq occupation, the Bush II Administration refused to call what was happening an “insurgency,” although it plainly was an insurgency. Now, the Obama administration seems reluctant to recognize that this civil war has created difficult problems for their Middle Eastern policy. Back in the day, the historian Henry Adams had great fun showing how the administration of Thomas Jefferson had been driven to adopt many of the policies of the previous John Adams administration—which Jefferson had bitterly criticized during the campaign. HA! Is joke.

[4] See John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (1987).

Shifting the Terms of Debate in Syria.

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Long ago, the now-aged Secretary of State Madeline Albright demanded to know “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”[1] Thus, there has long been a tension between American diplomats—who want to use military power to enhance their negotiating position[2]—and American soldiers—who would have to write letters to families explaining why their sons or daughters had died. So long as the Syrian civil war remained stuck in neutral, the Obama Administration could insist with a straight face that “there is no military solution.” In spite of pressure from then Secretary of Stater Hilary Clinton for a more robust arming of anti-Assad rebels, President Obama opted for a more narrow-bore effort. The US and the Sunni Gulf States pumped weapons and money to the Assad forces in the hopes that there was a military solution, if only it was a stalemate that brought the Assad regime to the bargaining table at a disadvantage. Recently, American diplomacy has been seeking a cease-fire and the creation of a “humanitarian corridor” to the Syrian opponents of Assad. Basically, that means that they wanted to limit the range of Syrian government military operations. Perhaps that would create new “red lines.” Apparently, Secretary of State John Kerry (like Albright and Clinton) has been frustrated with the lack of American military support. However, President Obama has been reluctant to embroil the US in yet another conflict.[3]

To make matters worse, Turkey is enraged by American policy. The American attack on Iraq in 1991 eventually led to the creation of a safe haven for Iraqi Kurds. This became a potential proto-state for an independent Kurdistan. The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 would—in the view of informed observers at the time—cause the country to come apart like a leper in a hot tub. The Turks refused to allow American troops to launch an attack from Turkey. Still, Iraq exploded after the American invasion. More recently, the Iraqi Kurds are the only ones willing to make a serious fight against ISIS because it allows them to add to their territory. American support for the Kurds of Iraq as the chief opponents of ISIS in western Iraq and eastern Syria has further strengthened the Kurds.[4] Now the Americans are faced with the dilemma that military aid to the Iraqi Kurds will inevitably flow as well to Kurdish militants inside Turkey.

Now, Russian and Iranian military intervention on the side of the beleagured Assad regime has put “Paid” to the fantasy of “no military solution.” Russian bombing has evicted many of the anti-Assad forces from their positions.[5] This may have come as a surprise to the Obama administration. How so? The President is in the habit of trash-talking people who disagree with him. (If you look at the botched roll-out of the HealthCare.gov site as an example, he may have made it difficult for people to bring him bad news.)

In essence, the United States has lost any initiative that it once may—or may not—have possessed. The Russian strategy of defeating the non-ISIS opponents of the Assad government (including the US) seems to be working. This would create new facts on the ground. As one Syrian farmer opined, “After winning victory, [the Russians] will negotiate.” Probably, the farmer was not a consultant to the State Department.

[1] Quoted in The Economist, 11 March 2011. See: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/03/defence_spending_and_libya

[2] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYxki0mvqmM

[3] David E. Sanger, “Russian Campaign in Syria Reduces Leverage for Accord,” NYT, 11 February 2016.

[4] See: “The Kurdish Serbia.”

[5] Just as American airstrikes destroyed the defensive power of the Ghadaffi regime in Libya.

Public opinion and foreign policy.

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Back in April 2014, almost half of Americans (47 percent) thought that the United States should be “less active” abroad.[1] That included both Republicans and Democrats (45 percent each, which suggests that Independents were still more likely to favor caution). However, markedly more Republicans (29 percent) than Democrats (12 percent) or all Americans (19 percent) thought that the US should be “more active” abroad. The Republican “don’t knows” amounted to 26 percent, compared to 43 percent for Democrats and 34 percent for all Americans. Thus, there was a more intense division of opinion among Republicans than among Democrats, while Democrats were more uncertain about the right course of action.

By August 2014, Americans were generally feeling surly about the country’s situation. The vast majority (71 percent) felt the country to be “on the wrong track,” and well over half (60 percent) felt it to be “in decline.”[2] A lot of this had to do with the still-unsatisfactory economic recovery and with the continuing dead-lock between the legislative and the executive branches, but some of it probably arose from foreign policy issues as well. In the wake of the rapid advance of ISIS in western Iraq, as well as in light of other domestic reverses (like the ObamaCare roll-out fiasco in Fall 2013), only 42 percent of Americans believed that President Obama could “manage the government effectively,” while a stinging 57 percent thought that he could not. That left only 1 percent who weren’t sure.[3]

A year and a half later, the course of events had shifted opinion among both Republicans and Democrats.  The rise of ISIS from Summer 2014 on, the terrorist attacks in Western countries, and the controversial Iran deal all worked to polarize opinion. The events sent many Republicans back toward a traditional policy of engagement. By December 2015, only 32 percent of Republicans wanted to “focus more at home,” while 62 percent favored being “stronger abroad.” That left only 6 percent saying that they “didn’t know.” The same events sent many Democrats toward a policy of disengagement. Among Democrats, 69 percent now said that the US should “focus more at home,” while only 23 percent favored being “stronger abroad.” That left only 8 percent saying that they “didn’t know.”

Partly, this may be a reflection of the dissolution of established verities. Only 44 percent of Democrats sympathized with Israel in its war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip in Summer 2014, while only 51 percent of Americans overall sympathized more with Israel than with the Palestinians. In contrast, 73 percent of Republicans sympathized with Israel. Whatever the merits of Israel’s policy, the actual implementation of blockade, bombings, and artillery fire in an urban area crowded with women and children as well as missile-firing militants made for gruesome television viewing.

Or perhaps it was just the return to a presidential election campaign that caused many Democrats and Republicans to adopt policies in knee-jerk opposition to their rivals’ policies. For example, in March 2015, 53 percent of Republicans supported automatic registration of all eligible voters. Then, Hillary Clinton endorsed this proposal. Soon, only 28 percent of Republicans supported automatic registration of all eligible voters.[4]

In any event, American voters will get a clear choice in November 2016.

[1] “Behind Shifting GOP Mindset,” WSJ, 4 February 2016.

[2] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 22 August 2014, p. 17.

[3] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 8 August 2014, p. 15.

[4] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 19 June 2015, p. 15. Still, only a minority (48 percent) of Americans supported the idea, while 36 percent were opposed.

United States of Jihad.

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Peter Bergen (1962- ) is an American, but he was raised in London and got his university education at Oxford with an MA in History. When he graduated, the Cold War was in flower, so, in 1983, he went to Pakistan to make a documentary about refugees fleeing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The film, “Refugees of Faith,” saw the light of day on British TV. This helped him land a job with ABC News (1985-1990). Then he moved to CNN (1991-1998). Here he won the Overseas Press Club Edward R. Murrow award for best foreign affairs documentary for the program “Kingdom of Cocaine” (1994); and produced Osama bin Laden’s first television interview, in which he declared war on the United States to a Western audience.

Since then, Bergen has bounced back and forth between journalism and teaching gigs at Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and lesser universities. In the gaps, he wrote Holy War, Inc. (2001); The Osama bin Laden I Know (2006); The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda (2011); and Manhunt: The Ten Year Search for Bin Laden, from 9/11 to Abbottabad (2012). Now he has written a new book, based on his study of more than 300 cases of “home-grown” American militants.[1] What did he find?

Bergen organized his inquiry around a series of simple and direct questions.

First, what’s a “jihadist”? A jihadist is someone who embraces the idea of creating a conservative Sunni Muslim (Salafist) version of a “caliphate” that runs from Morocco to Indonesia. Thus, essentially it is a war for control of the “Dar al Islam,” rather than a war against the “Dar al Harb.” Why then terrorist attacks in the West? Because, the United States and other countries are seen as propping-up the existing order in the Muslim world.

Second, why do some Americans become jihadists? The social profile of American jihadists is puzzling. Most are well-educated, many have wives and children, and some are from middle or upper class backgrounds, rather than all of them being the “losers” often portrayed in the media. However, conservative Islam does not accept a distinction between church and state. So, to have become a Salafist for religious reasons can easily turn one toward political activism.

Third, how does the government seek to counter them? Here Bergen draws a distinction between earlier “leader-led” jihadists who were inspired and launched from abroad, and more recent “leaderless” or lone-wolf jihadists.

It is easier—although not easy—to disrupt terrorist attacks that begin abroad. Broadly, the attackers need visas and airplane tickets. This creates barriers to success. The State Department or the airline security screening might catch them before they board. More likely, there are flight attendants who didn’t sign up to get blown to shreds over the Atlantic by some psychotic misogynist, Thank You Very Much.

It’s more difficult to prevent attacks by domestic “lone wolves.” Many of them are “remotely-inspired” through the Internet.[2] Islamist web-sites have followed the same steep upward curve as have every other form of e-commerce since the 1990s. There were a dozen terrorist-affiliated web-sites in 1990; in 2006, there were more than 4,000; today, who knows? One of them is “Inspire,” started in 2010 by Samir Khan. It urges aspiring jihadists to launch attacks in their own country in order to short-circuit surveillance of people going abroad. Multi-lingualism—but especially the spread of English as the world’s second language—facilitates communication across national boundaries. Cosmopolitanism becomes its own enemy.

Fourth, how has terrorism changed American society? In a sense, this question is beyond Bergen’s ken—or his deadline. However, we can take as an indication his reliance on sources in the EffaBeEye and the National Counterterrorism Center, while critics point out his lack of consideration of the National Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and the role of local police departments. In short, 9/11 spawned the growth a huge and intrusive national security bureaucracy.

[1] Peter Bergen, United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists (New York: Crown, 2016).

[2] Anwar al Awlaki was in touch with Major Nidal Malik Hassan, who murdered 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood.

Arabian Knights.

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For a long time, Saudi Arabia has been a gerontocracy. Ibn Saud chased out the Hashemites in the 1920s[1], and set up the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. His many sons then took turns inheriting the throne. In early 2015, a new king took the throne in Saudi Arabia. King Salman, is 80 years old. He appointed his own son. Mohammed bin Salman al Saud as defense minister and deputy crown prince. The king also gave the prince authority over economic and oil policy. Basically, Prince Mohammed is the heir-designate. He’s 30 years old; a homey rather than a “Westerner”; and a hard-case.

It’s easy to see why the Saudis rulers might be sweating through the old burnoose. Like many other developing countries, they have a huge youth population. Just over half of the population is 25 years old or younger. Unlike other developing countries, Saudi Arabia has little chance of providing them with work. Saudi Arabia earns most of its income from oil. It has used that revenue to buy off domestic dissent and to sponsor the world-wide evangelism of Wahhabist Islam. Basically, 18 million Saudis do no work, while 9 million immigrants do all the real work. Most Saudis who “work” are in a laughable public sector.[2] Saudis get free health care and education.[3] Recently, the price of oil has gone through the floor (from $115/barrel to $35/barrel) and will drop some more when Iran comes back on-line. That has been driving down Saudi income—and the buying-off of dissent and the evangelism of Wahhabism. Its great cross-Gulf rival,[4] Iran, has escaped from economic sanctions by cutting an Emmental deal with the West on nuclear weapons. Its chief ally, the United States, isn’t in much of a mood to fight anyone for the moment, especially in the Middle East. WTF to do?

Well, one answer would be to go into a defensive crouch.[5] Saudi Arabia certainly has done that.[6] On the other hand, Saudi Arabia is also punching back hard against the “Iranian threat.” Money for weapons and other supplies has poured in to support anti-Assad forces in Syria. The Saudis have deployed (American supplied) air power against Houthis in Yemen. Thus, it is possible to see the prince as favoring a forward policy in the Sunni-Shi’ite civil war now underway. The opposition to Assad certainly falls in that category, but Yemen offers an example of Saudi Arabia deploying its own forces, rather than merely providing support.[7]

Another answer would be to reform the system. Crown Prince Mohammed has promised “market-based” reforms. The crown prince has promised an insurance-based health-care system (“MohammedCare”) and a partial privatization of education. In short, the Saudis will have to start working. That rule may be applied to the living-large royal family as well. None of that is likely to go over well with people who are used to not working for a living. Saudi Arabia is the next ticking time-bomb in American foreign policy.

[1] The Hashemites ended up with Iraq and Jordan as consolation prizes. Then the king of Iraq got overthrown and murdered by revolutionaries who included Saddam Hussein. So, the king of Jordan hated the ruler of Iraq and the ruler of Saudi Arabia. However, the ruler of Iraq also hated the king of Saudi Arabia. So, that’s concerning.

[2] Even so, about one-fifth of people are “poor.” By Saudi Arabian standards. Like most of the 9/11 suicide bombers.

[3] Bernie Sanders take note. The goose doesn’t always lay golden eggs.

[4] The rivalry is more intense than Ohio State-Michigan. Still, there might be something to be said for making Urban Meyer or Jim Harbaugh a Field Marshall. Although Lou Saban would be the safe bet.

[5] Corporate public relations people generally advise against this. Saudi Arabia has a Tylenol problem, but isn’t acting as Tylenol did. Probably a funny movie in this idea.

[6][6] A blogger urged liberalization and tolerance. He got flogged. His lawyers didn’t get flogged, but they did get jail for defending him. His wife tweeted about his arrest and she got jailed, although she didn’t get flogged.

[7] Alison Smale, “Germany Rebukes Its Own Agency for Criticizing Saudi Policy,” NYT, 4 December 2015.

Lessons and Questions.

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Boko Haram first rose to the attention of people in Europe and America in mid-2014.[1] Then Nigeria occupied the center of attention. However, the Nigerian military appeared incapable of defeating Boko Haram. The military has been used as a source of income for politicians, rather than as a fighting force. Furthermore, the Nigerian government largely spurned Western offers of assistance.[2] Boko Haram also spilled into the surrounding countries of Cameroon, Niger, and Chad. It conquered a territory the size of Belgium. So the Western countries (France and the United States) turned to those same neighboring countries to lead the fight against Boko Haram. American Special Forces troops were assigned to assist the African military forces actually willing to fight Boko Haram. The Americans established a base for drones in northern Cameroon. From this base surveillance drones have been hunting Boko Haram forces throughout the whole four country area.

Chad has played an important role in this process. Chad has a troubled recent history, to put it mildly.[3] As a result, its troops have a lot of experience at fighting armed opponents (as opposed to shooting at civilian demonstrators). Unlike Nigeria, Chad had devoted most of its defense budget to training and equipping the soldiers. Having already battled the Islamist uprising in Mali in 2013, troops from Chad helped roll back Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, Cameroon, and Niger during 2015. Recently, this strategy began to pay off as Boko Haram was forced out of territory it had controlled and lost much of its ability to wage “conventional”—if irregular–war.

However, the armies of Chad and Cameroon can defeat Boko Haram, but they are too small to hold all the ground and to provide security. So, defeat in one form of warfare has caused Boko Haram to turn to another form: suicide bombings and road-side IEDs. For example, since July 2016, Boko Haram has carried out at least 40 suicide bombings in northern Cameroon alone. Recently, a pair of suicide bombers struck in Chibok in northern Nigeria, killing 12 and wounding 15. So far, Boko Haram’s campaign is working. An estimated 100,000 people have fled the Far Northern region; driving from one village to the next requires a military escort; and the local economy is hardly functioning.

With the regular armed forces strung out on other operations, the government of Cameroon has had to improvise. One response has been to organize self-defense groups called “comites de vigilance” in each village. These local militias aren’t—yet—particularly well-armed. They possess a mix of what amount to “zip guns,” machetes, and bows and arrows. However, their chief role is to be alert to any strangers who appear, then to inform the army.

These developments raise a number of questions. First, most of Chad’s troops are Sunni Muslims. Why will they fight against an ISIS affiliate, when the Sunnis of Iraq and Syria will not fight against ISIS? Second, both Chad and Iraq get most of their income from oil, but the price of oil has fallen. Will this affect their ability to sustain the struggle? Third, will a defeat of ISIS forces lead to the same switch to relying purely on terrorism within Iraq and Syria?

[1] Yarolsav Trofimov, “ Nations Turn to Chad to Fight Jihadists in West Africa,” WSJ, 22 January 2016; and “After Losing Land, Boko Haram Responds With Bombs,” WSJ, 29 January 2016

[2] Probably the two are related. The former French territories have maintained contact with France. In addition, Israel has provided some training in Cameroon.

[3] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad