'Pre-election plots' and the politics of
fear By Ashraf Fahim
Ever
since the train bombings in Madrid in early March
capsized the Jose Aznar government's re-election bid, US
pundits and pollsters have grappled with an unanswerable
riddle: Is al-Qaeda plotting a repeat on US shores to
coincide with the November election, and, if so, how
would an attack affect the outcome? With the
administration of President George W Bush issuing a
surfeit of terror alerts over the summer, the
speculation has only intensified.
It is, of
course, difficult to establish the veracity of
"Al-Qaeda's pre-election plot", as a Newsweek cover
story recently labeled it, and virtually impossible to
predict how an attack, of unspecified scope, would play
at the ballot box. But the drumbeat of terror warnings
from senior Bush administration officials, apparently
bolstered by fresh intelligence from European and
Pakistani security agencies, has made it equally
impossible to ignore.
Most recently, the
administration cited specific threats against financial
targets in New York, New Jersey and Washington, DC, in
an August 1 briefing by Tom Ridge, head of the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) - though it later
emerged that the intelligence was dated. Meanwhile, a
sense of impending doom has been created by virtue of a
conspicuous security presence in major urban centers,
not to mention full-page DHS newspaper ads that advise
Americans to "set aside supplies you'll need to survive
three days at home" in case of an attack.
But
skeptics contend that while it's prudent to let the
public in on credible threats, the administration's
spin, if not its conduct of the "war on terrorism", is
directly linked to its re-election strategy. Ridge
sneaked a neat plug for the administration into his
August 1 briefing, for example, saying the revelations
were "the result of the president's leadership in the
war against terror".
"When Secretary Ridge links
the threat to effusive praise about the Bush
administration's 'war on terrorism', it raises questions
that it's a fairly transparent effort at using the
threat warning as a campaigning opportunity," said John
Gershman, co-director of the Interhemispheric Resource
Center (IRC), a left-leaning think-tank, "particularly
when it comes at the time of the Democratic National
Convention." The Democratic Convention ended on July 29,
and opponents of the Bush administration argued that the
terror alert was intended to deflate any post-election
"bounce" newly minted Democratic presidential candidate
John Kerry might have garnered from it.
The
administration's credibility was not helped by
whisperings in July that it was examining the legalities
of postponing the November election in the event of an
attack. Democrats, many of whom still chafe at the
"stolen" election of 2000, expressed disbelief, forcing
prompt administration denials. The White House has also
been stung by allegations, first made in The New
Republic, that it has upped the pressure on Pakistani
intelligence to deliver a spectacular pre-election
"October surprise" named Osama bin Laden.
Republic of fear Taken together, the
unyielding focus on the terrorist threat and the war in
Iraq have elevated national security and foreign affairs
to the top of the US public's election concerns for the
first time since the Vietnam war, according to a poll by
the Pew Research Center released last Wednesday.
The public is split over who would handle Iraq
better, but a USA Today poll taken after the Democratic
Convention revealed that, by 54% versus 41%, the public
trusts Bush over Democratic challenger Kerry when it
comes to fighting terror - the only major issue in which
Bush has significant advantage. Still, there are too
many variables to know whether another attack would
reinforce deference to the commander-in-chief, or
provoke mutiny.
"In the past, when there have
been, during elections, foreign international crises,
there's generally been a rally-around-the-president,
rally-around-the-incumbent impact," said Andrew Kohut,
director of the Pew Center, in comments to Asia Times
Online. "But inasmuch as an important part of President
Bush's appeal is how good a job he's done on terrorism,
the issue is whether people would then think the
opposite - that is, in the end, he hasn't really
protected us."
The supposition that al-Qaeda is
so emboldened by its success in influencing the election
in Spain that it hopes to replicate it in the United
States lies behind much of the current conjecture. But
Kohut says critical differences make Spain ill-suited as
a guide for prophesying the fallout of an attack in the
US.
"In Spain there was almost no public support
for sending Spanish troops to Iraq," said Kohut, "and
secondly, there came a view that the Spanish government
was lying about who attacked that train. Neither of
those issues are germane here."
By most accounts
the Aznar government's clumsy handling of the attacks'
aftermath sealed its fate. It continued to blame ETA
(the separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, or Basque
Homeland and Liberty), even as contrary intelligence
emerged, apparently fearful that the public would link
the attacks to Spain's participation in the "coalition
of the willing" in Iraq.
But the Iraq factor
might play out differently in the US. According to the
Pew data, a bare majority of Americans still believe the
war was justified. They are, however, now split - 45-44%
- on whether Iraq helped or hurt the "war on terrorism".
Back in February the disposition was 62-28%, so a
pre-election attack could strengthen the growing belief
that the Iraq war has not made the US safer. On the
other hand, an attack might simply reinforce the idea
that Iraq and al-Qaeda were always linked, a belief a
majority of Americans still cling to.
John
Gershman of IRC says the nature of an attack, more than
anything else, might determine the political
consequences. "If we have another attack that is of a
sort that everyone looks at each other and says, 'You
know, we never thought of that,' it's not clear to me
that's as much of a black mark against the Bush
administration," he said, "as opposed to if it's an
attack in an area that the administration has come under
criticism for devoting inadequate resources."
Therein lies the greatest danger for Bush.
Democrats have rounded on the administration's efforts
to secure the homeland, alleging, for example,
disproportionate expenditure in Republican
constituencies and fealty to special interests in the
fashioning of safety standards for potential private
sector targets. Lobbying by the chemical industry was
effective in watering down federal oversight provisions
in the Chemical Facilities and Security Act, for another
example. If an industrial chemical facility were
targeted, the Kerry campaign could therefore say "I told
you so" with some legitimacy.
If, however, a
"soft target" such as a public bus or shopping mall were
struck, the public might conclude that such targets are
simply too numerous to protect, whatever the
administration's record. Such an attack would also
likely reinforce the feeling that the US is facing an
existential threat, and defer to whichever candidate it
deems capable of eliminating it.
Implicit in
speculation about the "pre-election plot" is the
assumption that al-Qaeda, or kindred spirits, has a
preferred candidate. A recent New Yorker article quotes
a message from the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, an
alleged al-Qaeda affiliate, published after the Madrid
attack. "We are very keen that Bush does not lose the
upcoming elections," it said, lauding the utility of
Bush's "idiocy and religious fanaticism".
The
candidates have danced around this issue. The Bush
campaign has, at times, elided the threat to the United
States with one to the administration - by emphasizing
the possibility of an attack on the upcoming Republican
Convention in New York, for example - implying that
al-Qaeda fears a second Bush term. Kerry meanwhile has
suggested he would be the more dangerous foe by accusing
Bush of fostering anti-US sentiment and thus aiding
al-Qaeda's recruitment drive, while promising to wage a
more "effective" war on terrorism - blasting Bush for
"letting" bin Laden escape at Tora Bora, Afghanistan,
for instance.
Gershman doubts al-Qaeda has a
favorite, however. "I think al-Qaeda may view this as an
opportune time to demonstrate that, three years after
[the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001], it's
still alive and kicking, rather than it having a
specific agenda of how it wants to influence the
election," he said. "We have to recall that al-Qaeda is
really in a longer-term transformational, revolutionary
struggle. It doesn't see the primary issue as whether
Bush or Kerry is the president of the USA."
It
may not ultimately matter if, when or how al-Qaeda plans
to strike the US. The deeply polarized US electorate is
already preoccupied with threats, real and illusory.
Another attack would undoubtedly sharpen the terrorism
debate, but the rhetoric is, by now, so practiced that
both candidates could conceivably spin any eventuality -
catastrophic or benign - to their advantage.
Ashraf Fahim is a freelance writer on
Middle Eastern affairs based in New York and London.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
