BOOK
REVIEW For
reasons of state Deadly
Connections. States That Sponsor Terrorism
by Daniel Byman
Reviewed by Sreeram
Chaulia
Since the end of the Cold War, a
myopic fad of obfuscating state-sponsored
terrorism as "old talk" has set in, paralleling
the fascination among current affairs commentators
for non-state actor violence.
In this
methodical survey of the regimes that create,
nurture, mould and abuse terrorist groups for
self-interested objectives, Professor Daniel Byman
of Georgetown University in Deadly Connections.
States That Sponsor Terrorism restores the
state back to the epicenter of the problem. The
author's central message is that puppets cannot
dance without powerful
governmental manipulators.
For terrorism to recede, the states profiting from
it have to be reined in.
State-sponsored
terrorists are more able and willing to kill in
large numbers than autochthonous fringe radicals.
State-supported terrorist outfits flourish because
they are less vulnerable to arrest or disruption.
Iran's backing transformed Hezbollah from a
disorganized ragtag collection of fighters into a
formidable movement that is "a notch above
al-Qaeda in many ways". (p 97)
From the
terrorist group's point of view, state sponsorship
is a devil's bargain. States hold terrorist
proteges on a short leash, pulling back whenever
they fear direct military clashes with the victim
state or international condemnation. Attacks not
conducted or targets not struck are good measures
of the degree of state control over a terrorist
group.
Pakistan, for instance, applies
limits on its proxies waging jihad against India
in response to US pressure or fear of escalation
from New Delhi. Libya and Iraq were notoriously
fickle sponsors, alternatively hosting and
expelling Palestinian terrorist groups as state
goals adjusted to the changing environment.
Byman defines terrorism as violence
perpetrated by a non-state entity against
non-combatants. "Terrorist-like" actions carried
out directly by agents of state are covert acts of
war and not equated to terrorism. State
sponsorship of terrorism takes different values on
a spectrum. Pakistan is an active sponsor of
groups fighting for Kashmir, but a passive sponsor
of al-Qaeda, turning a blind eye to the latter's
bases in the country. States also switch from one
form of active support to another, modulating
their strings dexterously.
Though far from
ideal, terrorism offers weak states a force
multiplier for augmenting their feeble
conventional sources of power. States choose
terrorism instead of more traditional instruments
of statecraft due to three general motivations -
strategic, domestic political and ideological.
Often, states prop up terrorists for
overlapping with insurgencies in which they have a
strategic stake. Destabilization of neighboring
states over disputed territory or hostile
alliances is one of the leading causes for
terrorist sponsorship. Iran and Iraq have
sustained numerous terrorist groups against each
other in an endless game of revenge.
Projecting power regionally, toppling
regimes and replacing them with more amenable
leaderships, and shaping the nature of opposition
against a hated foe (Arab states and Palestinian
groups) are other strategic reasons for
sponsorship. Exporting an ideology or political
system can introduce terrorists as the vanguard of
a revolutionary state. Such state sponsors believe
that victory is inevitable, whether it is blessed
by God or some other deterministic force. Some
states abet terrorism as a means to enhance their
international prestige and long shadows as
regional leaders.
Domestic political
motives for sponsorship stem from desires to aid
religious or ethnic kindred who are perceived as
oppressed or from tactics of bolstering the
state's position against dissidents and critics.
Pakistani elites, for example, use the Kashmir
cause to appease the armed forces or to shore up
unity at home among disparate communities that are
at loggerheads.
Active sponsorship can be
operationalized through several assistance
mechanisms - training and operational aid through
the state's skilled professionals, money,
passports, safe passage, front companies and NGOs,
diplomatic sympathy, criticism of victim states'
human rights records, ideological direction, safe
sanctuary etc. Target states that are at the
receiving end of terrorism find it difficult to
deliver knockout blows to state-sponsored outfits
owing to diplomatic complications, constraints on
intelligence gathering and politicization of the
terrorist cause.
Byman's first case study
is Iran's mentor relationship with Hezbollah, a
product of theology and strategic thinking in
Tehran. Hezbollah was created to spread the
Iranian revolution and prevent Western takeover of
Lebanon. It was a loyal proxy that advanced Iran's
agenda without provoking military retaliation from
Israel and aided in eliminating pro-Iraq groups in
Lebanon and anti-Khomeini dissident Iranians in
Europe.
Hezbollah received tactical
guidance from Iranian diplomats, fundamentalist
ardor from Iranian clerics and rigorous training
from Iranian intelligence. A state subsidy of
US$100 million was also given to Hezbollah at its
peak in the 1980s for humanitarian and social
work. After (Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini, Iran
slightly distanced itself from Hezbollah and urged
its "Lebanonization", thanks to growing costs of
sponsorship. American covert attempts to overthrow
the government in Tehran, sinking of Iranian ships
and economic sanctions hurt Iran considerably.
Friction with Syria, Turkey and the Gulf
Cooperation Council also raised the costs of
underwriting Hezbollah.
Byman's second
case study is Syria's "antagonistic sponsorship"
of Palestinian terrorists. Aiming to improve
bargaining vis-a-vis Israel and as part of its
rivalry with Jordan and Iraq, Damascus has opened
and shut the taps on an array of Palestinian
groups. The Assad dynasty, which belongs to the
minority Alawi community, also supports terrorist
causes to make up for its legitimacy deficit in
Syrian society.
After being routed by
Israel in 1967, 1973 and 1982 (in Lebanon), direct
military confrontation was unthinkable for Syria.
Terrorism came in handy to level this asymmetry.
Since the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
fiercely resisted Syrian hegemony, Damascus
consistently backed former PLO leader Yasser
Arafat's rival outfits - Hamas, Islamic Jihad,
Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
and PFLP-General Command. These groups were
trained in Lebanon with Iranian collaboration and
handled by Syria's Directorate of Internal
Security.
As Syria widened the fissures in
the Palestinian nationalist movement, it
unwittingly gave Israel the upper hand. Other
costs of sponsorship incurred by Damascus are
Israeli hesitation to return occupied land and US
sanctions. Syria did abandon the Kurdish Workers
Party (PKK) in 1998 under threat of massive
Turkish military attack, but it remains an active
sponsor of Palestinian groups despite the costs.
Byman's third case study is Pakistan's
funding, arming, training and diplomatic support
of varied terrorist groups active in Indian
Kashmir. So close is the tie between the Pakistani
state and these outfits that its Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) "selects targets, including
civilian ones and knows about major attacks in
advance". (p 156)
After jettisoning
secular groups early in the Kashmir insurgency,
Islamabad placed its bets on Islamicizing
movements such as Jaish-e-Muhammad,
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Toiba. Pakistan
also inserted foreign fighters from the Taliban
and al-Qaeda to boost the sagging fortunes of
these movements from time to time. Due to the
sanctuary offered on Pakistani soil, New Delhi has
not succeeded in crushing the cells that
infiltrate and exfiltrate across borders.
The broad bureaucratic and political
support for annexing Kashmir means that Pakistan
can never snap its ties to the terror groups,
despite the tarnishing of its image and backdoor
American arm-twisting. Byman make a very pertinent
point in this regard that "Pakistan's cooperation
on al-Qaeda limits US leverage on Kashmir." (p
185)
The last case study of the book is
that of Afghanistan under the Taliban and its
symbiosis with al-Qaeda from 1996 to 2001. Unique
in the annals of state sponsorship, al-Qaeda had
more influence on its state sponsor by virtue of
its indispensable military and financial largesse
than the other way around.
Unlike other
conventional state sponsors, the Taliban did not
and could not restrict al-Qaeda operations.
Another distinct feature of this case is that "the
story of the Taliban's support for al-Qaeda is a
triangular one: it includes Pakistan. (p 189) From
the haven in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda raised 10,000
to 20,000 guerrillas to wage insurgencies around
the world and a smaller but more lethal number of
terrorists that carried out sensational attacks in
several states. Since the Taliban were dethroned,
al-Qaeda has managed to survive but lost the
freedom and scope to recruit and plan on the same
scale as before.
Byman's chapter on
passive sponsors focuses on diasporas and
public-opinion factors that push some states to
turn a blind eye to terrorist mobilization,
fund-raising and regrouping. The Saudi Arabian
state allowed private individuals and charities to
donate to terrorist causes in Kashmir, Chechnya,
Bosnia, Afghanistan and elsewhere as a strategy of
managing domestic dissent.
Only after the
May and November 2003 attacks in the kingdom did
Riyadh move to substantively improve its
counter-terrorism capacity. Nonetheless,
unofficial Saudi financial support for radical
Wahhabi (Islamic reform) movements continues right
under the nose of the US.
Byman adds
mini-studies of Greece and the November 17 group
as well as the US and the Provisional Irish
Republican Army to argue that passive support for
terrorism can be overcome through policy
interventions that raise the costs of apathy for
the sponsor.
Moving to cracking the harder
nut of active sponsorship, the author feels that
it is "difficult at best and impossible at worst".
(p 273) Punishments often fail to amend behavior
of active sponsors, as they cleverly anticipate
the feasible range of boomerangs before starting
to shelter and train groups.
Ideologically
possessed sponsors are the most intractable, due
to their irrational policy calculus. Some states
are adept at tactical concessions that preserve
the groups under new names or in temporary
hibernation. A first step in effective
counter-terrorism would be to recognize variations
in the motivations of the sponsor and tailor
responses accordingly.
One-size-fits-all
solutions fail. Economic sanctions were unsuitable
for Iran under Khomeini and Afghanistan under the
Taliban. Limited use of force backfired by
boosting Hezbollah's popularity when Israel
attacked Lebanon in 1993 and 1996. Byman faults
the US for failing to set priorities and mixing up
counter-terrorism with other foreign-policy
concerns such as non-proliferation, drug
trafficking and human rights.
Multilateralism always yields better
outcomes, as the case of Libya's big turnaround
under pressure of UN sanctions demonstrates. Byman
stresses the vitality of timing in
counter-terrorism. Potential shifts such as a
change in leadership, the regional balance of
power or a fall in price of a key export can raise
chances of successfully coercing state sponsors.
Among the lessons for victim states and
dissuaders, Byman calls for putting an end to the
fiction of deniability behind which sponsors hide.
The burden of proof should be on the accused
state. Lowering the international bar on
legitimate escalation against sponsors allows the
victim state to respond adequately. Demanding a
high standard for regime accountability and
creating a strong norm against state sponsorship
at the international level are also necessary for
preempting new state sponsors from emerging.
This book is recommendable as a
course-correcting comparative study of terrorism.
It shatters the myth that non-state terrorist
groups have taken over the sordid business of
deliberate violence against civilians. The
paradigm is still a state-centric world with
state-sponsored terrorists penetrating and
weakening enemy states. At least in this sphere of
transnational affairs, nothing has changed
drastically from the Cold War era when proxies
were normalized as weapons of indirect warfare.
Deadly Connections. States That Sponsor
Terrorism by Daniel Byman. Cambridge
University Press, New York, 2005. ISBN:
0-521-83973-4. Price US$30.00, 369 pages.
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