Passive Sponsors of Terrorism

Defeating radical jihadists today requires all states to act aggressively against them – an exceptionally difficult challenge. Some states aid terrorist groups by being passive as terrorists operate on their soil. The experiences of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan vis-à-vis al-Qaeda, as well as the US tolerance of Provisional Irish Republican Army activities during the 1970s and 1980s, are instructive. These cases suggest that passive support usually occurs due to strong popular support for a terrorist group's cause, a perceived lack of a direct threat to the regime, and limited costs to the government for tolerating these activities. Halting passive support is difficult and requires new policies and a new way of thinking about the problem of state support for terrorism. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Stephen Brooks, Mike Brown, F. Gregory Gause III, C. Christiane Fair, Rebekah Kim Cragin, David Edelstein, Bruce Hoffman, Kenneth Pollack, William Rosenau, and Jeremy Shapiro for their comments on earlier versions of this essay. I would also like to thank Georgetown's Center for Peace and Security Studies, the Woodrow Wilson Center, and MIT's Security Studies Program for hosting my talks on this topic. This article draws on my book Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge, 2005) as well as a Saban Center at the Brookings Institution monograph on the subject 'Confronting Passive Sponsors of Terrorism', Analysis Paper no. 4 (February 2005). Notes 1. Jeremy Shapiro and Benedicte Suzan, 'The French Experience of Counterterrorism', Survival, vol. 45, no. 1, Spring 2003, pp. 67–98; Rohan Gunaratna, Dynamics of Diaspora-Supported Terrorist Networks, unpublished dissertation, University of St Andrews, Scotland, October 1999. 2. Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil (New York: Crown Publishers, 2003), p. 21. 3. Michael Sco Doran, 'Somebody Else's Civil War', Foreign Affairs, January/ February 2002, p. 23. For reports on the supposed Saudi attempt to kill bin Ladin in Sudan, see Mary Anne Weaver, 'Blowback', Atlantic Monthly, May 1998, pp. 24–6. 4. As quoted (derisively) in Baer, Sleeping with the Devil, p. 202. 5. Thomas W. Lippman, Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 208–209, 303. 6. Josh Meyer, 'Cuing Money Flow to Terrorists Proves Difficult', Los Angeles Times, 28 September 2003; John Mintz, 'Wahhabi Strain of Islam Faulted', Washington Post, 27 June 2003, p. A11. Much of the money to the Palestinian cause came from Palestinians working in Saudi Arabia, but the regime and figures associated with it also gave considerable funds. 7. Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, 'The Saudi–Al Qaeda Connection', Newsweek, 11 September 2003. See also National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, 'Monograph on Terrorist Financing', http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/911_TerrFin_Monograph.pdf . 8. As quoted in Susan Schmidt, 'Spreading Saudi Fundamentalism in U.S.', Washington Post, 2 October 2003, p. A01. 9. Al-Hayat, 19 October 2001, pp. 1 and 6, as quoted in F. Gregory Gause III, 'Be Careful What You Wish For: The Future of U.S.–Saudi Relations', World Policy Journal, spring 2002, p. 50, n. 4. 10. 'A Measure of Democracy', The Washington Post, 8 June 2004, p. A18. 11. Gause, 'Be Careful What You Wish For', pp. 40–41; Dobbs, 'Saudi Rulers Walk Political Tightrope', Washington Post, 14 March 2003, p. A23. Polling data before 2003 are not available. However, numerous observers of the kingdom contend that anti-Americanism is far stronger than ever before. 12. Gause, 'Be Careful What You Wish For', pp. 37–8. For an overview of such techniques, see Daniel Byman and Jerrold Green, Political Violence and Stability in the States of the Northern Persian Gulf (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1998), pp. 71–94. 13. Thomas Wilshire, 'Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee', 18 December 2001. 14. Mamoun Fandy, Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2001); Gause, 'Be Careful What You Wish For', pp. 39 and 44; Gilles Kepel, 'The Origins and Development of the Jihadist Movement', Asian Affairs, vol. 34, no. 2, July 2003, p. 99. 15. Simon Henderson, address before the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, available at: h p://www.ciaonet.org/pbei/winep/policy_2003/2003_759.html. 16. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States. 'Overview of the Enemy', Staff Statement No. 15, h p://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/staff_statement_15.pdf , p. 10. 17. Kenneth Pollack, Arabs at War (Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), pp. 425–46. 18. David Kaplan, 'The Saudi Connection', U.S. News and World Report, 15December 2003. 19. For an overview of the US–Saudi relationship, see Lippman, Inside the Mirage. 20. See F. Gregory Gause, III, The Approaching Turning Point: The Future of U.S. Relations with the Gulf States, The Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, May 2003, pp. 3–6. 21. Testimony of J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, to the House Commiee on International Relations, Subcommiee on the Middle East and Central Asia, 24 March 2004, available at http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/108/blac032404. htm . 22. Richard Dekmejian, 'The Liberal Impulse in Saudi Arabia', The Middle East Journal, vol. 57, no. 3, Summer 2003. 23. FBI Deputy Assistant Director Thomas J. Harrington, 'Saudi Arabia and the Fight Against Terrorism Financing', Testimony before the House Commiee on International Relations, Subcommiee on the Middle East and Central Asia, 24 March 2004, available at http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/108/harr032404.htm ; and Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary Juan C. Zarate, Testimony to the House Commiee on International Relations, Subcommiee on the Middle East and Central Asia, 24 March 2004, available at http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/108/zara032404.htm . 24. Mohammad Amir Rana, Gateway to Terrorism (London: New Millennium, 2003); al-Qaeda ran at least five camps for fighters going to Kashmir before 11 September; Michael Hirsh et al., 'Al Qaeda's New Threat', Newsweek, 10 June 2002, p. 30. 25. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 27– 8 and 98; Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2003), p. 114; and Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 227–8. 26. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004), p. 64. 27. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States reports that the Taliban received between $10 and $20 million a year from al-Qaeda, perhaps two-thirds of the movement's budget. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States. 'Overview of the Enemy', p. 11. 28. Rashid, Taliban, p. 137. 29. C. Christiane Fair, 'Militant Recruitment in Pakistan', Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 27, no. 6, November/ December 2004. 30. Sumit Ganguly, The Crisis in Kashmir: Portents of War, Hopes of Peace (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), and Kepel, Jihad, pp. 98–103. For an overview of the JI, see Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama'at-I Islami of Pakistan (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994). 31. Tim McGirk and Hanna Bloch, 'Has Pakistan Tamed its Spies?', Time, 6 May 2002, p. 32. 32. Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2004). 33. Tim McGirk, Hannah Bloch, Alex Perry and Rahimullah Yusufzai, 'Al-Qaeda's New Hideouts', Time Europe, 29 July 2002, p. 25. 34. Fair, 'Militant Recruitment in Pakistan'. 35. Stephen Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2004). 36. As quoted in Stern, 'Pakistan's Jihad Culture', Foreign Affairs, vol. 79, no. 6, November/December 2000, p. 121. 37. International Crisis Group, Kashmir: The View from Islamabad, Asia Report No. 68 (Brussels, ICG, 2003), p. 13. 38. Peter Bergen, 'The Long Hunt for Osama', Atlantic Monthly, October 2004, electronic version. 39. Anonymous, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terrorism (Washington, DC: Brassey's, 2004), p. 55. 40. Tony Geraghty, The Irish War (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), p. 9; Jack Holland, The American Connection: U.S. Guns, Money, and Influence in Northern Ireland (Boulder, CO: Robert Reinhart Publishers, 1999), pp. xvii, 28–9; Richard English, Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 152; and Adrianne Guelke, 'The United States, Irish Americans and the Northern Ireland Peace Process', International Affairs, vol. 73, no. 3, 1996, p. 524. 41. English, Armed Struggle, pp. 116–17 and 344. 42. Ed Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002), pp. 16 and 421. 43. Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, p. 209; Holland, The American Connection, p. 2; Niall O'Dowd, 'The Awakening: Irish-America's Key Role in the Irish Peace Process', in Marianne EllioĴ (ed.), The Long Road to Peace in Northern Ireland (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2002), p. 67; Guelke, 'The United States, Irish Americans and the Northern Ireland Peace Process', pp. 527–32. 44. Holland, The American Connection, pp. 145–51; Guelke, 'The United States, Irish Americans and the Northern Ireland Peace Process', p. 530. 45. Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, p. 16. 46. Irish immigrants have intermarried with non-Irish Americans, with the result that only ten million Americans claim an Irish heritage on both sides of the family. Moreover, half of those with an Irish heritage are Protestant. See Guelke, 'The United States, Irish Americans and the Northern Ireland Peace Process', p. 523. 47. Holland, The American Connection, pp. 161–3. 48. O'Dowd, 'The Awakening', p. 69. 49. Holland, The American Connection, pp. 41 and 194–5; Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, p. 16. 50. Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, p. 16; J. Bowyer Bell, The IRA, 1968–2000: Analysis of a Secret Army (Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000), p. 185; Geraghty, The Irish War, p. 181; Holland, The American Connection, p. 110. 51. Bell, The IRA, p. 195. 52. Holland, The American Connection, pp. 115–33; O'Dowd, 'The Awakening', pp. 65–6. 53. Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, p. 421; Guelke, 'The United States, Irish Americans and the Northern Ireland Peace Process', p. 532. 54. Although diaspora support was important to the Irish cause, the IRA received significantly more money from running various illicit activities in Northern Ireland. For a review, see James Adams, 'The Financing of Terror', in Paul C. Wilkinson and Alasdair M. Stewart (eds), Contemporary Research in Terrorism (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1987). 55. The literature on coercion is voluminous. Among the most widely cited works on coercion are those of Thomas C. Schelling, and Alexander L. George and William E. Simons. See especially Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966) and George and Simons (eds), The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994). For a valuable work on the limits of strategic bombing as a coercive instrument, see Robert Pape, Bombing to Win (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996). An interest take on economic sanctions as a counterterrorism instrument is Gary Clyde Hu auer, Jeffery J. Schoand Barbara Oegg, 'Using Sanctions to Fight Terrorism', Institute for International Economics, November 2001, electronic version. See also Meaghen O'Sullivan, Shrewd Sanctions (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2003) and Robert A. Pape, 'Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work', International Security, vol. 22, no. 2, Fall 1997, pp. 90–136. For my own views on coercion and its limits, see Daniel Byman and Mahew Waxman, The Dynamics of Coercion: American Foreign Policy and the Limits of Military Might (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 56. Peter I. Bergen, Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden, (New York: Free Press, 2002), p. 129. 57. For an argument on how developing world regimes are more likely to focus on internal over external threats, see Steven David, Choosing Sides: Alignment and Realignment in the Third World (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), p. 6. 58. See Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) for a review. 59. Stern, 'Pakistan's Jihad Culture', p. 126. 60. For a highly critical review of US capabilities to influence foreign publics see the Report of the Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, 'Changing Minds, Winning Peace: A New Strategic Direction for U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim World,' 1 October 2003. Additional informationNotes on contributorsDaniel Byman Daniel Byman is the Director of the Center for Peace and Security Studies and the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. His latest book is Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge, 2005).