Terrorism Index
Today, the Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy magazine released the latest edition of their annual “terrorism index” survey. I’ll let the authors explain for themselves:
But is it making the United States safer? To find out, each year Foreign Policy and the Center for American Progress survey the very people who have run America’s national security apparatus during the past half century. Surveying more than 100 top U.S. foreign-policy experts—Republicans and Democrats alike—the Foreign Policy / Center for American Progress Terrorism Index is the only comprehensive, nonpartisan effort to poll the highest echelons of the country’s national security establishment for its assessment of how the United States is fighting the war on terror. First released in July 2006, then again in February and September 2007, the index attempts to draw definitive conclusions about the war’s priorities, policies, and progress. Its participants include people who have served as national security advisor, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, senior White House aides, top Pentagon commanders, seasoned intelligence professionals, and distinguished academics.
There’s a lot in there, but one noteworthy thing is a general trend in the direction of optimism as things settle down in Iraq. On the other hand, the surveyed experts continue to grow increasingly alarmed by American policy toward Tehran, which has neither improved relations between the U.S. and Iran nor done anything to impede the Iranian nuclear program. Other noteworthy results include the finding that 69 percent of surveyed experts recommend withdrawing most U.S. forces from Iraq over the next 18 months and 80 percent say that the United States has focused too much on Iraq and not enough on Afghanistan.
24 Responses to “Terrorism Index”
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August 18th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Christ on a crutch, those charts! Is D.C. truly that bereft of competent graphic designers?
August 18th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Thoughts that never, ever occur to Matt:
Possibly, just possibly, the US has reasons to distrust a nation that committed an act of war in 1979, and which states over and over again in public that it wants to see Israel destroyed, and its citizens killed.
To Matt, these are all minor things, that could easily be talked through at a “town hall” style meeting where the American President just sat down over biscuits with the Iranians.
The concept that there might not be any good answers with respect to Iran is just beyond Matt’s grasp.
August 18th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Matt: “nor done anything to impede the Iranian nuclear program”
What nuclear program, Matt?
The Iranian nuclear energy program? That’s legal. It isn’t going anywhere, nor should it.
The Iranian nuclear weapons program? There isn’t one. Never was one. Probably never will be one unless the US attack on Iran makes Khamenei or a successor change his mind.
So exactly what should US foreign policy be doing about the Iranian nuclear program? Answer: Supporting it, as the NPT requires the advanced nuclear nations to do.
Robertson: You’re a moron. Iran has never said Israel should be destroyed and its citizens killed. Take your ketamine fantasies somewhere else.
August 18th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
On the awesome wonderfulness of post-Surge Iraq, at some point there will be some rather unpleasant consequences to a policy of paying off warlords for cooperation. Particularly when the checks stop. Just sayin’, you know, before it’s all “no one could have anticipated” time again.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
El Cid: Speaking of that, there’s this:
US Officials Admit Worry over a ‘Difficult’ al-Maliki
http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=13313
August 18th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Mr. Hack:
Whether Iran has a nuclear weapons program or not, they certainly want others to believe they do. Your assertion that they never have and never will smacks of willful ignorance.
As to Israel, they’ve said it enough times to mark you as fully delusional. Get thee off to Google.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
No, James, what you said was “which states over and over again in public that it wants to see Israel destroyed, and its citizens killed”.
Your serious Israeli propaganda player uses this as shorthand for “wants Israel’s Jewish chauvanist government replaced” and if that’s your definition (or even if you are sympathetic to it) it’s not the same as wanting all Israel’s citizens killed (which would include the Palestinian Muslim and Christian populations).
August 18th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Sigh.
Ed, you make it sound as if the Iranian govt merely wants to have a new party come in. That’s hardly the case. Hizbollah and Hamas – both Iranian armed and funded – have been raining rockets on civilian targets for years. The Iranian government talks about “wiping Israel off the map”.
Reasonable people can disagree over whether the US should or should not back Israel, or even be concerned about its fate. Only willfully ignorant fools believe that the Iranian government has anything other than slaughter in mind for Israel.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
No, this is just altogether wrong. If I assume the worst religious impulses out of Iran they are going to be more protective of the landscape of the Levant than a secular anti-zionist regime.
“Wiping Israel off the map”, is a horribly bad translation. I was a “conversationalist” during college to mostly Gulf State and Iranian students and learned enough Arabic and Farsi to know that (and it doesn’t take much). More importantly, I knew some very religious Muslims and the more religious they were, the more likely they were to find some suggestion that nuking or laying waste in some way to the area abhorent.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:32 am
3D charts are evil. Not only are they ugly, but they actually obscure the information they are trying to convey.
August 19th, 2008 at 6:36 am
Robertson’s just another ignorant right wing freak job who gets his opinions from the bozos on right wing talk radio. He demonstrates his ignorance of the Iranian situation with every post he makes on the subject.
He’s a joke.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Aren’t those two charts somewhat contradictory? The experts say that U.S. actions toward Iran have had a negative impact on U.S. security goals, but at the same time the share that says that Iran would transfer nuclear weapons to terrorist groups is down. Obviously there are other U.S. security goals, but isn’t making sure that Iran doesn’t give out nukes to terrorists a big one?
August 19th, 2008 at 7:56 am
And of course it could be that Iran is less likely to give out nukes despite U.S. policy, not because of it. But still.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
What pool of experts include 27% who believe that Iran would turn over a nuclear weapon to terrorists? Assuming the very worst about Iran’s nuclear program, and I don’t, it is insane to believe that the Iranian government would give up a very hard won, and very very expensive nuclear weapon to a group that they can’t control.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Any “expert” who thinks Iran has a nuclear weapons program, let alone one who would believe Iran would hand nukes out like candy to proxies, is by definition not an expert.
However, one way you can see a negative effect on US security even while not believing in Iran nukes is by realizing that the US policy towards Iran prevents us from cooperating with Iran on other matters in the region, including Iraq, terrorism in general, Al Qaeda (Iran offered the US Al Qaeda suspects in the past – the US refused because the Iranians wanted some opening of relations as a reward.)
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