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"actual invasion" by
u.s.
forces-except in Afghanistan-speculating
instead that "military pressure, ... smothering economic embargoes,
and perhaps the example of at least one terrorist-harboring government
brought down by direct attack could conceivably create sufficient inter–
na I resistance to topple several otherl s I."
Mandelbaum is far more direct in dismissing out of hand two of the
so-called root causes of the September
I I
attacks-both favorites of
/)iell–
pellSal1t
commentators: to wit, "poverty and Israel." Worthy as these
goals may be in the eyes of some, the results of "trying
to
eliminate
poverty in the countries that breed terrorism" or of "pressuring Israel to
make Ifurtherl concessions to Yasir Arafat" are "entirely predictable,"
writes the author. "The first will be futile, the second counterproductive."
Although, in the past, Mandelbaum has occasionally sounded a bit
frivolous when decrying "foreign policy as social work" or when criti–
cizing American attempts at humanitarian intervention (for example, in
the former Yugoslavia), there is nothing frivolous in his tone here. He
may be too easily dismissive of legitimate Palestinian complaints and
aspirations. But he is, I am sure, correct not only in questioning the fea –
sibility of any sort of unilateral (American) global "war on poverty" but
also the assertion that such an initiative would stop terrorism dead in its
tracks. As for his discussion of the Israeli "root cause," Mandelhaum
correctly suggests that what critics often describe as Israeli intransigence
is just as often a convenient excuse for explaining away Islamist terror–
ism. But he goes further (and will no doubt annoy many readers by his
outspokenness) when he writes: "There is no credible evidence that
Arafat is seeking a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and all too much
evidence that his goal is a Palestinian state instead of Israel."
Anatol Lieven ("The Cold War Is finally Over") is one contributor
who wou Id presumabl y ta ke strong exception
to
Ma ndel ba um's con–
clusions. Lieven's is, at any rate, an uneven essay that ranges over too
many topics in too little space. Obviously, the author is quite uncom–
fortable with what he perceives
to
be the foreign policy and security pri–
orities of the Bush administration-"still rooted in Cold War attitudes
and structures," he says, including "the attempt
to
cast Russia and
China as major threats to vital U.S. interests." Lieven also believes that
"with the exception of certain Middle Eastern states"-unfortunately,
unlike Ko-Ko in
The
Mikado,
he does not provide us with a "little
list"-"the real threat
to
the world order comes not from states, but
from below, from alienated populations." Again, I have my doubts. Per–
haps Fareed Zakaria-in the conc luding essay of this volume-comes
closer to the truth when he writes: "Radica l Islam ... festers in societies
