Stop and make sure the targets to be destroyed are appropriate and reachable with minimal “collateral damage,” the killing of innocent civilians that would incense the Islamic world.
Look for allies to show the breadth and depth of the world’s condemnation of fanatic murder, especially in unlikely places such as Russia, Libya and Iran.
More Top Picks Best Neck And Shoulder Massagers
And listen, not just to the blood lust infused by personal loss, shaken security and wounded pride, but to the voices urging soulful examination of how U.S. values have come to provoke hatred.
With the thunder of U.S. retaliation approaching, many security analysts agree on which options would be most effective. Sea-launched cruise missiles could take out terrorist training camps identified by satellite surveillance. Precision air strikes on remote hideouts could send the prime suspects running.
With the help of sympathetic local forces, such as Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, elite commando units could swoop down on the plotters and their Taliban hosts in a limited ground action, as long as those back home understand there will be losses.
“They will go for cosmetic strikes to start with,” predicted Charles Heyman, editor of Jane’s World Armies. He cautioned that ground deployments needed to seek and destroy the masterminds of fundamentalist terror require a three- to five-year troop commitment.
Expectations should be scaled back, some say.
“I am very skeptical when people say they will end terrorism,” said Brian Jenkins, a senior adviser at Rand Corp. and a counterterrorism expert.
“That is not realistic. It is going to demand unwavering resolve, creativity, cold, calm courage. There will be no Normandy landings here . . . no victory parades.”
Even describing the U.S. mission as a war is tempting fate, warned Taylor Seybolt, conflict strategist at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
“For one thing, it legitimizes American military attacks on other governments, when the attacks came from non-governmental forces,” he said.
That said, he described a carefully planned and focused military strike as justified. “You can’t respond to something this horrific by trying to talk to the perpetrators or treat terrorism as it has always been treated, as a police problem. I hate to say it, but the idea of resuming political assassinations should be considered.”
Philip Wilcox, a former chief of the State Department’s counterterrorism bureau, urged the Bush administration to tailor military action to avoid even the appearance of an anti-Arab or anti-Islam conflict.
“There is no doubt that lack of any progress in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has had a powerful impact on the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in turn on their governments. The U.S. cannot deal with all of these things in a vacuum,” Wilcox said.
Others are less wedded to restraint or an interfaith coalition.
“The United States should deploy ground troops in numerous short commando raids, where teams are introduced and extracted quickly after targeting individuals,” advised Gerald Steinberg, head of the Conflict Resolution Center at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv. “This can be in Afghanistan or wherever necessary.”
Most important, say analysts such as Joachim Giessman at Hamburg’s Institute for Peace Studies and Security Policy, is that the United States knows with 100 percent certainty who it is striking at and that the firepower takes out the problem.
“Osama bin Laden is a name heard so often. But it would be a disaster if all energy is concentrated against one man when the threat is so much broader,” Giessman warned.
Patient, methodical police and intelligence work is needed to identify the culprits, he said, recalling that it took two decades for Germany to quell its Red Army Faction extremists.