Author: Ted Galen Carpenter
Publication: The Cato Institute
Date: November 16, 2001
URL: http://www.cato.org/dailys/11-16-01.html
The United States has assembled
a superficially impressive international coalition against the threat of
terrorism. Many countries in that coalition, however, contribute little
of significance to the fight. Even worse, the willingness of some members
of the coalition to actually combat terrorism is doubtful. Indeed, given
their record, some of those countries appear to be part of the problem,
not part of the solution. That concern is especially acute with respect
to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and China.
Saudi Arabia enlisted in the fight
against terrorism only in response to intense pressure from the United
States following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon. Even then, its cooperation has been minimal and grudging. For
example, Riyadh has resisted Washington's requests to use its bases in
Saudi Arabia for military operations against Osama bin Laden's terrorist
facilities in Afghanistan.
Even that belated, tepid participation
is an improvement on Saudi Arabia's previous conduct. The U.S. government
has warned that it will treat regimes that harbor or assist terrorist organizations
the same way that it treats the organizations themselves. Yet if Washington
is serious about that policy, it ought to regard Saudi Arabia as a prime
sponsor of international terrorism. Indeed, that country should have been
included for years on the U.S. State Department's annual list of governments
guilty of sponsoring terrorism.
The Saudi government has been the
principal financial backer of Afghanistan' s odious Taliban movement since
at least 1996. It has also channeled funds to Hamas and other groups that
have committed terrorist acts in Israel and other portions of the Middle
East.
Worst of all, the Saudi monarchy
has funded dubious schools and "charities" throughout the Islamic world.
Those organizations have been hotbeds of anti-Western, and especially,
anti-American, indoctrination. The schools, for example, not only indoctrinate
students in a virulent and extreme form of Islam, but also teach them to
hate secular Western values.
They are also taught that the United
States is the center of infidel power in the world and is the enemy of
Islam. Graduates of those schools are frequently recruits for Bin Laden's
Al-Qaeda terror network as well as other extremist groups.
Pakistan's guilt is nearly as great
as Saudi Arabia's. Without the active support of the government in Islamabad,
it is doubtful whether the Taliban could ever have come to power in Afghanistan.
Pakistani authorities helped fund the militia and equip it with military
hardware during the mid-1990s when the Taliban was merely one of several
competing factions in Afghanistan's civil war. Only when the United States
exerted enormous diplomatic pressure after the Sept. 11 attacks did Islamabad
begin to sever its political and financial ties with the Taliban. Even
now it is not certain that key members of Pakistan's intelligence service
have repudiated their Taliban clients.
Afghanistan is not the only place
where Pakistani leaders have flirted with terrorist clients. Pakistan has
also assisted rebel forces in Kashmir even though those groups have committed
terrorist acts against civilians. And it should be noted that a disproportionate
number of the extremist madrasas schools funded by the Saudis operate in
Pakistan.
China's offenses have been milder
and more indirect than those of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Nevertheless,
Beijing's actions raise serious questions about whether its professed commitment
to the campaign against international terrorism is genuine. For years,
China has exported sensitive military technology to countries that have
been sponsors of terrorism. Recipients of such sales include Iran, Iraq
and Syria.
Even though Chinese leaders now
say that they support the U.S.-led effort against terrorism, there is no
evidence that Beijing is prepared to end its inappropriate exports. At
the recent APEC summit, China's President Jiang Zemin was notably noncommittal
when President Bush sought such a commitment. Whenever the United States
has brought up the exports issue, Chinese officials have sought to link
a cutoff to a similar cutoff of U.S. military sales to Taiwan -- something
that is unacceptable to Washington.
It is time for China, Pakistan,
and Saudi Arabia to prove by their deeds, not just their words, that they
are serious about contributing to the campaign against international terrorism.
In China's case, that means ending all militarily relevant exports to regimes
that have sponsored terrorism. In the cases of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia,
it means defunding terrorist organizations and the extremist "schools"
that provide them with recruits. It also means severing ties with such
terrorist movements as the Taliban and the Kashmiri insurgents. The world
is watching the actions of all three countries.
(Ted Galen Carpenter is vice president
for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and is the
author or editor of 13 books on international affairs.)
