An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror

Parameters, Winter, 2004 by W. Andrew Terrill

An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror. By David Frum and Richard Perle. New York: Random House, 2003. 284 pages. $25.95. Reviewed by Dr. W. Andrew Terrill, Research Professor, US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute.

Since the 9/11 attacks upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, America's leaders have been seeking a new strategy to protect the United States and to ensure that its citizens are never exposed to such dangers again. This effort has created a vigorous and often bitter debate. Richard Perle and David Frum inserted themselves into this debate early, with Frum as a presidential speechwriter coining the phrase "axis of evil" and Perle tirelessly advocating a sweepingly interventionist policy with an invasion of Iraq as the first step in cleaning up world evil. Now these two have put their thoughts into print and outlined an agenda as sweeping as the title of their book and every bit as unrealistic.

An End to Evil bills itself as a manual for victory in the war on terrorism. It warns that America's citizenry is weakening in its resolve and needs to buck up to face a multiplicity of threats. It also warns the reader to beware of the counsel of small-thinkers, defeatists, bureaucrats, and other bad sorts that the authors feel are standing in the way of an easy victory. So who are these bad types? Well "defense planners" apparently engaged in too much worst-case analysis (none of that from Frum and Perle). CIA and DIA analysts are unprofessional and vindictive, and both the CIA and the State Department have severely harmed our national interest by their skepticism about Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi. The authors' bitterest venom is directed at the State Department, but they also have some hard things to say about the military, whose leaders are described as nothing more than bureaucrats in uniform. Does this mean that these people have lost sight of the importance of protecting the nation they have pledged to defend? Maybe we should give them a little more credit.

By attacking the State Department, uniformed services, and intelligence community, Frum and Perle are moving against the potential voices of caution that they desperately want to silence. Such attacks against diplomatic and intelligence professionals hope to undermine the sources of expertise that usually inform and vet foreign policy initiatives. But is it really so unwise, for example, to trust the uniformed services to deliver meaningful advice on military matters?

Frum and Perle call for confronting all terrorism everywhere, regardless of whether or not it threatens Americans. To them, Islamic terrorism is monolithic, and the United States must do much more to confront organizations that are currently caught up in local concerns. In particular, Frum and Perle call for the United States to move against the Lebanese terrorist group Hizballah and the Palestinian terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. This would presumably have to be done in partnership with Israel, although it is not clear which of the two nations would lead the struggle. They also call for a Cuban-style blockade of North Korea if it doesn't shape up, and they have a long list of "make my day" demands for Syria, Libya, Iran, and other unfriendly states. This very long list has a military "of else" waving around in the background of comprehensive demands for surrender. Yet, is the Americanization of all local struggles in which terrorism is employed really a good idea?

The book also reflects the current problems that exist between the United States and Saudi Arabia. During the height of the Cold War, these two nations were drawn together by anti-communism. Now relations are not as good, and Frum and Perle maintain that the Saudis are enemies. So why haven't we gone after them if they are that bad? According to Frum and Perle, one key reason is because a variety of retired generals, diplomats, and lawmakers are covering up for them. This is usually done in exchange for hefty consulting contracts and other such remuneration. World evil is certainly difficult to defeat with so many nefarious allies. Yet, the authors have a plan. Threaten Saudi Arabia by supporting successionist Shi'ites in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia where a great deal of the Kingdom's oil is located. This idea assumes without proof that Shi'ites in eastern Saudi Arabia are dying to form a US client state and that they have completely renounced the pro-Iranian radicalism apparent there in the late 1970s.

The book's dust jacket claims that Richard Perle is the "intellectual guru of the hard-line neoconservative movement" and also states that he has "profound influence over Bush policies." The authors themselves praise the President frequently in a manner that suggests that their agenda is his agenda, while simultaneously attacking not only Democrats but also other Republicans and conservatives (too numerous to mention) who disagree with them. The other implicit claim for this agenda is that it is representative of "hard line" conservatives. If conservatives favor using military force to solve a multiplicity of the world's problems, including those that are unrelated to the US national interest, then that statement might be correct. But that is not how conservatives usually define themselves. Rather, conservatism can be defined as defending this country with courage and vision, while being realistic and safeguarding the lives of American military men and women.