I just watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and his guest was Amb. Nancy Soderberg - who was on Dennis Miller with me. Stewart, behind the humor, is a sharp guy who is capable of asking himself tough questions (so is Miller by the way.) Stewart said - I paraphrase - I cannot stand this administration but maybe they are kind of right, I mean it looks like what they did is working. Soderberg insisted that there was a limited connection between events in Lebanon and Egypt on the one hand and the Iraqi elections. She also kept saying that we are only at the beginning and there is still plenty of time for things to go wrong in the effort to bring liberty to the Middle East. Stewart also said that if the administration had come right out and said that the plan is to get rid of Saddam and set off a series of reactions across the Middle East that would lead towards democracy - rather than spurious claims about nukes - maybe liberals could have supported it. Of course, this is bunk - the idea of democratizing the Middle East was an open secret and it was constantly derided as foolish.

Amb. Soderberg is a lovely, gracious woman in person - oh and her book is about 200,000 places ahead of Profiles in Terror on Amazon (buy a copy of my book now, and cut that distance by half!)

National Review Online ran a piece I co-wrote with my friend Nir Boms on how Lebanon is the crutch propping up the Syrian regime consequently the Syrians will use every manuever they can to keep their stranglehold on Beirut. But, if they are booted out it will probably bring down the Syrian Baathists and profoundly change Middle Eastern geopolitics.

The new National Intelligence Director is Ambassador John Negroponte - a seasoned hand who has handled numerous missions of tremendous difficulty from Vietnam to Honduras to the UN and most recently Iraq with aplomb. The major criticism of Negroponte is that he is not an intelligence professional. An ironic criticism, since if he had been a creature of the intel community, the primary criticisms would have been that his installation was just business as usual. Since the entire motivation for the NID is because of the intelligence community's failures, a strong outside figure was the obvious choice.

It still is not clear that the NID is necessary or anything more than politically expedient. The post-9/11 focus has been on the need to get the right information into the President's hands. The problem is, it is impossible to know what the "right" information is prior to the event. Some analysts have argued, persuasively, that the United States would be better served with more competition between agencies. Requiring consensus leads to the least common denominator. Let the President hear several points of view and make his decision.

Still Negroponte himself is a skilled operator who may achieve some important reforms. He also knows something about Latin America - an area of growing threats that is not receiving sufficient attention.

As hard as Negroponte's job will be - no doubt he will have it easier than that of Syria's new intelligence chief Asef Shawkat. He took the job just days after the Hariri assassination - and he has no margin for error. Mistakes could lead to the collapse of the shaky Assad regime. Also, he is Bashar's brother-in-law - here is a profile of Shawkat from the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. When dictatorships start relying too much on family members in key roles it can be a sign that the regime is weakening.

The Near East Report AIPAC's biweekly briefing on American policy towards the Middle East ran the following favorable review of Profiles in Terror:


February 24, 2005

The Terror Network

Author Aaron Mannes explores the terrorist groups of the Middle East and highlights the agenda that connects them.

Aaron Mannes’ Profiles in Terror: The Guide to Middle East Terrorist Organizations (Rowman & Littlefield) is an extremely valuable and informative resource for both novices and experts. The author methodically explores the rise of international terrorism and the groups behind it.

Mannes provides a review of 20 terror organizations operating in the Middle East, examining each group’s ideology, objectives, history, leadership, structure, external relations and financial support. He includes a chronology of attacks carried out by the various groups.

The book dispels the notion that groups which diverge ideologically and religiously don’t cooperate with each other.

For instance, it sheds light on the links between the strictly Sunni al-Qaeda organization and the Shiite Hizballah.

“Hizballah, in conjunction with Iran, made great efforts to forge links with Sunni terrorist groups. Al-Qaeda and its affiliates made use of these opportunities and ultimately forged a strategic partnership.” The book notes that Osama bin Laden “is believed to have met with Hizballah’s Special Operations Chief Imad Mughniyah…Hizballah trained al-Qaeda bomb makers to make explosives that could destroy buildings.”

Mannes explains that Palestinian secular nationalist and Marxist groups collaborate with Islamic terror groups that have opposing ideologies by focusing on their common goal: destroying Israel.

“From the beginning of the al-Aqsa intifada, Fatah began coordinating closely with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas” and other groups dedicated to Islamic radicalism. “‘Cocktail cells,’ which included members of several different organizations, were formed.”

Filled with such crucial insights, Mannes’ work is a useful tool for understanding the organization and proliferation of terrorism in the Middle East. •NER•