The Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy, an influential journal published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, launched an interesting project a year ago. CAP and FP asked 100 leading American foreign-policy analysts, from both sides of the aisle, for their perspectives on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, Iraq, and counter-terrorism.
The participants included some serious heavy-hitters, including a former secretary of state, former heads of the CIA and NSA, and prominent members of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment, most of whom served in previous presidential administrations, senior military positions, or both. The result is called “The Terrorism Index.”
Today, the third installment was published, and the results are increasingly discouraging.
The world these experts see today is one that continues to grow more threatening. Fully 91 percent say the world is becoming more dangerous for Americans and the United States, up 10 percentage points since February. Eighty-four percent do not believe the United States is winning the war on terror, an increase of 9 percentage points from six months ago. More than 80 percent expect a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 within a decade, a result that is more or less unchanged from one year ago.
No effort of the U.S. government was more harshly criticized, however, than the war in Iraq. In fact, that conflict appears to be the root cause of the experts’ pessimism about the state of national security. Nearly all — 92 percent — of the index’s experts said the war in Iraq negatively affects U.S. national security, an increase of 5 percentage points from a year ago. Negative perceptions of the war in Iraq are shared across the political spectrum, with 84 percent of those who describe themselves as conservative taking a dim view of the war’s impact. More than half of the experts now oppose the White House’s decision to “surge” additional troops into Baghdad, a remarkable 22 percentage-point increase from just six months ago. Almost 7 in 10 now support a drawdown and redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq.
In other words, practically everything the Bush administration believes about foreign policy in the Middle East is rejected by foreign policy experts.
The whole report is worth reading, but I was also struck by the responses to one of the president’s central claims.
It may be the most common — and, for many, the most convincing — argument against a quick exit from Iraq: Pulling American forces out would only move the war’s front line from the streets of Baghdad to the streets of Anytown, U.S.A. Or, as President George W. Bush often says, “The enemy would follow us home.”
Or would it? It’s a scenario that the index’s experts say is unlikely. Only 12 percent believe that terrorist attacks would occur in the United States as a direct result of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. Eighty-eight percent of the experts said that either such a scenario was unlikely or that they see no connection between a troop withdrawal from Iraq and terrorist attacks inside the United States. This line of thinking was consistent across party lines, with 58 percent of conservatives saying they did not believe terrorist attacks would occur at home as a result of a military drawdown in Iraq.
That could explain why a bipartisan majority, 68 percent, of the experts favor redeploying U.S. forces from Iraq during the next 18 months. Although most oppose an immediate pullout, the situation in Iraq has deteriorated to the point that 1 in 5 experts, including 25 percent of conservatives, now favor an immediate withdrawal. If opinion continues to move in this direction, it will become much harder to explain why the troops aren’t homeward bound.
Take a look — and it keep it handy the next time you’re chatting with Bill Kristol, John McCain, and Joe Lieberman.