Letter to Future President: The Al-Qaeda & Pakistan Threat

Dear Mr. President:

In my last letter I wrote about the threat posed by Al-Qaeda and how our inept policies of the past have further aggravated an already difficult situation. Now I would like to tell you about how that threat relates to those posed by state actors. Many may make the mistake in believing that small, militarily insignificant nations without serious motives and with weak and unproven weaponry such as Iran or North Korea pose a serious threat to the U.S. but they are just plain wrong. These nations can be dealt with rather easily through direct and indirect diplomacy and at the very least can be marginalized through such means. Furthermore, there isn’t a nation on Earth willing or able to confront the U.S. using conventional military force and therefore the only possible threats that the U.S. could face would be asymmetric.

Iran and North Korea can’t or won’t confront the U.S. conventionally and any threat that they could pose would be limited to strategic posturing such as attempting to bankrupt our nation by instigating us into costly and unnecessary warfare or conflicts, dividing us from our allies, by outmaneuvering our diplomatic efforts through our inaction or by radicals toppling or fracturing these nations and/or seizing its sophisticated weaponry. The last possibility should be the most distressing and as of now is no longer outside the realm of probability, especially if the signs that point to the Sunni / Shia conflict in Iraq leads to even greater regional instability. The threat posed by Pakistan, who according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials harbors Al-Qaeda whose “senior leaders [including Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri]… [are] operating from Pakistan [and] have re-established significant control over their… worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border,” (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/19/world/asia/19intel.html?ex=1173157200&en=459708ee02290d7c&ei=5070) represent the greatest possibilities for fracture or seizure of weapons as militants are gaining strength throughout Pakistan.

It should require no further explanation to describe the extent of the chaos not only in the Middle East but throughout the world if the radical extremists who directly support Al-Qaeda and other serious anti-Western forces in Pakistan gain control of complex weaponry including nuclear weapons. In the highly unlikely event that the extremists took no further actions after gaining control over such weaponry tensions would be heightened and the psychological ramifications would reverberate around the world. It should be the goal of this and subsequent administrations to strengthen international organizations to promote stability throughout the world and strengthen our ties with our allies without alienation in order to prevent this possibility and to mitigate the effects in the event that these potentialities are actualized.

Thank You