ISIS is claiming responsibility for multiple bombings in Brussels, Belgium, that left dozens dead and hundreds injured and terrorism expert Richard Miniter says the attacks were a direct message to the United States and we need to be much more effective at fighting back.
Miniter also panned President Obama’s brief reaction to the bombings and critiqued the responses of the top Republican presidential candidates as well.
Tuesday morning, bombings ripped through the terminal in Brussels, near the American Airlines ticket counter. Another device blew up in a crowded subway station during morning rush hour. Estimates of deaths and injuries vary, but all accounts have at least 28 dead and over 200 injured.
In a column written shortly after the attack, Miniter says the specific location of the airport bombing was deliberate.
“I don’t think it was any accident that the bombers chose to blow up the American Airlines check-in desk. Not only that, of the three American Airlines check-in desks, they close the one closest to the Starbucks. They were trying to kill Americans, not just Europeans,” said Miniter, who believes the attack was also a message to the U.S. government.
“I think this attack in Brussels was also a message to the White House. ‘If you step up air attacks and ground attacks against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, we will retaliate with terrorist attacks like this one and bring down your presidency, Mr. Obama,'” said Miniter.
Miniter is also quite certain ISIS plans to do a lot more than kill Americans abroad. He says the San Bernardino terrorist attack in December taught the Islamic radicals a lot.
“There are a lot of soft targets in America, not just public schools but also shopping malls and other unguarded, unpatrolled areas. They see a target-rich environment in the United States,” said Miniter.
President Obama offered a brief statement on the attacks prior to a high-profile address in Cuba. Obama denounced the attacks, pledged to stand with our Belgian friends, urged global unity against the terrorists and expressed his determination to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Miniter found two glaring problems with Obama’s remarks, starting with the call for unity.
“Human nature divides people and that’s an aspect of human nature that can’t be changed. So the idea that the solution to terror is unity is a bizarre, theoretical, abstract way of dealing with a very real-world problem,” said Miniter.
He also didn’t care for Obama’s end game for dealing with those responsible for Tuesday’s atrocities.
“Obama says he wants to bring the perpetrators to justice, which suggests to me that he means a civilian trial either in the United States or in a European country. The terrorists would have defense attorneys and rights to cross-examine, rights to exclude evidence and all of the other usual criminal protections,” said Miniter.
Miniter says Obama’s response needs to be much tougher.
“It would be far stronger if the president had said that they would go to the ends of the earth and would kill or capture those responsible. Those are the words of George Bush. Those are not the words of Barack Obama. We’ve seen a different philosophical change from the Bush years to the Obama years and that it had a different result in the world,” said Miniter.
He says Obama has learned nothing from his predecessor.
“As a result of the Obama foreign policy, we see Syria has collapsed. more than three million people have fled. Human rights abuses have occurred. ISIS has risen from a small faction of Al Qaeda in Iraq to a deadly global force. The world has become much more dangerous for Americans under the Obama approach,” said Miniter.
Miniter says Bush was successful in stopping terrorist attacks from 2002-2008 because of a a robust intelligence-sharing network of 107 nations that kept track of terrorists no matter where they fled. He says there needs to be a greater effort to target and kill ISIS leaders through missile strikes. And he says the Bush team aggressively targeted bank accounts and even whole banks to dry up terrorist resources.
“What the Obama people have to do is go back to the Bush playbook. I know they got elected saying how wrong Bush was, but Bush was so successful that the issue of terrorism was a bore. Now it’s a live issue and that’s because they threw away the playbook and let the tiger out of the cage,” said Miniter.
As for the current presidential candidates, Donald Trump is calling for a pause to immigration until the terrorism threat is under control. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, argues that altering immigration policy is not who we are as a people.
Miniter says the U.S. has paused immigration in the past, but he’s quick to add that shutting things down won’t be a cure-all.
“The whole system needs to be tightened up and reformed. The idea that you can just turn a switch tomorrow and make it stop? It’s a much bigger problem than that, unfortunately,” said Miniter.
He also says there are many loopholes in other programs such as student visas, where the federal government often doesn’t even check if an applicant graduated from high school. Miniter says students and tourists alike often overstay their visas as well.
Trump is also locked in a debate with GOP rival Ted Cruz over the proper U.S. role in NATO. Trump believes the U.S. should step back and stop footing the bill for the security of the western world. Cruz says U.S. leadership is more vital than ever in NATO.
Miniter says Trump is right in that we are paying two-thirds of security operations for all of NATO. As a result, he says the militaries of European nations are a “joke” with German coast guard vessels having to share radios because there aren’t enough and the UK sporting only one aircraft carrier, unless you count the one that can only carry helicopters.
In the end, he sees the Cruz approach as better.
“Trump is certainly right that we pay far too much for an alliance that doesn’t give us a whole lot. On the other hand, I think Cruz has the smarter of the two approaches,” said Miniter. “Pulling out suddenly would not accomplish anything except terrorize the Europeans and drive them into the arms of Russia. That would be very unwise to turn western Europe over to Russia.”
Miniter does think the U.S. could leverage it’s standing as the muscle for NATO to demand stricter immigration policies and other measure to mitigate the radical Islamic threat to the west.
