|
Alqaeda attack within this election cycle { December 13 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8147579%255E25377,00.htmlhttp://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8147579%255E25377,00.html
We need Bush, al-Qa'ida doesn't
December 13, 2003
There will probably be a big-scale al-Qa'ida attack in the US in the next few months, certainly within this presidential election cycle, according to top Western terrorism analysts.
In our own region, Jemaah Islamiah remains capable of further major attacks, according to the best terrorism analysts in Indonesia. The Christmas holiday is a likely time when an attack could be directed against Western, specifically Australian, targets.
The US presidential election is next November. Both the opponents of the US in Iraq, and al-Qa'ida, are sensitive to the US political cycle and will time their actions to produce maximum impact on US politics.
The situation is similar to that which the US faced in Vietnam, where the Viet Cong, the North Vietnamese and the Chinese timed their actions to coincide with US political stress points.
Al-Qa'ida wants Bush to lose the election, because it hates Bush and realises no other US president would pursue the war against terror as vigorously.
That raises the question of what type of action al-Qa'ida will attempt. The most likely time for a strike is between now and March, so it can influence the general election and the Democratic primaries.
Al-Qa'ida will be making difficult calculations. A strike that merely outrages the US could strengthen Bush. But a strike that demonstrates the defeat of the new US security measures could be half-blamed on Bush by the voters.
Combined with the appearance of a quagmire in Iraq, this could strengthen the "bring the troops home" sentiment in the US, which is exactly what al-Qa'ida and the Iraq opposition want.
Bush's most likely opponent in the presidential election is former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who this week received the important endorsement of former vice-president Al Gore.
A Dean presidency would have major implications for Australia, and not just in the war on terror.
In a two-horse race, no one can be written off, but Dean is certainly the Democrat that Bush most wants to run against.
Nonetheless, Dean will be formidable. He has made better use of the internet than any other candidate, especially to raise money. He has raised so much cash he will decline public funding for his campaign, either in the primaries or the presidential poll. This means he will not be constrained by spending caps.
However, unless there is an absolute catastrophe in Iraq, or there is an al-Qa'ida attack that can be sheeted home to negligence by the Bush administration, it is very hard to see Dean beating Bush.
Bush won last time essentially by winning the south and all the Rocky Mountain states except New Mexico.
The states he won have increased their populations to the extent they would now furnish a further seven electoral college votes. That means even if the popular votes are repeated as they were last time, Bush would have a significantly better margin of victory in the electoral college, which is based on the number of congressmen from each state.
Dean has been the most strongly anti-war candidate among the Democrat contenders. He lambasts mainstream Democratic contenders like John Kerry, Dick Gephardt and Joe Lieberman for having voted in Congress in favour of the resolution that gave Bush the power to go to war on Iraq.
Dean's anti-war stance is the heart of his candidacy. It is the engine of his appeal to activists on the internet and the reason for his popularity with convinced Democrat voters - but its appeal to centrist swing voters is much less clear.
It is just about inconceivable that a northern liberal like Dean could hurt Bush in the south. As the conservative journal New Republic recently pointed out, foreign policy has once more become part of the culture wars in the US, and in that conflict the Republicans always take the south.
If Bush is solid in the south and the Rocky Mountain states, he would need only one other state - a single state from the midwest or a surprise in the northeast - to win the presidency. Dean could win liberal states like New York and California by record margins and still convincingly lose the presidential electoral college.
Moreover, US voters do not have a record of deserting their commander-in-chief in times of war, from Lincoln through to Vietnam. Indeed, they rarely vote out elected incumbents. In the past 100 years this has happened only four times -- in 1912 (Wilson beat Taft), 1932 (Roosevelt beat Hoover), 1980 (Reagan beat Carter), and 1992 (Clinton beat Bush Sr).
Dean as president would be bad for Australia because he would cut and run from Iraq, he would not prosecute the war on terror as vigorously as Bush, he would have no special goodwill for Australia arising out of the Iraq war, and he is opposed to free trade agreements - both new ones, such as our proposed FTA with the US, and even existing agreements such as NAFTA.
On a whole range of issues, from the Kyoto treaty to the European Union, Bush's policies have been in accord with John Howard's, and this has created political space for Canberra to pursue policies it believes to be in Australia's national interests.
|
|
