Imperial Hypocrisy

I couldn't agree more with RealClearPolitics' assessment of Michael Scheuer's appearance on Meet the Press Sunday. It's hard to believe this guy was a top CIA analyst when he can make the following set of assertions with a straight face:

• Osama bin Laden doesn't hate who we are, he hates specific U.S. policies.


• We should reevaluate those policies, as they motivate bin Laden and encourage support for him in the Muslim world.


• Changing our policies won't assuage bin Laden.


• We (i.e. President Clinton) should have killed bin Laden when we had the chance, even if it meant the death of Arab princes, damage to a mosque, or other consequences sure to enrage the Muslim world.

The most generous way to thread this needle is to suggest that while bin Laden won't give up the jihad just because we change the policies he doesn't like, the rest of the Muslim world will lose its affinity for him, and he won't have the popular support to keep planning and executing terror operations.

Putting aside the fact that Scheuer explicitly advocates aggressively going after bin Laden in a manner sure to upset even moderate Muslims (his manner suggested he wouldn't mind us carpet bombing the Pakistani border!), does he really think that should we give in to some of bin Laden's demands, he would become less popular in the Muslim world? Wouldn't it just validate his "strong horse" hypothesis and encourage him to make even more "popular" demands (say, Jerusalem entirely in Muslim hands) with the expectation that we'll try to appease Muslim sentiment?

It seems to me that the rational means to remove bin Laden's capabilities are to aggressively go after al Qaeda and other radical groups, while at the same time changing Muslim minds about what's in their best interests (say democracy and pluralism) rather than trying to out-do bin Laden in sucking up to existing prejudices.