In the days since the death of Anwar al-Awlaki, the debating lines surrounding him have hardened.  Some have kept the conversation civil; many have not. 

There are, as I see it, two main questions around his death.

1.  Was it legal?

2. Was it wise?  Or, to put it slightly differently, will his death make Americans safer?

Broadly speaking there are three groups weighing-in on these questions: legal scholars, al-Qaeda watchers, and observers of Yemen.*

My opinion on al-Awlaki is fairly well known, but it is also, it seems, a minority one.  Given how many smart people have lined up on the other side of the debate I thought it would be wise to re-examine my thinking and look for things I may have overlooked, which is what I've been doing for the past several days.

Now, I'm obviously not a legal scholar, and while the legal aspects are intriguing, I can't comment on them in any sort of an expert fashion.  However, it reads to me, as if the legal scholars are split.

On one side is someone like Bruce Ackerman, who wrote this piece in Foreign Policy - in many ways a response to this piece in Reuters, which I think everyone should read.

On the other side, at least provisionally, are people like Jack Goldsmith and Robert Chesney, both of whom write at, among other places, Lawfare.  I would also recommend this probing essay from Daniel Bentham.

However, on the second question - was it wise/does it make America any safer? - I do have opinions that are grounded in years of research and scholarship.

There are, as I mentioned above, basically two groups I've been reading on this.  The first group is al-Qaeda watchers (I hesitate to call them counterterrorism experts because of the frauds that use the title).  This group - and I'm thinking of smart people with years of experience like Thomas Hegghammer, Will McCants and Clint Watts - has largely come down in the affirmative.  

Yes, killing Anwar al-Awlaki was necessary, wise, and will likely go a long way towards making the US safer.

Probably the most articulate and comprehensive proponent of this view has been Thomas Hegghammer, who wrote this piece in Foreign Policy countering my NYT op-ed. 

Thomas and I went back-and-forth a bit in private and also here at Waq al-waq.  But his basic point remains that A.) Anwar al-Awlaki is AQAP's Head of Foreign Operations and B.) if protecting the homeland is a priority, then dismantling AQAP's Foreign Operations Unit should be at the top of America's counterterrorism agenda in Yemen.

And it seems that it was.  The Obama administration called Awlaki, as Thomas did, the "head of the Foreign Operations Unit."

Interestingly Thomas makes the argument that the US should seek to arrest Awlaki, which apparently the US came to the conclusion was not feasible.

The third group has been Yemen watchers, and here - although I may have missed some (its a pretty small group of people with both language and experience in the country) - most seem to come down on the other side, arguing that the strike on Awlaki was neither wise nor would it likely make the US any safer.

Now each of these two groups bring their own biases to bear on the question, which is why I have taken so long (re)thinking through the question.

First, as I argued in my op-ed, Awlaki was a threat and someone who called for the death of Americans, but I thought then and I still believe now that he was not the most dangerous individual within AQAP when it comes to US national security.  There are men who are still alive and at-large in Yemen, who represent, in my view, a much greater threat to US national security. 

Does this mean the US should not have killed him?  I don't know, but I do know that I worried that the US would think it could protect itself from an attack out of Yemen by a few well-placed drone strikes.

And now we have this from the Washington Post:

"U.S. officials, in turn, express little interest in the insurgency in Yemen and say their counterterrorism efforts are limited to what they describe as a minority within al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate that is focused on U.S. attacks."

as well as:

"The United States will not become involved in the latter in Yemen, where there “is a veritable stew of counterinsurgencies, different political elements and competing factions,” the official said, adding that the United States would fight AQAP only to prevent it from attacking the United States and its interests."

and this:

"AQAP leaders focused on attacking the United States and its allies number only “a couple of dozen, maybe,” White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan said last month."

As I re-examined both my thinking as well as the open-source evidence, several things struck me. One was the chronology.

Shortly after AQAP's attempt to bring down the airliner on Christmas Day 2009, I remembered Brennan saying the US had made a mistake in underestimating, basically believing the group was limited to the Arabian Peninsula and not a threat cable of projecting power across the Atlantic.

Brennan, of course, was the individual responsible for the subsequent intelligence review that took place. 

One of the key questions of the review was: how had the US missed this threat?  In looking back, I wonder if in searching for the missing piece of the puzzle if US intelligence analysts seized on the one of Anwar al-Awlaki.  

He was the missing piece.  The US knew AQAP had the "aspiration" to hit at the US, but it didn't believe it had the talent.  Well, from the point of view of harried intelligence analysts, Awlaki was that talent.  He had years of experience in the west, which the September 11 attacks had taught was necessary for a strike on the US.  

Basically, you can look at the Christmas Day plot in 2009 one of two ways.  Either it is a dramatic new turn for an organization, or it is the natural evolution of a growing organization.

If you take the former view, then it is easy to use Anwar al-Awlaki to explain why AQAP could suddenly target the US when it had never done so previously.  But if you took the later view than it was less Awlaki's existence than the group's growing strength that was important.

Here too, I think US analysts were at a disadvantage, in the years 2006 - 2008 few in the US government were focused on the AQ threat in Yemen.  It was only after the attack on the embassy in Sanaa in September 2008 that the US re-awoke to the threat.  Given that short view - the one that looks at AQAP as a new organization, instead of an older, evolving one - I think also led analysts to seize on Awlaki as the key reason for AQAP's focus on the US.

I thought then, and I continue to think that this was a mistake.  Little in the west is known about Nasir al-Wihayshi - the leader of AQAP - and that is the shame, but this is the guy that is coming after the US.  Wihayshi, as interviews with fighters from Afghanistan lay out, was bin Laden's personal secretary for nearly four years.  According to these interviews, Wihayshi was rarely apart from bin Laden.

Do we really think that an apprentice, really an understudy, who would one day go on to build an al-Qaeda affiliate based on the blueprints bin Laden used in Afghanistan really needed Anwar al-Awlaki to attack the US?

Not that Awlaki didn't play a role but that he was dispensable?

There are a number of other things that just don't seem, at least to me to add up.  The US claims that it targeted Awlaki as the head of the Foreign Operations Unit, but at the time the legal justification was being written (circa June 2010) the issue of Inspire with the article that may or may not have been written by Awlaki had yet to be published.

There are also the now admissions by officials in the US government that some of the evidence for Awlaki's operational role was "patchy," at least according to this Reuters report.

There is also this:

"Awlaki was also implicated in a case in which a British Airways employee was imprisoned for plotting to blow up a U.S.-bound plane. E-mails retrieved by authorities from the employee's computer showed what an investigator described as " operational contact" between Britain and Yemen.

Authorities believe the contacts were mainly between the U.K.-based suspect and his brother. But there was a strong suspicion Awlaki was at the brother's side when the messages were dispatched."

I'm not really sure how the US judged that Awlaki was standing next to someone who was typing.

There is still, in my opinion, much more that we don't know about Anwar al-Awlaki and his role in AQAP than what we know. 

After my ten-day personal review, I'm still convinced that the US got AQAP wrong.  It saw it as a group that was moving one way and then veered in a completely different direction.  This understanding of AQAP, I believe, led analysts to fixate on Awlaki.  And he was a threat, but not nearly the most significant threat to US national security out of Yemen.

 

*There are, of course, many more groups talking about Anwar al-Awlaki - everyone has an opinion - but these are the three groups I'm reading and listening to.

For those who want more al-Awlaki, although I don't see how you possibly could.  Here is a radio spot I did for the Takeaway this morning.

And a video from al-Jazeera English.

I will be making my way through some of the articles today and I hope to have a round-up of what I consider the best work later this afternoon.

 

The al-Awlaki stories continue to fly off the presses at an astounding rate.  (But more on that later).

One of the things I neglected to mention in my earlier post was the different roles that Anwar al-Awlaki plays, which has been pointed out to me by some very smart people.

There are a couple of things at play here.

First, is Awlaki's role within AQAP - the organization that put the bomb on the plane on Christmas Day 2009 and the one responsible for the pair of printer bombs last year.  Awlaki's death is, in my view, not a debilitating blow to the organization.

In fact, I believe that there are individuals still alive and at-large in Yemen who are more of a threat to US national security than al-Awlaki.

I said as much to the Washington Post, which has an unnamed US official pushing back at my interpretation.  (The US also gave al-Awlaki a new title - one he apparently never took for himself, at least not publicly - in death.)

But Awlaki is much more than just a member of AQAP, and this is what makes him dangerous.  He is someone who inspires what are often called lone wolf terrorists in the west.  People such as Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood and the Times Square Bomber.

And this is where Awlaki is more difficult to replace.  The US clearly hopes that he is a unique figure in that no one will step in to fill his role - although I think it is important to note as James Spencer does in the comment on the previous threat - that Awlaki's sermons will outlive him.

It is also unclear to me whether Awlaki pushed these individuals over the edge or whether he just reinforced their ideas.  Put another way, if Awlaki didn't exist would they have still carried out their attacks.

The US by putting Awlaki on the targeted kill list, obviously bet that the answer to that question is no - and that the death of Awlaki will make Americans safer.

As I put earlier I'm not certain about this. 

Tacked on to this argument is that without Awlaki AQAP wouldn't have went after the US, or at least wouldn't have prioritized such attacks as the 2009 and 2010 attempts.  I find this argument strange.

Wihayshi served with bin Laden and was with him on September 11, does anyone really think he needed al-Awlaki to remind him that the US was a target.

According to the arguments put forward by some, Awlaki's death should greatly diminish AQAP's ability and desire to strike at the US.  I'm remain doubtful. 

Early this morning the Yemeni government released the following statement:

The government of the Republic of Yemen announced today the death of Anwar Al-Awlaki, the American born terrorist and member of Alqaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Awlaki was targeted and killed 8 KM from the town of Khashef in the Province of Jawf (140KM east of the Capital Sana'a). The operation was launched earlier today at  around 9:55 AM, local time.

The news of Awalki's death has dominated the news this morning, and I imagine we'll hear a lot more about it in the hours to come.

The information is still coming in, and any instant analysis is dangerous analysis (for instance, I keep seeing people on CNN claim that Anwar al-Awlaki was the head of AQAP this is, in fact, not true - and repeating it on television doesn't make it so.)

Still, there are few interesting things to takeaway at this early stage.

At the level of US-Yemeni relations, the death of Awalki raises an interesting question: Does the US publicly thank President Salih and/or the Yemeni government for assistance with the strike (assuming there was a Yemeni role)?

This of course puts the US in the rather awkward position of publicly thanking a ruler it has called on to step down.

Or, does the US treat this like the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and ignore the Yemeni role (if there was such a role), which in turn may risk some of the counterterrorism cooperation that the US claims has been so good as of late?

Both choices have consequences and it will be interesting to see which way the US goes.

On the ground, many Yemenis, particularly those in the opposition and those out protesting against President Salih's continued rule, will be watching carefully to see if al-Awlaki's death translates into either an easing of western pressure on Salih or even a change in how the US approaches the uprising in Yemen.

President Salih has long made the argument that he is indispensable to the war against AQAP, most recently he talked about this in his speech on September 25.  Of course, anyone who looks at the evidence over the years will see that Salih isn't quite the stalwart ally he claims - but the fear of the unknown and what comes after Salih is pretty strong.

Finally, we get to what is in many way the most important question: what impact if any will al-Awlaki's death have on AQAP? 

Many in the CT community have argued that killing Anwar al-Awlaki would significantly reduce the threat of AQAP attacks coming out of Yemen.  This, I think, is mistaken.

As, of course, is the idea that Anwar al-Awlaki was as dangerous as Osama bin Laden - killing Awlaki is not the same as killing bin Laden.

Bin Laden headed al-Qaeda; Awlaki did not head AQAP.  They are different people with different roles and the impact of their deaths will also be different.

I have long argued that while Awlaki was a threat he was not the most significant threat coming out of Yemen.  Nasir al-Wihayshi, Said al-Shihri, Qasim al-Raymi and so on are much more important to the continued existence of AQAP than was Awlaki.

I don't think Awlaki's death will in any way be debilitating for the organization.  Of course, my claim is not something myself or anyone else can prove at this point - only time will tell. 

So, is America any safer because Anwar al-Awlaki is dead?  Maybe, marginally - it is tough to know. 

It would be nice to see the US publicly lay out what it has been claiming over the past two years that Awlaki is an integral part of AQAP whose continued existence threatens the lives of other Americans.  Up until now we have only been given anonymous statements and the diplomatic equivalent of "trust us, we know what we are doing."

Also, of significance is the fact that Awlaki was killed in al-Jawf in the north of the country near the border with Saudi Arabia and not in Shabwa or Abyan, which have become the epicenter of the fight against AQAP over the past several months.

This begs several questions about the reach of the US in Yemen, as well as potential sources on the ground, cooperation with the Saudis and so forth.

Much more to come.

For the past several months I have strongly criticized US policy in Yemen, arguing that the US is missing a key opportunity to be a force for positive change in the country.  And that these missed opportunities will have important long-term consequences for US national security interests.

I have argued against letting Saudi Arabia - a monarchy that sent troops to Bahrain to put down a popular uprising - take the lead on a democratic transition in Yemen, and I have argued that the GCC plan was and always will be a worthless document that left too many loopholes for Salih to exploit if he ever signed it, which he never has.

Some people who have left comments here at Waq al-waq as well as others in private have suggested that I have been too hard on US policy in Yemen. 

I don't think that is the case.  The US is making, in my view, serious mistakes in Yemen - one only has to look at yesterday's piece in the Financial Times to see what a comedy of errors this has become.

Here at Waq al-waq and in private conversations with people in a variety of different positions suggested alternatives to what I see as the current mistaken approach. 

Now, thanks to the Council on Foreign Relations, I have laid out the broad outlines of what I call a Reset of US Policy Toward Yemen. 

The brief policy memo was released this morning on CFR website and you can read it here.

Yesterday I linked to a piece by Charles Schmitz, who I know well and respect greatly.  Often in our private discussions and debates Charles is more optimistic about Yemen than I am.

Now, as you can see from our most recent published work, the roles have been reversed.

I still think there is something the  US can do to rescue Yemen from disaster of war that is about to befall the country.  And make no mistake, this will not be a nice, neat two-sided war like the 1994 Civil War, it is going to be messy, unpredictable and absolutely disastrous for regional security and US interests, especially the war against al-Qaeda.

To avoid this the US needs to take a strong leadership role and move from talking tough to acting tough.  It is going to require strong coordination with Saudi Arabia, but this is not abdicating a leadership role to the kingdom.

There are numerous areas where US and Saudi interests (not to mention the demands of the protesters in Yemen) align, and there is a great deal of common ground to begin working out a deal.

Creative, active diplomacy is needed and needed desperately.  There are moments that when missed are gone forever - and if this one is missed at some point in the near future something is going to go drastically wrong and people are going to ask: How did Yemen get this bad?

If the US doesn't want to be asking that question for years to come it needs to act and act now.  The time for sitting on the sidelines is over.  There are things the US can do, and it needs to do them.