Chapman expert James Coyle explains the realities of terrorism and security after Paris, San Bernardino and North Korea

Q&A feature in the Orange County Register by Jonathan Winslow, published on January 11, 2016. To access the original article, click here.

Oh, the times, they are a changin’.

In the wake of the attacks on Paris and San Bernardino, the world is facing yet another paradigm shift – one of terrorism’s lamentable place in our world.

While still a relatively young insurgency, the methods of the Islamic State render the group a rowdy foe. Even now, it’s working to construct the state that al-Qaida never managed to achieve, leaving the corpses of former countrymen in its wake.

Coupled with self-radicalized terrorists born within our borders and molded by the Internet, these new realities are leaving governments scrambling to keep their citizens safe in an unstable world.

Further complicating the world stage, North Korea last week conducted a nuclear test – one it claims was a successful hydrogen bomb detonation. Condemnation has rained upon North Korea from the United States, Japan, South Korea, China and the United Nations, though the state of world affairs leaves what action – if any – will be taken up in the air.

James Coyle, director of Chapman University’s Center for Global Education, is an expert on terrorism, national security strategy and Middle East politics – among many other topics.

Co-author of “Politics in the Middle East: Culture and Conflict in the Middle East,” published by Prentice-Hall, Coyle also has held several positions in the federal government. Over the last three decades, Coyle has been director of Middle East studies at the U.S. Army War College, first secretary for political-military affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, senior political analyst for Palestinian affairs and special assistant to the FBI/New York Joint Terrorism Task Force.

We sat down with Coyle to discuss world affairs and the new realities of terrorism after Paris and San Bernardino.

QUESTION Given the growth of the Islamic State group in recent years, did the Paris and San Bernardino attacks come as a surprise or were these types of attacks to be expected?

ANSWER First of all, I'm going to contradict you, if I can. ISIS is not growing any more. ISIS is actually on the retreat. They’ve lost quite a bit of territory in Iraq. They’re being pummeled in Syria. The groups outside of Iraq and Syria that call themselves ISIS, they’re really nothing new.

A lot of these groups, five years ago, were all considered al-Qaida affiliates – now they’re ISIS affiliates. Basically, they’re groups that are unhappy with the governing structures of whatever country they’re in. They’ve chosen to use an Islamic ideology to motivate their base. Before, they were loyal to Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden’s dead and ISIS is on the rise, so they’ve sworn allegiance to them. They’re the same groups, they’ve just changed names in a sense.

Paris is not a surprise to me. Paris was a disaster waiting to happen with the large waves of immigration that had been passing through France, not just in the last year but in the last 50 years. It was just a matter of time until this sort of thing occurred.

San Bernardino is a surprise. First of all, the shooters themselves – it appears their connection to the radical groups overseas was tangential. In reality, these are what the press is calling “self-radicalized” individuals. We haven’t seen that before. There’s not really a lot you can do to stop that. The FBI, since 9/11, has done a very good job of stopping any of these attacks inside the United States, but how do you do that? You penetrate organizations, keep track of them. But if you have a guy and a gal sitting in San Bernardino who aren’t in touch, are not using these groups for support, how do you stop them? It was a surprise, and I think we’ll probably see more.

QUESTION What should the takeaway be from these attacks for policymakers as they work to prevent further attacks?

ANSWER You cannot win this battle militarily. Neither on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria nor using homeland security here in the United States. This is a battle for hearts and minds. Everyone who works this field, from (retired) Gen. David Petraeus on down, will tell you the same thing. Yes, you do have to provide a modicum of security. Granted, but that’s only step number one. You’ve got to win the hearts and minds.

This is the difficult part. The United States can’t really be engaged in that debate. That is a debate within the Muslim community itself. The moderate voices in the Muslim community need to engage with the radical Islamists. There are elements within the Quran that substantiate that Islam is a religion of peace. Surah 5 says that if you kill an innocent man, it’s the same as if you have killed all men in the world. A message like that is antithetical to the message of ISIS. That dialogue has to be encouraged, but we can’t be the ones holding that dialogue. We’re not part of the community, and our voice – because we’re outsiders – is suspect from the very beginning.

QUESTION What are some of the major differences, in goals and methods, to consider when looking at the Islamic State as opposed to an entity like al-Qaida – are we seeing the start of a new age of terrorism?

ANSWER It’s only methodology. The goals are the same. The goals are Islamic rule over Muslim lands. The sole difference that I see is that al-Qaida was looking at this as a future goal. The original goal of al-Qaida was the elimination of the Saudi monarchy. They weren’t even interested in the United States. Eventually, bin Laden decided he could not get rid of the Saudi monarchy, which he called “the near enemy,” unless he got rid of the organization that was propping “the near enemy” up. That was the United States, which he identified as “the far enemy.”

So, even though we remember al-Qaida because of 9/11, that was not the main thrust. The main thrust was the elimination of the Saudi monarchy and the imposition of a more authentic Sharia law on the Saudi peninsula.

Now, in the case of ISIS, they’re not even interested at this point in the Saudi peninsula. Their goal is the establishment of Sharia law throughout Muslim lands, but they’ve actually created a caliphate and are trying to establish a government. They’ve established a caliph, they’ve got taxation services, a military, garbage collection – they’re trying to be an actual state. Al-Qaida never got that far.

In my mind, we’re looking at three separate groups. Al-Qaida is your traditional terrorist organization. It had a central authority in Bin Laden. He and his henchman directed operations around the world, and it was pure terrorism: killing a second party in order to influence a third party for political goals. The second group is ISIS. They’re not really a terrorist group, they’re an insurgency. They want to overthrow the government in Iraq and Syria, replacing it with themselves. It’s an insurgency. We sometimes make the mistake in lumping them together because sometimes insurgents will use terrorist tactics. They’re not trying to influence somebody, they’re trying to set up a state.

Now, you’ve got the third “group,” and when I say “group” I don't really mean an organized entity, more like an amorphous mass. It’s all these people around the world that are self-identifying with ISIS or even with al-Qaida. That’s the group we have to be careful of, that’s the group that’s relatively new. There’s always been that element out there. You have these terrorist waves that come through periodically, this is another wave. What’s different? The Internet.

The Internet not only allows people to become radicalized without ever meeting anybody from the organization, it allows them to communicate with people, order whatever materials you need for a terrorist attack and even publicize what you’ve done in a way that was not possible in the old days.

QUESTION In light of recent events, there have been many reports of religious intolerance – people being assaulted even for just looking how a Muslim is believed to look, and a presidential candidate discussing a ban on Muslims entering the country. Even so, it’s been said that Muslims are the chief victim of the Islamic State. Could you comment on this current state of religious intolerance?

ANSWER If you look from a historical viewpoint, the United States has always had a very strong nativist streak within it. Every ethnic group that comes into this country is opposed by people who were here first. The German Americans didn’t want the Irish to come, the Irish didn’t want the Italians to come, the Italians didn’t want the Poles to come and the Poles didn’t want the Slavs to come. The latest is we don’t want the Mexicans to come, and now we don’t want the Muslims to come.

It happens. It’s true that terrorism makes it worse. I’ve heard the phrase “not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslim,” which, by the way, is not true. There are lots of non-Muslim terrorists out there. But it strikes fear into people and they have a tendency to overreact, simple as that.

What we have to remember is the First Amendment of the Constitution says Congress shall pass no law on the establishment of religion. That’s the Constitution.

QUESTION Cooperation between the United States, China and Russia seems to be a major make-or-break element in dealing with the current state of world affairs. In terms of these relations, what are the biggest obstacles to a united dismantling of Islamic State and containment of North Korea, and how can we hope to overcome them?

ANSWER The biggest obstacle is national interests. The national interest of the United States is not that of Russia or China. Where those interests converge, there can be cooperation. Where they don’t, there cannot be. We would like Russia to cooperate with the United States against ISIS. That’s good, except that leaves the American-backed opposition untouched. That’s antithetical to the Russian national interest, which is to keep Assad in power. (Bashar Assad is the president of Syria.) It doesn’t make sense to cooperate against ISIS when Russia also wants to take out the American-backed groups.

Same thing in North Korea. Yes, both the United States and China are interested in maintaining stability on the Korean peninsula. Both of us are opposed to North Korea having nuclear arms. It sounds easy! There ought to be a large basis for cooperation. In point of fact, however, the Chinese have decided the best way for there to be stability for the peninsula is for North Korea to continue on its way. The concern is that if there were anything to destabilize the North Korean regime, then China would suddenly be inundated with a massive wave of North Korean refuges. Where our national interests converge, it's fine, but eventually you reach a point where our interests and theirs are not the same.

It's a question of where the goals are in the hierarchy. In China’s case, the goals in which the U.S. and China cooperate on in North Korea are lower in the hierarchy than stability on the peninsula.

QUESTION North Korea appears to have conducted another nuclear test. It may or may not have been a hydrogen bomb, but China, the U.S., Japan, South Korea and the U.N. are upset over what happened. Is there any long-term significance to this, or is it just another in a series of provocations by North Korea in recent years?

ANSWER It’s the latter. This is their fourth nuclear test. The first test took place under the Bush administration. There’s now been three tests under the Obama administration. China is not going to allow any sort of significant sanctions to be placed against North Korea. We can count on China to condemn the tests, we can count on them to verbally chastise North Korea, but we cannot count on them to actually support anything that would hurt North Korea.

When the first nuclear test occurred during the Bush administration, the United States actually considered launching a unilateral strike to take out North Korea’s nuclear facilities. They didn’t do it, for a simple reason. Seoul is 40 kilometers from the DMZ, and North Korea has had 50 years to zero in long-range artillery on Seoul. North Korea has chemical warheads – not for bombs, not for missiles, but for good-old-fashioned artillery. The Bush administration received an assessment at that time that if there was an attack and North Korea response against Seoul, you could be talking hundreds of thousands of deaths in the first few minutes. That hasn’t changed, and that’s not going to change. As long as North Korea has the ability to respond that way against an American ally, the United States’ hands are tied. And as we talked about before, when you talk about China and Russia, it’s because of their national interests that they aren’t interested in responding either.

It’s Hard to Take Russian Propaganda Seriously. But We Must.

Published by the Atlantic Council on June 22, 2015, and featured in Newsweek and Kyiv Post as “The U.S. Should Do More to Counter Putin's Propaganda” on June 23, 2015. To access the original article, click here.

Three Russian television stations interviewed Andrei Petkov from a hospital bed in Nikolayev, Ukraine, in April 2014. Rossia 1 described him, with a bandage on his nose, as an ordinary citizen attacked by neo-Nazis and nationalists; NTV named him a German spy for a secret European organization; and the National Independent News of Crimea identified him as a pediatric surgeon who had saved the lives of more than 200 infants before getting caught in the crossfire. Similarly, Russian television has interviewed the same blonde woman as a native of five different cities in Ukraine. She has been a housewife, the mother of a soldier, and an exile living in Russia. In 2014, Russian state television showed a video depicting the murder of a pro-Russian fighter in eastern Ukraine by nationalists. But the video was a fabrication; it was made in the north Caucasus in 2012. The lies on Russian TV have become so numerous and egregious that one news outlet compiled a list of Russia's top 100 lies about Ukraine.

Russian propaganda, sometimes comically inept by Western standards, wants to convince the Russian public, Russian-speaking populations in Crimea and the Donbas, and elites in Western Europe that it's right about Ukraine. They are the targets of Russian President Vladimir Putin's "weaponization of propaganda," according to Russian author Peter Pomerantsev and his colleague Michael Weiss.

Its primary international outlet is RT (formerly Russia Today), a Kremlin-financed cable news network resembling CNN or Fox News. Reaching 644 million viewers in Arabic, English, and Spanish, its message is remarkably consistent, and predictably boring: Putin is a strong leader who is protecting ethnic Russians from sinister Western forces. "We're something along the lines of Russia's Information Defense Ministry," RT employees told Spiegel Online.

In addition to RT, the news agency has created seven YouTube channels aimed at specific countries and linguistic areas: RT America, RT UK, RT France, RT Spanish, RT Russian, RT German, and RT Arabic. Researchers at the George Washington University reviewed RT videos posted for a month in 2015, and found that 27 percent of videos on RT's main channel highlighted Russia's views on Ukraine. On RT Deutsch, 43 percent of its videos centered on Ukraine. RT Russia posted 34 percent of its videos on Ukraine, and these videos received 52 percent of views.

RT also owns the Ruptly video news agency in Berlin. According to Ruptly newscaster Ivan Rodionov, the agency has 14 subscribers and over 200 customers, including public and private German broadcasters. The agency offers almost exclusively videos that are favorable toward pro-Russian supporters of the People's Republic of Donetsk.

The propaganda can be heavy-handed. Russians are told that Ukrainian nationalists shot down the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and the Kyiv government is composed of neo-Nazis. Putin has repeatedly denied that Russian soldiers are fighting in Ukraine, despite a growing number of reports of secret funerals and prisoners of war turning up in Kyiv hospitals.

Even if Russian television can be crude and propagandistic, it shapes opinion in Russia. Ninety-four percent of Russians get their news on Ukraine from domestic television networks. Only three percent of Russians believe Donbas separatists shot down Flight MH 17.

And Russian-speakers who live outside the country rely on Russian television. In Estonia, where there is a large Russian-speaking minority, 72 percent of non-Estonians prefer Russian television, and this is reflected in their views. About two weeks after Flight MH 17 crashed, 38 percent of non-Estonians living in Estonia told pollsters that the Ukrainian government was responsible.

One can understand Putin's desire to maintain domestic support in Russia and to build support for his efforts in the killing fields of Ukraine. His goal in Europe is more elusive, but of higher strategic importance. "Putin's ultimate objective is to fracture NATO," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey said. His words are echoed by United States Vice President Joseph Biden, who said Putin was seeking "to create cracks in the European body politic which he can then exploit."

To halt Putin's ideological offensive, European policymakers have begun to beef up their public diplomacy efforts. Denmark is offering broadcast rights to popular television crime dramas that can be dubbed into Russian, Germany is providing Russian-language news and documentaries, and US diplomats are reaching out to Hollywood. Estonia will launch a new Russian-language channel with 20 hours of original programming a week in September. In the United States, however, supporters of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty are fending off funding cuts. As the Cold War experience demonstrated, news programs from this venerable outlet reach decision-makers and other elites. The West should also take advantage of already existing commercial outlets with worldwide distribution such as CNN and Sky News. With cutbacks of their own, these broadcasters could use video feed and experts that expose Russian lies. The truth will set you free, if you actually broadcast the truth.

James J. Coyle is a Research Fellow at the Atlantic Council and the Director of Global Education at Chapman University in Orange, CA.

Russia Has Complete Information Dominance in Ukraine

Published by the Atlantic Council on May 12, 2015, and featured by Newsweek, Kyiv Post, Radio Free Europe, and the George Marshall Institute as “Putin Controls All Ukraine's Airwaves, Phones and Computers” on May 17, 2015. To access the original article, click here.

Hackers have consistently used low-level cyber warfare tactics to advance Russian goals in Ukraine.

A dedicated group of hackers successfully infected the e-mail systems of the Ukrainian military, counterintelligence, border patrol, and local police. The hackers use a spear-phishing attack in which malware is hidden in an attachment that appears to be an official Ukrainian government email. For the most part, the technologies are not advanced but the attacks have been persistent. Lookingglass, a cybersecurity firm, suspects the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is the culprit behind the virus dubbed Operation Armageddon.

The Russian government is likely behind an even more dangerous virus. Since 2010 BAE Systems has been monitoring the activities of malware they dubbed Snake, and numerous digital footprints point to the Russian Bear. Moscow time zone stamps were left in the code and Russian names are written into the software. Other clues point to the Kremlin. "It's unlikely to be hacktivists who made this. The level of sophistication is too high. It is very well written—and extremely stealthy," observed Dave Garfield, BAE's Managing Director for cyber security.

According to the IT security company Symantec, Snake has infected dozens of computers in the office of Ukraine's Prime Minister and at least ten Ukrainian embassies since 2012. Snake was used against the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to access documents on the Ukraine crisis. The malware establishes a "digital beachhead" that allows its operators to deliver malicious code to the targeted networks. The implications are far-reaching: "Russia not only now has complete informational dominance in Ukraine," an intelligence analyst told the Financial Times, "it also has effective control of the country's digital systems, too. It has set the stage."

Another hacker group in Russia exploited a security flaw in Microsoft Windows software to spy on NATO, Ukraine, and several other targets. Dubbed Sandworm Team after researchers discovered references in the code to the Dune series of science-fiction novels, the group used a "zero day" attack—a flaw in the software that has not been previously identified and for which there is no preexisting fix—which is usually associated with deep pockets. In Ukraine, the malware was targeted at regional governments, another clue that the hackers were not criminals.

So far, Russian cyberattacks have been relatively low key. There's an obvious reason why: the Kremlin already has access to Ukrainian telecommunications. Russia built the system. Even the system Ukraine uses to monitor the activities of its own citizens, System for Operative Investigative Activities or SORM, was originally developed by the Russian KGB. When Russia invaded Crimea it gained access to the national telephone company's operations center on the peninsula. If the Russian government wanted to shut down Ukraine's power and telecommunications, it could do so easily. "And there's nothing that Ukraine could do to stop it," said Jeffrey Carr, CEO of the cybersecurity firm TAIA Global.

Cyber activity was used kinetically as Russia seized Crimea. Ukrainian law enforcement agencies reported Russian cyberattacks had collapsed the communication systems of almost all Ukrainian forces that could pose a danger to the invading Russian troops. Mobile telephone services were blocked, Russian naval ships jammed radio communications, Crimean government websites were knocked offline, telecommunications offices were raided, and cables cut.

“Russia has cutting-edge electronic warfare equipment and personnel trained in proper EW/SIGINT doctrine (what they called Radio-Electronic Combat) and Ukraine is playing catch-up. A generation's worth of neglect of the Ministry of Defense and the security services by Kyiv…cannot be made good in a few months,” said John Schindler, an expert on information warfare.

US technology is also vulnerable: Russia claims (and the Pentagon denies) that it used its control of the cyber battlefield to intercept a US drone as it patrolled Crimean skies on March 14, 2014.

Cyberattacks have increased in frequency around the time of military action, possibly indicating that the attacks are part of the overall offensive. The number of callbacks—computer communications showing someone is hacking a computer—to Russia increased as the turmoil rose.

Russia controls the airwaves, the phone lines, and the computers. The Ukrainian government needs to rebuild its telecommunications network using non-Russian companies and technology. In the short term, US diplomats and military trainers in Ukraine should avoid using Ukrainian communications. The United States also needs to harden its communications to avoid incidents such as the rumored drone intercept. In the long term, the United States must face the reality that it is engaged in a decades-long contest for the Eurasian heartland and will have to adjust its tactics accordingly. Cyber warfare is merely the latest battlefield in which politics is pursued by other means.

James J. Coyle is a research fellow at the Atlantic Council and the Director of Global Education at Chapman University.

James J. Coyle We still don't have a strategy

Published in the Orange County Register on September 12, 2014. To access the original article, click here.

In his Wednesday speech on the Islamic State, President Barack Obama explained to the American people why we should be engaged against the group, also known as ISIS.

Leaders have threatened America and its allies and some Americans are getting combat experience with ISIS that they could use against the U.S. when they return home, the president explained. Unfortunately, he did not deliver on the grand strategy he promised to “degrade and ultimately destroy” this threat.

He said he is launching a counterterrorist strategy. Yet, despite the president naming ISIS as a terrorist group, it is actually an insurgency rather than a terrorist group. ISIS does not engage solely in terrorist attacks to influence another party. Rather, it controls territory within two nation states and is running cities it has captured. For U.S. efforts to succeed, a counterinsurgency strategy is needed, not a counterterrorist one.

He is limiting American military involvement to air operations and the training of indigenous forces. Air operations alone cannot defeat a dedicated enemy, least of all one that uses unconventional warfare tactics.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton tried the same strategy in the Balkans. The Serbs only capitulated, however, after a hundred days when the president upped the ante and announced he might introduce ground forces after all.

Obama’s examples of American success in using air power to stop terrorism are Yemen and Somalia. He could not have picked worse examples. Both states lack a real central government, both suffer major internal insurgencies, both are considered failed states.

Neither the United States nor its allies can afford failed states in the heart of the Middle East.

In Iraq, the U.S. military team currently in Baghdad estimates that 30 to 50 percent of the Iraqi armed forces are unable to fight, or have ceased to exist.

The Iraqi military’s refusal to defend Mosul against the Islamic State speaks for itself.

In Syria, the president plans to rely on the Syrian opposition to defeat ISIS. The group is the only serious military force opposing the government of Bashar al-Assad, and the U.S. government is committed to the defeat of that regime. The president is silent on the contradictory nature of the policy he has outlined. There is also a question as to the effectiveness of the non-ISIS opposition.

The U.S. has a checkered history of building indigenous forces.

In the 1950s and 1960s at the School of the Americas, the U.S. Army trained its Latin counterparts in security operations.

The result was the overthrow of a number of democracies throughout South America by the American-trained officers.

In the 1980s the U.S. trained fighters to defeat Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The result was the creation of groups throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan who are aligned with the Taliban and al-Qaida. The U.S. has spent millions over the past decade training the Iraqi military – a military that cannot or will not fight ISIS.

The president makes much over his efforts to build a coalition, which will include Arab partners. He makes no mention of the largest regional power: non-Arab Iran.

As the U.S. learned in its Iraq war, the Persians have the ability to make or break governments and insurgencies in the area. Why is there no place at the table, then, for this regional heavy weight. As for the coalition he is building, what do they plan to do?

Insurgencies have been won and lost around the world. The deciding factor in who wins the military struggle is ultimately who wins the support of the inhabitants. This requires more than dropping bombs from the sky – it requires engaging in the creation of civil societies that can meet the needs of the people.

Half measures designed to be all things to all people are not a strategy for success, but for long-term failure.

James J. Coyle is the Director of Global Education at Chapman University, and the executive director of the Caspian Research Institute, an online think tank.

James J. Coyle: We don't have a strategy yet

Published in the Orange County Register on September 10, 2014. To access the original article, click here.

Two and a half years after President Barack Obama ended American military involvement in Iraq, the United States has resumed “limited” air operations in that country. American war planes bombed forces of the Islamic State threatening the Kurdish enclave in the north. The White House is at a loss to explain this tacit admission that the Obama administration’s “success” in withdrawing American troops did not protect American interests in the area.

The President does not know the next step to take. Speaking at a news conference, he admitted “We don’t have a strategy yet.” The lack of planning is a surprise, as a former Pentagon official told Fox news that the President had been given detailed and specific intelligence about the rise of the Islamic state on multiple occasions, and for over a year. The former official described the information as strong and “granular” in detail.

The President’s words may well be his foreign policy epithet. Without considering the potential outcome, the United States stood on the side line when the Muslim Brotherhood replaced decades-old allies in Tunisia and Egypt. Our air force flew ninety percent of the sorties over Libya that resulted in the overthrow of the Gadhafi regime, the eventual murder of our Ambassador, and the current occupation of the US embassy in Tripoli.

Syria is in flames with 150,000 dead in their civil war. That is the equivalent to the death count of 50 World Trade Centers, or 75 Pearl Harbors. The only local group strong enough to confront the Islamic State is the government of Syria, the overthrow of which the US is committed. Iraq is teetering on the edge of a total breakup. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is waiting for America’s withdrawal to retake the country, while the Afghan government cannot choose a successor. Russia has annexed the Crimea and has invaded eastern Ukraine with over 1,000 troops. There is shooting on the cease fire line between Armenia and Azerbaijan. China is making territorial claims in the South China Sea that puts it in conflict with American allies. An ebola outbreak in Africa has infected 3,000 people, killing half. The World Health Organization says the world response to the illness has been inadequate, and the epidemic could spread. Boko Haram is seizing territory in northern Nigeria.

American policy is adrift. The United States remains the sole superpower in the world, with more military and economic might than any other country. For some reason, however, the White House is reacting to events instead of taking charge of them.

The creation of a national security strategy is a simple process to explain, and a difficult process to implement. One must identify American interests in the area. If there are no interests, the strategy should dictate that the United States steer clear. If there are interests, however, the next step is to identify at what point America will employ its levers of national power: military, political, economic, and ideological. The government needs to be clear on the ends, ways and means to be employed to safeguard the U.S.’s interests. They must determine that implementation of that strategy has an acceptable cost, and that the plan is sufficiently robust that it will actually achieve US objectives. The Obama administration published a strategy in 2010. It is time for another, one that the White House can use to protect our interests.

James J. Coyle is the Director of Global Education at Chapman University, and the executive director of the Caspian Research Institute, an online think tank.

James J. Coyle: Iran's threats to American interests

Published in the Orange County Register on February 26, 2014. To access the original article, click here.

As Iran receives limited sanctions relief in return for a six-month moratorium on the enrichment of uranium to 20 percent, pundits are alive with speculation that this is the precursor to restoring relations with the Islamic Republic. Ali Khamenei remains the “supreme leader” and Iranian president Hassan Rouhani remains the regime insider who bragged of his prior expansion of the Iranian nuclear program without incurring international sanctions.

That means recent history is full of hurdles that need to be overcome.

Despite the nuclear accord, Iranian activities continue to threaten the United States and its allies. The U.S. Institute of Peace reports Iran has developed the Sejil-2 ballistic missile that can deliver a payload 1,500 miles and a top Iranian military commander bragged that Iran has developed drones with a range of 1,250 miles. These activities threaten U.S. allies such as Azerbaijan, Israel and Saudi Arabia. A 2012 Pentagon report estimated that Iranian missiles could reach U.S. shores by 2015.

Iranian-supplied weapons have already killed Americans, if WikiLeaks is to be believed. U.S. officials raised to Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan that his country sold rockets and machine guns to Iran in 2003, which then provided them to Iraqi Shiite militants to kill American soldiers in 2007. Sargsyan denied any transfer had occurred. However, a Western diplomat said the U.S. had multiple streams of intelligence connecting the Armenian arms shipment to Iran with the deaths of the U.S. soldiers.

Iran has also used ad hoc terrorist groups to further their interests. In Washington, D.C., a guard at an Iranian diplomatic mission assassinated an exile leader in 1980. Years later, in 2011, the FBI and DEA uncovered a plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. and to bomb the Israeli embassy.

Azerbaijan, an ally that has supported the United States in both Iraq and Afghanistan, uncovered a number of Iranian plots. In 2007, the government convicted 15 people on charges of espionage in favor of Iran. In February 2012, Azerbaijani authorities arrested a second group who planned to kill two teachers at a Jewish school in the country's capital, Baku. In March, the security forces arrested 22 people hired by Iran to attack the U.S. and Israeli embassies, as well as Western companies. Authorities seized assault rifles, grenades, ammunition and explosives.

Iran has supported Armenia in its conflict against predominantly Muslim – but secular – Azerbaijan as a means of avoiding economic international sanctions. According to American scholar Michael Rubin, in 2012 Bank Mellat, a sanctioned Iranian bank, was operating in the Armenian capital of Yerevan and Iranian businesses dotted the city.

Iran continues to back the Lebanese terror group, Hezbollah, which threatens Israel's northern border and supports the bloody Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Argentinean prosecutors claim that Hezbollah has operated outside of the Middle East, alleging involvement in the 1992 and 1994 bombings in Buenos Aires. Israeli authorities report a February 2012 arrest in Thailand of Iranian citizens who were planning to bomb Israeli citizens. While Rouhani and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif have dropped former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli rhetoric, there has been no lessening in Iran's opposition to the existence of Israel.

One is encouraged by the efforts to overcome the decades of mistrust. There are a number of issues that need to be resolved, however, before Iran can be welcomed back into the comity of nations.

James J. Coyle is the director of Global Education at Chapman University and is the chair of the Eurasian committee of the Pacific Council on International Policy.

James J. Coyle: Obama administration global realignment

Published in the Orange County Register on February 6, 2014. To access the original article, click here.

Ever since the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union, experts have been predicting a global realignment. The world would no longer be divided into three spheres (free, communist and developing); something new would emerge. This was postponed, however, by the attack on 9/11 and the subsequent “war on terror.”

Five years into the Obama administration, a pattern in U.S. foreign policy has begun to emerge. An Obama Doctrine has taken shape, in which the United States is disengaging from the rest of the world.

It began in the Middle East with the Arab Spring. Throughout the early months of 2011, the United States stood by as allies for three decades were swept from power in Tunisia and Egypt. The same forces tried to overthrow the rulers of Bahrain, home of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet. The Bahrainis asked the White House for help and were denied. Saudi Arabia then invoked the mutual defense provisions of the Gulf Cooperation Council and intervened – against the wishes of the U.S. government.

In December 2011, the last American troops left Iraq. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was fond of quoting what he called the Pottery Barn rule: if you break it, you own it. The United States left Iraq with the pottery shards littering the floor.

In Libya, the Americans allowed NATO to take the lead in the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi. In Syria, after President Barack Obama announced his famous red lines concerning the use of chemical weapons, he stood by and did nothing while the Assad regime gassed its own citizens.

The inaction is not limited to the Middle East. In Europe, the Obama administration (and the Bush administration before) did nothing in the wake of the Russian seizure of Georgian territory. It continues to avoid engagement in the Minsk process to bring peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It has stood by as Turkey abandons democracy and threatens to expel the American ambassador. In light of Russian objections, it withdrew its plans for a missile defense shield. It has provided little to no assistance to European efforts to achieve a small modicum of energy independence from the Russians. Ukraine is being sacrificed through American inertia.

In Asia, China continues to build its military muscle. Faced with a Chinese unilateral declaration of an air defense zone over the South China Sea, the administration advised U.S. commercial carriers to obey Chinese demands. In Africa, the United States has surrendered to the French whatever claim it had to leadership in the anti-terror war. In Latin America, the administration has been absent without leave.

America will continue to shrink its global footprint in 2014, as the Obama administration remains firm that all combat troops will be removed from Afghanistan this year. President Hamid Karzai refuses to sign the status of forces agreement that is needed for any non-combat troops to remain, so the United States may be out of Central Asia entirely within the next 12 months.

About the only place the United States is currently active is with Iran. This is not an effort to increase American influence, however, but an attempt to limit threats in the Persian Gulf so that the United States presence can be reduced further.

Some would argue this is a good thing. After all, fortress America is protected by two oceans, is energy independent in the production of natural gas, and is rapidly decreasing its need for oil imports from outside of North America.

But nature abhors a vacuum. As the U.S. “pivot towards Asia” degenerates into a miniscule amount of military aid to allied countries, China lays claim to offshore atolls claimed by Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan and Korea. India has just taken possession of a new aircraft carrier. Iraq is collapsing into civil war, with al-Qaida assuming control of Fallujah and Ramadi. There is an intelligence estimate that Afghanistan's gains will dissipate when the Americans leave. Russia and China announced they are planning joint naval exercises in the Mediterranean, and Iran is planning a naval cruise in the Atlantic.

The United States has kept the peace throughout the world since 1945. As the U.S. withdraws from its traditional role, one hopes it will not lead to the great power conflicts America has contained for 70 years.

James J. Coyle is the director of Global Education at Chapman University and is the chair of the Eurasian committee of the Pacific Council on International Policy.

Major Powers Supporting TAPI

Despite the obvious security problems surrounding the potential route of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, major regional and international powers are supporting the project.  According to independent Indian energy analyst Saurav Jha, the United States is supporting the project to isolate Iran from regional integration efforts, and to showcase the potential of the American "New Silk Road Initiative."  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a Foreign Ministerial meeting in September 2011 with all of Afghanistan's neighbors to announce the launch of this effort, designed to bring economic development and political stability to the area.

Russian interests appear aligned with the US (although they differ on the rival Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline).  In both cases Russia is offering to participate in the construction of the line.  On the subcontinent itself, the Indian Gail Ltd company signed in May an agreement with Turkmenistan to purchase TAPI gas.  (Kabul signed a memorandum of understanding, but did not sign a formal agreement).

State Gas Systems of Pakistan also signed a purchase agreement in May.  Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari sent a message to Turkemn President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammadov stating the construction of TAPI was "essential" and the start of a new era of cooperation, according to Trend.az.   Zardari identified the pipeline as a major project:  "Pakistan is considering the construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline as a major project, which is the beginning of a new era of cooperation at the regional and interregional levels."

There is little chance of TAPI being constructed until after the United States and NATO withdraw their troops from Afghanistan in 2014, and the Afghan government shows it has the ability to maintain security of the proposed pipeline.