Since 9/11, al Qaeda has relied on a long established “franchising” strategy to form alliances with affiliate groups and connect them into a comprehensive global effort. By forming alliances and providing inspiration to jihadists worldwide, al Qaeda has attempted to transform itself into what counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen (2004) called a “global Islamist insurgency.” The United States must be prepared to adopt a global counterinsurgency strategy to combat this movement: what some have termed “al Qaeda 2.0.” As Field Marshal Sir Gerald Walter Robert Templer, who defeated the rebels during the Malayan Emergency of the 1950s, said of counterinsurgency, “The shooting side of the business is only 25 percent of the trouble and the other 75 percent lies in getting the people of this country behind us” (Joes 2006). Simply killing insurgents and terrorists is no strategy for victory.

Insurgency is defined as an attempt by nonstate actors to topple governments and seize power, typically using guerrilla warfare and terrorism tactics. In this article, we use the term “attempted global jihadist insurgency” to emphasize al Qaeda’s effort to weave together local jihadist insurgent groups from Algeria to Afghanistan with freelance terrorists from London to Jakarta into a global organization--and to stress that this attempt has not yet succeeded. The attempted global jihadist insurgency being waged by al Qaeda and its affiliates against the United States and its allies is a combination of terrorism campaigns, classic insurgencies, and a hybrid of insurgencies that rely heavily on terrorist tactics. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are insurgency campaigns that employ terror tactics, while al Qaeda’s efforts in Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom are classic terrorist campaigns. One unique aspect of the attempted global jihadist insurgency is its supranational aspirations; it is an effort to connect local insurgencies into a unified global effort.

Many elements of classic counterinsurgency strategy are helpful in combating the insurgencies and terrorism tactics employed in this conflict. The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Department of the Army 2006) states that “killing insurgents--while necessary, especially with respect to extremists--by itself cannot defeat an insurgency.” Bruce Hoffman (a former U.S. counterinsurgency advisor in Iraq) concurred when he explained the “strategic imperative of breaking the cycle of terrorist recruitment” and that “effectively countering terrorism as well as insurgency is not exclusively a military endeavor but also involves parallel political, social, economic and ideological activities” (Hoffman 2005, 11, 10).

The military must protect the population from terrorists and insurgents, deny jihadists freedom of movement, and isolate insurgents from the population. Using neighborhood/community watches augmented by local and coalition security forces, the military can create “free zones,” secure from insurgents. As a zone becomes secure, the coalition and local military forces can operate at the outer perimeters to expand the areas free of insurgents until the entire country is secure (an approach referred to as “clear and hold,” “oil spot,” or “ink stain”). These military actions are then coupled with strategic information and civil affairs operations aimed at eliminating terrorist and insurgent safe havens, resources, and support by neutralizing terrorist propaganda and thwarting insurgent recruitment efforts.

As a result, to defeat the attempted global jihadist insurgency decisively, a multidimensional strategy is needed, composed of solutions that tackle the whole problem and not just one piece of the puzzle. In what follows, we present forty recommendations that focus on new policies as well as improvements to existing policies. Why forty recommendations? Since a very complex mix of factors contributes to the attempted global jihadist insurgency, only an equally complex set of policies can combat the threat.

Remove Barriers to and Better Prepare for Winning the Conflict

1. Increase force size--Focus on counterinsurgency. U.S. defense spending (including supplemental appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan) is currently less than 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), down from average cold war levels of approximately 6 to 7 percent (Donnelly 2005, 82). Over the next several years, it is necessary both to increase the total size of active-duty Army soldiers to 1990 levels of 750,000 and active-duty Marine Corps soldiers to 250,000 as well as to double the budget of Special Operations Command to increase force sizes (without diluting the quality of the force), hire more trainers, and upgrade equipment. More forces should be outfitted and trained for irregular or nontraditional operations, and specialized counterinsurgency and peacekeeping units should be formed. Troop pay and benefits should be increased by 25 percent, and a fast track to citizenship should be provided for immigrants who agree to serve a tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan. Combat zone tax exclusions should be extended to all active enlisted members of the armed services, and bonuses for sign-on and higher reenlistment offered.

2. Learn to speak their language. Currently only three dozen FBI agents speak any Arabic; a new emphasis must be placed on teaching Arabic, Farsi, Pashtu, Bengali, Indonesian, Urdu, and Punjabi (Eggen 2006). The funding at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) should be increased and its activities should be coordinated with colleges and universities to attract new students. Web-based distance education and training can have further reach. A National Language Institute should be created to train tomorrow’s language instructors.

3. Streamline and “smartline” the security clearance process. Hiring procedures that are relics of the cold war should be streamlined to eliminate obstacles to recruiting new talent, in particular, intelligence agencies’ hiring of linguists and country experts. In particular, changes should be made in background check policies that exclude new hires simply because they have lived in foreign countries.

4. Initiate a Manhattan Project to move away from an oil-based economy. The United States currently imports 30 percent of its total energy consumption and 65 percent of the oil required to fuel the economy (Cardin 2007), so a terrorist attack on key oil infrastructure in the United States or Saudi Arabia could have a crippling effect. Additionally, dependence on foreign oil may color U.S. dealings with authoritarian regimes out of fear that oil supplies might be disrupted or oil prices might spike. The president should give a national address announcing a new initiative to accomplish energy independence within ten years. A national lab should be created to centralize the coordination of research, and an additional $10 billion per year for the next five years should be invested to shift away from fossil fuels to wind and nuclear energy, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, hydrogen, geothermal, bio-mass, ethanol, methanol, and other energy sources. The president should work with Congress to provide tax rebates for installation of solar energy panels and a tax credit for buying a certified “green” house, as well as mandate that all new cars be outfitted as Flexible Fuel Vehicles, which run on a variety of fuels including gasoline, ethanol, and methanol (the expense for such regulation would only cost a few hundred dollars per vehicle according to energy expert Robert Zubrin).

5. Increase State Department assets. The Department of Defense employs more musicians in military bands than the State Department employs foreign service officers (FSOs). Newly created American Presence Posts are a critical component of the State Department’s “transformational diplomacy strategy,” which aims to extend U.S. diplomatic presence into more cities around the world. But the number of FSOs needs to be increased. A Foreign Service Academy should be created to train new FSOs. To improve their recruitment and retention, the president should authorize the department to increase pay and benefits, provide tax holidays during time served, and offer more educational loans conditional upon tours within the Foreign Service.

6. Win the battle for hearts and minds at home and improve government coordination. The president should work with Congress to issue a formal declaration of war against al Qaeda and its affiliates, as well as make them known to the public by defining them during presidential addresses, and instructing executive departments to work with Congress to hold public hearings, issue publications, and create government Web sites disseminating information related to each group. A new strategic coordinator position should be created in the White House to synthesize the activities of the military, intelligence community, State Department, and other relevant government agencies as well as to provide regular progress updates by all arms of the U.S. government on efforts to defeat the attempted global jihadist insurgency. A high-level bipartisan working group that meets with the president regularly to assess and to adjust strategies should also be created, similar to the Executive Committee (EXCOMM) formed by President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And to maintain popular support for the U.S. government’s efforts to defeat the attempted global jihadist insurgency, the president should provide regular televised updates, similar to the “Fireside Chats” initiated by Franklin Roosevelt during World War II.

7. Report on metrics. To monitor public opinion, democracy promotion, nation building, and terrorism, an Office of Metrics should be created at the Department of National Intelligence to provide regular briefings for the president and Executive Committee as well as generate an annual report card to the public and Congress. Using these metrics, the United States will know it is gaining ground when it sees consistent declines in the number of attempted jihadist attacks, fewer terrorist and insurgent safe havens in the Muslim world, a rise in the level of good governance and open societies in the Muslim world, a steady rise in the number of leading Muslim figures critiquing al Qaeda and its affiliates, a falling number of jihadi Web sites and declining level of jihadi Internet activity, a continuing drop in support of suicide bombings in the Muslim world, a constant decrease in the level of support for militant jihadist ideology, an improvement in world public opinion of the United States, and a decrease in the cost of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. Improve Counterinsurgency Strategy in Afghanistan/ Eliminate Safe Haven in Pakistan.

8. Counter the insurgency instead of just killing terrorists and insurgents. Pakistan’s border regions with Afghanistan have devolved back into a safe haven for al Qaeda. With the Taliban on the rise again in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the United States should implement many of the counterinsurgency strategies that have been successful in Iraq, adapted for conditions in Afghanistan. Rather than focusing on killing terrorists and insurgents, the United States and NATO should be adopting strategies to protect the population from insurgents and isolate the insurgents from the population as well as unhelpful neighbors. Iranian weapons and Pakistani fighters have been captured from Taliban safe houses in Afghanistan, so the United States should increase assistance to the Afghan government to improve border security along the Iranian and Pakistan borders. The United States should also offer counterinsurgency training for all NATO forces in Afghanistan. In 2007, U.S., NATO, and Afghan government forces were responsible for more Afghan civilian deaths than the Taliban (Associated Press 2007). Every effort must be made to avoid this from recurring in the future.

9. Increase local and allied force sizes in Afghanistan. The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual notes that successful counterinsurgencies require approximately 20 to 25 counterinsurgents per 1,000 residents to properly protect the population (Quinlivan 1995). With a population of more than 30 million people, an ideal force size in Afghanistan would be approximately 750,000 (CIA 2007). An effort must be made to increase the size of the Afghan military, police, and neighborhood watches to these levels. To grow the force size, the United States should assist Afghanistan in creating a National Counterinsurgency Academy and a National Police Academy. A concerted effort should be made to eliminate corruption in the Afghan police force. One such method is to increase police pay. Newly recruited and trained forces should be used to protect key population centers and reconstruction project sites. Moreover, the United States and its NATO allies should increase their troop presence in Afghanistan. Afghan army officers should be invited to train at Fort Bragg or Leavenworth in best counterinsurgency practices. The United States should also provide financial, trade (especially technology transfers and arms sales), and diplomatic incentives for its allies (especially Muslim countries) to send more troops and aid to Afghanistan.

10. Expand reconstruction in Afghanistan. Providing the same amount of per capita reconstruction aid to Afghanistan as is provided to Iraq would result in average annual reconstruction aid being increased by 200 percent over a five-year period. The United States should also solicit matching funds from Gulf countries that have hitherto done almost nothing to help one of the poorest countries in the world. American aid should be tied, in part, to an Afghan public employment program similar to the Works Progress Administration program that followed the Great Depression in the United States. Afghanistan has a chronic 40 percent unemployment rate and a desperate need for roads, dams, and the repair of agricultural aqueducts destroyed by years of war. Infrastructure projects should focus on improvements in road networks, for, as Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the former commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, has observed, “Wherever the roads end, that’s where the Taliban begins” (Eikenberry 2006). Also, the United States and NATO should fund a governance academy in Kabul where Afghan governors and other senior officials could come to learn best management practices. The United States could also issue a tax amnesty on investments in Afghanistan to motivate equity flows from U.S. citizens and corporations and help Afghanistan create a national stock exchange.

11. Fix the broken drug policy. The counternarcotics policy that has placed eradication at its center has been met with growing Afghan skepticism and, in some cases, violence, since most farmers cultivate poppies because they have few other options. The United States needs to invest in building up the legitimate Afghan agricultural economy though subsidies, price supports, and seeds for alternative crops. Additionally, the international community should help Kabul set up an agency, modeled on the Canadian Wheat Board, that would purchase crops from farmers at consistent prices and market and distribute them internationally. The United States and other NATO countries should open their markets and extend trade preferences to Afghan agricultural products and handicrafts. The United States should also endorse a pilot project to harness poppy cultivation for the production of legal medicinal opiates, such as morphine, for sale to countries, such as Brazil, that are in short supply of cheap pain drugs for patients. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents on the ground should step up efforts to interrupt money-laundering networks and interdict labs and shipments. The DEA should also turn Afghanistan’s shame-based culture to its advantage by making public the list of top Afghan drug suspects, including government officials, as it did in the 1990s when it publicized the names of Colombia’s drug kingpins.

12. Aid Pakistan’s efforts to wage an effective counterinsurgency. Pakistan should be strongly encouraged to conduct extensive counterinsurgency operations in Waziristan. The U.S. Army should offer training at Fort Bragg or Fort Leavenworth for Pakistani army officers to learn best counterinsurgency practices. Military aid should be increased but should be conditioned on Pakistan’s hiring, equipping, and training more counterinsurgency troops and adopting counterinsurgency best practices. To grow the force size, the United States should assist Pakistan in creating a National Counterinsurgency Academy and a National Police Academy.

13. Transform Pakistan’s tribal belt. The tribal areas are where the Taliban has a safe haven and al Qaeda is regrouping, so they should be a vital national security interest of Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States, and NATO countries. The president should coordinate a regional conference including those parties as well as China and India to develop a road map to regional stability. New infrastructure and other development projects (focusing on jobs creation as well as construction of roads, schools, and hospitals) should be initiated. A proposed $750 million in U.S. aid to the tribal region should be conditioned, in part, on letting international observers and journalists into the tribal areas to produce independent information about what is going on in these areas. In addition, the United States should advocate for political reform in the seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to allow the emergence of secular political parties to represent Pashtuns.

14. Redouble efforts to find bin Laden. Although Osama bin Laden may no longer be calling people on a satellite phone to order attacks, he remains in broad ideological and strategic control of al Qaeda around the world. The dozens of videotapes and audiotapes that he and his number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, have released since 9/11--instructing followers to kill Americans, Westerners, and Jews--have reached hundreds of millions of people worldwide through television, newspapers, and the Internet, making them among the most widely distributed political statements in history. The next president should, without any public fanfare, reopen the bin Laden unit at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), appointing a single individual reporting to the director of national intelligence to coordinate all CIA activities related to capturing or killing bin Laden with the Departments of Defense and State and foreign intelligence services. Similar units should be set up targeting Ayman al-Zawahiri and Mullah Omar. Continue and Expand Counterinsurgency Strategy in Iraq.

15. Extend the “ink stain” and cut off outside help. The United States should expand the counterinsurgency plan instituted by General David Petraeus in 2006 and 2007 until all of Iraq is secure from insurgent activities. As local Iraqi military, police, and neighborhood watches begin to hold the areas cleared of insurgents and consolidate gains in and around Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi forces should be rotated out of the city and into the northern and southern parts of the country. As Iraqi insurgents receive outside help in the form of Iranian weapons and Saudi fighters, the United States should increase financial and militarily assistance to the Iraqi government to improve border security along the Iranian, Syrian, and Saudi borders.

16. Increase local and allied force sizes. With a population of more than 27 million people, an ideal counterinsurgency force size in Iraq would be approximately 675,000. Since almost all of these forces will need to come from Iraq, an effort must be conducted to double the size of the Iraqi military, police, and neighborhood watches. To grow the force size, the United States should assist Iraq in creating a National Counterinsurgency Academy and a National Police Academy as well as help the Iraqi Government incorporate the 90,000 “Sons of Iraq” (armed neighborhood watches) into the Iraqi Security Forces once properly vetted. Iraqi army officers should also be offered training in best counterinsurgency practices at Fort Bragg or Fort Leavenworth. Additionally, the president should formalize a longterm military alliance between the United States and Iraq and provide financial, trade (especially technology transfers and arms sales), and diplomatic incentives for its allies, especially Muslim countries, to send troops and aid to Iraq.

17. Expand reconstruction. In addition to providing additional reconstruction grants (an additional $50 billion is said to be required just to modernize Iraq’s energy infrastructure (Agence France Presse 2007)), the United States should work with international banks and other multilateral institutions to secure private loans for Iraqi reconstruction and work with allies to provide loan guarantees to the lending institutions. The majority of the loans should be earmarked to finance energy infrastructure investments, with grants decentralized at the provincial government level. Once Iraq’s energy infrastructure is modernized, oil output will increase, allowing the country to finance its own reconstruction efforts. In the interim, the United States should issue a tax amnesty on investments in Iraq to motivate equity flows from U.S. citizens and corporations and solicit matching funds from Gulf countries.

Manage “Blowback” and Monitor Ungoverned Regions

18. Create a universal database to trace and track foreign fighters, insurgents, and terrorists. “Blowback” is a term used in the intelligence world to describe the unintended consequences of covert operations. The foreign fighters and their allies in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to become national security threats to the United States once the conflicts in those countries come to an end if blowback is not planned for well in advance. To better share information related to detaining, arresting, and disrupting foreign fighter supply chains, insurgent groups, and terrorist cells, the president should order all relevant government agencies to collaborate on the development of a single database integrating watch lists of the intelligence community, the State Department, and the military. Information should be shared throughout the U.S. intelligence community and other relevant departments within Homeland Security such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The database needs to map the “facilitative nodes”--such as Web sites, operational planners, financiers, and jihadist underground networks--that bring young men (and increasingly, young women) into the jihad. It should also use DNA samples, accounts on jihadist Web sites, good intelligence work, and media reports to identify the suicide attackers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

19. Work with neighbors to close down the recruiting networks. Mapping the social networks of the terrorists must include identification of clergy who serve as mentors for the suicide attackers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Armed with that intelligence, the United States can demand that the governments of countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, where many of the suicide bombers in Iraq and Afghanistan originate, rein in particularly egregious clerics.

20. Monitor “ungovernable” regions. Al Qaeda and its affiliates have targeted as safe havens the ungovernable regions within Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, and Bangladesh. Recent reports indicate that remnants of the Islamic Courts Union (affiliated with al Qaeda) have formed a group called the Popular Resistance Movement in the Land of the Two Migrations, which now controls approximately one-third of Somalia (Ryu 2007). These areas should be monitored regularly, so that al Qaeda and affiliate activities may be disrupted and safe havens may be blocked within these territories. The United States should increase its annual funding for the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership, since many African nations face the greatest threats from ungovernable regions (Pincus 2007).

Develop an Internet-Based Strategy to Attack the Jihadis

21. Take down propaganda sites and improve Internet forensics. Since 9/11, the Internet has emerged as one of the strongest tools used by the attempted global jihadist insurgency. There are 5,000 jihadi web sites, many of which are used to promote jihadi ideology as well as attract recruits, while hundreds of online chat rooms provide safe havens on the Internet for jihadists to communicate and organize (Weimann 2006). The United States must wage an online counterinsurgency against these indoctrination mechanisms, recruiting grounds, and safe havens, taking down jihadi propaganda sites and improving the forensics of tracing site operators so that actionable intelligence can be gathered in a timely manner. The president should authorize a new program to disseminate information to Internet service providers about jihadist Web sites (only those that lack actionable intelligence) hosted in their networks and encourage immediate disconnection. Moreover, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) should be directed to develop and implement better capabilities to trace site operators and their methods of connecting to the Internet. An interagency Internet police force should be created to monitor jihadi Web sites and arrest their administrators. The arrest of Younis Tsouli, a jihadist who used the pseudonym “Irhaby 007” (Irhaby is the Arabic word for terrorist) to distribute online training manuals and jihadi videos from al Qaeda in Iraq, should be used as a case study to develop best practices for the infiltration and disruption of Internet jihadis.

22. Take out the producers. It is important to target the jihadi video production and distribution networks such as As-Sahab, al Qaeda’s production arm. The U.S. government should designate As-Sahab and other similar organizations (such as the Taliban’s Ummat video) as terrorist entities, pursued with the same level of determination as other al Qaeda entities and coordinated by a jihadi propaganda desk at the NCTC.

23. Conduct information operations. The U.S. government should develop a number of new anti-jihadi Web sites and train intelligence officials to engage in debates within jihadi chat rooms, newsgroups, and blogs. Jihadi atrocities should be publicized, such as the twin remote-detonation bombings in February 2008 conducted by al Qaeda in Iraq that used unsuspecting women with Down syndrome (Therolf and Parker 2008). Moreover, programs such as the State Department’s Digital Outreach Teams, which post entries on influential Arabic blogs, should be expanded.

24. Centralize monitoring and response. The NCTC should create an online situation room to monitor the few jihadist Web sites with high intelligence value and catalog, track, and continuously update a database of jihadi Web sites. A rapid response mechanism should be created to immediately lock out the operators of jihadi sites with no intelligence value and to replace jihadi content with information discrediting the insurgents and terrorists.

Start Fighting the “War of Ideas” Like We Mean It

25. Restructure and increase U.S.-funded media. The United States must attempt to neutralize the jihadist message, focus on countering radicalization in strategic communications campaigns, and make every effort to disrupt recruitment efforts of the jihadists by separating them ideologically from the population. This effort calls for the creation of Agency of Strategic Communications, whose head would report directly to the president, to coordinate civilian and military departments to follow counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen’s (2007) recommendation to develop “an interagency effort . . . for a national-level strategic information campaign.” The new agency should control Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa networks (now reporting to the Broadcasting Board Governors and the Bureau of Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy from the State Department), and funding should be provided to develop new radio, TV, and Internet media in Arabic, Farsi, Pashtu, Bengali, Indonesian, Urdu, and Punjabi. The budget for Alhurra should be increased beyond its current relatively low level, so that this flagship U.S.- funded Arabic TV channel could provide a real alternative to al Jazeera and other twenty-four-hour Arabic news channels. (McCarthy 2004). A recruiting campaign should also be initiated to attract the best and brightest talent to U.S.-funded media from competing networks such as Al Jazeera, Abu Dhabi, and Al-Arabiya. Small grants should be made to start up television companies in the Muslim world, on the model of Tolo TV, the main Afghan private channel that received $2 million from the U.S. government when it started up in 2004, and which has proven a rich source of independent news in Afghanistan (Ahrens 2007).

26. Provide rapid response. A war of ideas “situation room” should be created to serve as a rapid response center from which key officials could wage the war of ideas. The creation of a counterterrorism communications center could develop and manage the message to discredit the attempted global jihadist insurgency and attempt to drive a wedge between al Qaeda and the masses by publicizing and strongly condemning terrorist acts that kill Muslims, as well as other insurgent atrocities.

27. Get out more.Every effort should be made to get American diplomats, business executives, opinion leaders, and Muslim Americans in front of the Muslim world. Condoleezza Rice’s “transformational diplomacy” should be adopted to extend U.S. diplomatic presence into more cities around the world through American Presence Posts. Grants should be increased for American libraries, universities, and cultural centers throughout the Muslim world. Muslim Americans should be recruited and trained to travel to Muslim countries and speak at universities and on Arab and South Asian TV, with embassies encouraged to assign State Department foreign service officers to engage in debates with extremists on TV and radio in the Muslim world.

Adopt a More Proactive, Rights-Based Foreign Policy

28. Develop a new Marshall Plan to foster more open societies. From 1948 to 1951, the United States spent $13 billion to reconstruct European countries, which is more than $100 billion in today’s dollars (Firestone 2003; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics n.d.). This increased aggregate gross national product in those countries by more than 30 percent as it increased global trade that benefited the United States (U.S. Department of State 2007). A Marshall Plan for the Muslim world of approximately the same size ($30 billion per year over a four-year period) should be instituted to meet similar objectives. Given present demographic trends that will lead to a massive “youth bulge” in the Middle East, the region will need to create 100 million new jobs by 2020. If those jobs are not created, tens of millions of unemployed youth are likely to produce even more instability in the region. The United States therefore has a national security interest in improving the economies of the Middle East, a region that had the highest unemployment rate in the world in 2007. Funds should be allocated through a reorganized USAID and also connected to supporting institutions that protect freedom of the media, freedom of association and independent judiciaries, respect for human rights, development of democratic institutions, economic reform, and transparency in government and rule of law.

29. Distance ourselves from forces against free and open societies. The president should condemn the detention of political prisoners, violations of human rights, mass arrests, and fixing of elections. Free trade, the issuance of visas, and military as well as other aid should be used as “carrots and sticks.” The United States should pressure Muslim countries--such as Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Jordan, and Egypt--to promote civil society and allow dissidents a voice. If the United States identifies any media outlets that represent terrorist groups (such as al-Manar, Hamas TV, etc.), it should designate them as “terrorist entities” with corresponding financial sanctions and legal implications. The United States should provide funding for dissident groups in Syria and Iran (covertly if necessary) and increase funding for organizations and institutions that protect human rights, promote civil society, and develop democratic institutions in Muslim countries.

30. Promote equal rights for women in the Muslim world. Funding should be provided for the publication of an annual or biannual report on the state of women’s rights in the world, highlighting the legal and political status of women around the world and using ratings as one of the benchmarks for U.S. financial aid to Muslim countries.

31. Confront Iranian intransigence with increased sanctions and isolation. If the Iranian regime indicates a willingness to change and become a responsible member of the family of nations, then the United States should normalize relations with Iran--and offer Iranians diplomatic and trade incentives to do so. However, the president should confront the Iranian leadership’s intransigence on issues such as defiance of the International Atomic Energy Agency, aid for U.S. enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and violations of the human rights of Iranian citizens (Phares 2007). A first step would be to instruct all branches of government to discontinue waivers for U.S. businesses to the Iran Sanctions Act. Congress could enhance or place additional sanctions on Iranian imports of gasoline and create a federal law mandating states to divest from companies that do business with Iran. Additionally, European and Middle Eastern governments should be pressured and offered financial and diplomatic incentives to restrict trade with and implement sanctions against Iran because it is enriching uranium under its civilian nuclear program. Dissident groups should be financially supported, if they indicate they want our support. The president should show solidarity with political prisoners by inviting them to the White House. Radio and satellite TV stations broadcasting in Farsi should be well financed (covertly, if necessary) and programming should be aimed at discrediting and de-legitimizing the regime. If none of the above-mentioned tactics deter Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons, military action should be considered.

32. Challenge Saudi radicalization. In the aftermath of the May 2003 Riyadh bombings, the Saudis have made many efforts to combat the attempted global jihadist insurgency. Yet despite hundreds of arrests, tighter controls on charities that have financed terrorist groups, and increased cooperation with the United States, a militant ideology continues to emanate from the kingdom. While U.S. oil interests prevent a departure from current policies that avoid confrontation with the Saudis, pressure can be applied in public and in private to end any Saudi promotion of hatred for other religions. As the United States becomes more energy independent, it will have a freer hand to pressure the Saudi royal family to put an end to the radicalization of Muslim youth, which would be in the Saudis’ own interest, given that jihadists have increasingly targeted the Saudi state.

33. Protect the progress in Lebanon. The president should work with France to assist the fragile democratic government in Lebanon with financial support, determining a legal method of providing American security assistance to Lebanese politicians and journalists or offering training by the State Department Diplomatic Security Service to Lebanese security forces tasked with protecting Lebanese politicians. Additional aid should be provided to strengthen the central Lebanese government and remove Syria’s yoke from Lebanon as well as stop the Shia population from being dependent on Hezbollah for social services.
34. Resurrect METO/CENTO. The president should pull together most of the original members of the Middle East Treaty Organization (METO--later renamed the Central Treaty Organization or CENTO), including Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom, and invite others to join such as France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and Afghanistan. The organization could provide low-interest loan guarantees, trade incentives, and other financial rewards to members if they contribute soldiers or other personnel to Afghanistan and Iraq, assist in counterinsurgency efforts, and eventually reduce the U.S. burden in the region.
35. Reorganize and increase funding for USAID. USAID, as well as the Reconstruction and Stabilization Office, should be moved out of the State Department and become an independent agency, with a leader reporting directly to the president, and directed to align expenditures with current U.S. foreign policy objectives. Funding for USAID should be increased to support the New Marshall Plan, suggested above, accompanied by a simultaneous reduction of USAID’s reliance on outside contractors. All funds related to nonmilitary operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, other postconflict reconstruction efforts (especially those managed by the military not related to security), and all other nonmilitary foreign aid should be consolidated into USAID budgets. Democracy-promotion funding should be shifted from its focus on democratic processes that increase political participation to those that develop political institutions that protect the freedoms of speech, press, and assembly for democratic actors and groups. The Millennium Challenge program, which requires recipients to meet benchmarks related to civil liberties and economic freedoms prior to receiving aid, should be applied to all American aid projects.

Better Secure the U.S. Homeland

36. Create an Agency of Nonproliferation. To consolidate the monitoring of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the next president should adopt the recommendation of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction and create a joint Interagency Task Force to coordinate nonproliferation efforts by the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, Commerce, and Treasury as well as the intelligence community. A national coordinator on nonproliferation should head this task force, report directly to the president, and have complete budgetary authority to decide how the United States uses its resources to best protect the nation from WMD. This new national coordinator should also conduct annual program reviews and establish metrics for gauging progress and success. The United States should also provide incentives for countries to shift university research reactors from using highly enriched uranium to low enriched uranium.

37. Establish hydrogen peroxide controls. The U.S. government should increase the monitoring of sales of industrial-strength hydrogen peroxide, the weapon of choice for terrorists in the London July 7, 2005, bombings, the failed plot against American airliners in the summer of 2006 in the United Kingdom, and the failed attack directed at a U.S. base in Germany in 2007 (Landler 2007). 38. Keep militant Islam out of U.S. prisons. Islamist radicals are emerging out of the U.S. prison system. For example, the leaders of a failed plot in Torrance, California, to attack military bases after 9/11 became radicalized in prison. Prison imams should be vetted carefully by organizations that do not receive any foreign funding; prison officials should be trained to look for the signs of jihadist cells forming in their jails.

39. Improve emergency preparedness and response. The president should depoliticize the position of director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) by adjusting it to a six-year term and appointing an expert in emergency preparedness and response to the post. A national security health response system should be created, with a reserve medical corps trained to respond to terrorist attacks and other emergencies. More funding should be provided for local community emergency response teams (CERTs) in the highestrisk U.S. cities to educate and train the public for disaster preparedness and to assist local police and fire departments in disaster response. The public should be better educated and prepared for a chemical, biological, or radiological attack. The Internet could be better used as an effective emergency preparedness tool; new Web sites should be launched to provide a real-time online emergency\ response capability.

40. Openly debate detentions and interrogations and create National Security Courts. The president should make a formal declaration that the United States will not torture or coerce detainees, maintain secret prisons, or perform “extraordinary renditions” of individuals to countries where they will likely be tortured. Moreover, an open debate should be initiated on U.S. detention and interrogation policies to form a national consensus on those procedures. The Guantanamo Bay prison should be closed and all enemy combatants should be transferred out of the military judicial system. Simultaneously, a National Security Court system should be created to expand on the jurisdiction and duties of the existing Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and assume responsibility for certain terrorism trials and detention of alien enemy combatants.