Former CIA Agent Against U.S. Involvement in the Middle East
February 25, 2011
If you want to make sure your book is controversial, former CIA agent Michael Scheuer joked dryly, have it endorsed by Osama bin Laden.
Three years ago, bin Laden released a statement citing Scheuer’s 2004 book, Imperial Hubris, as an example of an accurate portrayal of Al-Qaeda's motivations. In more than two decades with CIA's counterterrorism operations, Scheuer accrued an inventory of knowledge about bin Laden, the subject of his newest book. But during a Feb 16 Harris School lecture, Scheuer did not focus on the infamous terrorist. Instead, he reserved his attention—and his brutal criticism—for U.S. political leaders.
Scheuer’s growing criticism of U.S. foreign policy, particularly of the CIA’s approach to bin Laden and the Iraq War, has strained his relationship with the agency. In 2004, he departed the CIA, writing that “there has not been adequate national debate over the nature of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and the force he leads and inspires.”
Scheuer became a junior officer with the CIA focusing on Afghanistan in 1986, after receiving his PhD from the University of Manitoba. In 1996, he was moved from his work with the Islamic Extremist Branch to head the Bin Laden Issue Station, a new counter terrorism unit formed to track the operations of the then-relatively unknown Al-Qaeda commander—it dissolved in 2006.
Scheuer, who now teaches at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies, shared his critical views as part of an ongoing series of lectures at the Harris School on counter terrorism. He stood distinctively apart from previous speakers, however, in his understanding of Al-Qaeda and his policy proposals.
Unlike Jonathan Fine, an Israeli terrorism expert who spoke at the Harris School on Jan. 25, Scheuer does not view Al-Qaeda as an irrational group driven by theology, but as an organization that acts rationally and is motivated by U.S. foreign policy. And he differed from the notion put forth by West Point officials last October that “Al-Qaeda has decentralized,” arguing instead that the gravest threat to the U.S. comes from the strategic, well-connected man at Al-Qaeda’s center.
Scheuer claimed there are two primary U.S. policies that motivate bin Laden: decades of American military presence in the Persian Gulf and the Muslim world and the ongoing U.S. support for Israel. This second claim cost Scheuer an earlier position at the Jamestown Foundation, and has brought him a fair amount of criticism.
He also criticized the U.S. government for continuing policies that, he said, undermine national security. "America's elite are addicted to interventionism," he said, arguing that the U.S. should stay "out of other people's religious wars."
He further cautioned the U.S. from intervening in the current unrest in several Arab countries. A few members of the audience challenged Scheuer, with concerns about the future of the Middle East without U.S. involvement.
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