By SCOTT SHANE, MARK MAZZETTI and ROBERT F. WORTH

Published: August 14, 2010

WASHINGTON — At first, the news from Yemen on May 25 sounded like a modest victory in the campaign against terrorists: an airstrike had hit a group suspected of being operatives for Al Qaeda in the remote desert of Marib Province, birthplace of the legendary queen of Sheba. But the strike, it turned out, had also killed the province’s deputy governor, a respected local leader who Yemeni officials said had been trying to talk Qaeda members into giving up their fight. Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, accepted responsibility for the death and paid blood money to the offended tribes. The strike, though, was not the work of Mr. Saleh’s decrepit Soviet-era air force. It was a secret mission by the United States military, according to American officials, at least the fourth such assault on Al Qaeda in the arid mountains and deserts of Yemen since December. The attack offered a glimpse of the Obama administration’s shadow war against Al Qaeda and its allies. In roughly a dozen countries — from the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics crippled by ethnic and religious strife — the United States has significantly increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists. The White House has intensified the Central Intelligence Agency’s drone missile campaign in Pakistan, approved raids against Qaeda operatives in Somalia and launched clandestine operations from Kenya. The administration has worked with European allies to dismantle terrorist groups in North Africa, efforts that include a recent French strike in Algeria. And the Pentagon tapped a network of private contractors to gather intelligence about things like militant hide-outs in Pakistan and the location of an American soldier currently in Taliban hands. While the stealth war began in the Bush administration, it has expanded under President Obama, who rose to prominence in part for his early opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Virtually none of the newly aggressive steps undertaken by the United States government have been publicly acknowledged. In contrast with the troop buildup in Afghanistan, which came after months of robust debate, for example, the American military campaign in Yemen began without notice in December and has never been officially confirmed. Obama administration officials point to the benefits of bringing the fight against Al Qaeda and other militants into the shadows. Afghanistan and Iraq, they said, have sobered American politicians and voters about the staggering costs of big wars that topple governments, require years of occupation and can be a catalyst for further radicalization throughout the Muslim world. Instead of “the hammer,” in the words of John O. Brennan, President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, America will rely on the “scalpel.” In a speech in May, Mr. Brennan, an architect of the White House strategy, used this analogy while pledging a “multigenerational” campaign against Al Qaeda and its extremist affiliates. Yet such wars come with many risks: the potential for botched operations that fuel anti-American rage; a blurring of the lines between soldiers and spies that could put troops at risk of being denied Geneva Convention protections; a weakening of the Congressional oversight system put in place to prevent abuses by America’s secret operatives; and a reliance on authoritarian foreign leaders and surrogates with sometimes murky loyalties. The May strike in Yemen, for example, provoked a revenge attack on an oil pipeline by local tribesmen and produced a propaganda bonanza for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It also left President Saleh privately furious about the death of the provincial official, Jabir al-Shabwani, and scrambling to prevent an anti-American backlash, according to Yemeni officials. The administration’s demands have accelerated a transformation of the C.I.A. into a paramilitary organization as much as a spying agency, which some critics worry could lower the threshold for future quasi-military operations. In Pakistan’s mountains, the agency had broadened its drone campaign beyond selective strikes against Qaeda leaders and now regularly obliterates suspected enemy compounds and logistics convoys, just as the military would grind down an enemy force. For its part, the Pentagon is becoming more like the C.I.A. Across the Middle East and elsewhere, Special Operations troops under secret “Execute Orders” have conducted spying missions that were once the preserve of civilian intelligence agencies. With code names like Eager Pawn and Indigo Spade, such programs typically operate with even less transparency and Congressional oversight than traditional covert actions by the C.I.A. And, as American counterterrorism operations spread beyond war zones into territory hostile to the military, private contractors have taken on a prominent role, raising concerns that the United States has outsourced some of its most important missions to a sometimes unaccountable private army. A Proving Ground Yemen is a testing ground for the “scalpel” approach Mr. Brennan endorses. Administration officials warn of the growing strength of Al Qaeda’s affiliate there, citing as evidence its attempt on Dec. 25 to blow up a trans-Atlantic jetliner using a young Nigerian operative. Some American officials believe that militants in Yemen could now pose an even greater threat than Al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan.

By Soner Cagaptay Newsweek June 4, 2010

Turkey is starting to scare Americans, for good reason. There was the high-profile clash at Davos over the Palestinians, fraying Turkish ties to Israel. Then came the surprise uranium deal with Tehran, undermining Western pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear program. Now there’s a new clash with Israel over Turkish support for the convoys challenging Israel’s embargo on Gaza. But just as Turkey is starting to look more assertively pro-Islamist than ever, there are signs that a big internal shift may reshape Turkish politics and redirect its foreign policy back toward the West.

This would end a drift that began in 2002, when the Justice and Development Party (AKP), rooted in the country’s Islamist movement, came to power. It has grown more authoritarian, and anti-Western, ever since. The NGO that sponsored the Gaza flotilla has close ties to the AKP, has sponsored numerous fundraisers in the Istanbul convention center controlled by the AKP city government, and has been designated by the U.S. as part of an umbrella group of terrorist organizations. Now AKP leaders are pressing the U.S. for a more aggressive response.

But for the first time in years, the AKP faces a real challenge. Turkey’s main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), lately has been a mere shadow of the secular force that once ruled the country and made it a staunch NATO ally. Now the resignation of CHP leader Deniz Baykal over an alleged sex-tape scandal has ushered in a new boss, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a charismatic people’s man who is committed to Western values. He might be the one to rebuild an effective opposition and redirect Turkish foreign policy toward the West.

Kilicdaroglu has already voiced support for Turkey’s effort to join the European Union, which has stalled in part due to European resistance to admitting a Muslim member, but also due to the AKP’s withering interest in the process since Ankara started membership talks in 2005. Kilicdaroglu has backed some of the government response to the latest Gaza incident — it would be impossible for any Turkish politician not to, given that Turkish activists were killed — but he could still bring change in the future.

Kilicdaroglu will have to recalibrate his party’s commitment to the ideals of Kemal Ataturk, who founded modern Turkey as a secular state. This New Kemalism would recall Ataturk’s 20th-century desire for Turkey to become European, making EU membership and realigning with the West top priorities while downplaying the AKP’s rapprochement with Iran and Russia. There are signs that this is happening already, including Kilicdaroglu’s encouragement of prominent pro-EU Turkish diplomats to join the CHP. New Kemalism would abandon the AKP’s ideological sympathy with Iran in favor of a pragmatic nationalist view: a nuclear Iran is against Turkish interests.

Kilicdaroglu, nicknamed “Gandhi Kemal” for his humility, to which the Turks have taken a liking, is already changing the CHP, taking the party, the heir to a social-democratic politics, back to the working and middle classes. He is also beginning to make New Kemalism more attractive at home by keeping its liberal aspects while coming to terms with religious issues: the new party assembly includes both a record number of women and an imam.

The CHP needs to challenge the AKP’s success at creating what Turks see as a forward-looking vision — one that respects the nation’s conservative social values and carves out a position of respect for Turkey within the transatlantic community. In recent years the CHP has defined itself mainly by saying no to the AKP, so the change in leadership presents an unprecedented opportunity — Turkish leaders do not usually quit politics until they die — to introduce New Kemalism. Can Kilicdaroglu win? For now the Gaza debacle is boosting the AKP’s popularity, but the CHP has a solid base. Opinion polls suggest that 32 to 38 percent of Turks would never support the AKP. Kilicdaroglu’s politics can expand this base. The AKP has won repeated elections since 2002 with strong support among lower-middle-class voters, Turkey’s demographic plurality, thanks to its rhetoric of social justice laced with conservative overtones. Kilicdaroglu’s pro-working-class message will help him win over these voters. If Kilicdaroglu can advance New Kemalism as a pro-Western, social-democratic movement at peace with both secularism and religion, Ataturk’s party might once again return to power in Turkey. It can’t happen soon enough to change the dynamics of the Gaza crisis, but it can happen.

Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.