Even When It’s Speculation, Terrorism Does Its Dirty Work

In calmer times, the news that a Pan American World Airways jumbo jet had crashed, killing more than 250 people, would seem a simple tragedy--ascribable to bad weather, mechanical malfunction or human error. Today, however, there is an instant and near universal belief that it must have been terrorism. Before key facts are known--even, in this case, whether there was an explosion--we begin reacting in compliance with terrorism’s peculiar culture. Each of us assigns blame according to our individual outlook on world events.

In fact, there is a host of potential candidates for having conducted what could prove to be infamous business. Until a few days ago the South African foreign minister had been scheduled to travel on Pan Am Flight 103, and the United Nations commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, was one of the victims. England is also game for Irish Republican Army terrorism, although there is no clear reason for an IRA attack on an American aircraft.

It is far more likely that this incident, assuming that it involved terrorism, was a product of developments in the Middle East. In both the Arab-Israeli and Persian Gulf conflicts, there is motivation for brutal acts. For several months, key figures in the Iranian government have been cracking down on radicals, reaching out to the West and working up to a reconciliation with the United States. For other Iranians who are more concerned to keep the revolution pure than to gain help with postwar reconstruction, there is strong incentive to rekindle the American people’s hatred of Iran.

The icing on the cake would be to argue that what happened to Flight 103 was retaliation for the downing of an Iranian Airbus last July by the U.S. warship Vincennes. Indeed, in the early hours after the crash in Scotland, there was widespread speculation that “the Iranians did it.” In fact, Iran would have everything to lose from such an act.

If we continue to follow the terrorism scenario, the prime candidate would be some party disaffected by the U.S. decision last week to open a dialogue with the Palestinian Liberation Organization. As always happens when there is a glimmer of hope for the Arab-Israeli peace process, the risks of terrorism did go up dramatically. Enemies of peace abound--several with experience in perpetrating terrorism, both in the region and in Western Europe. Indeed, the degree of difficulty in placing a bomb on an aircraft at Frankfurt or Heathrow airport argues for such a connection, with Libya, Syria and radical Palestinians having the most to lose from U.S. dealings with Yasser Arafat’s PLO.

Until more is known, all this is speculation. Yet it can still have a political effect.

That, in fact, is what distinguishes terrorism from other acts of violence: the effort to cause a political reaction by stimulating fear among a large group of people. Thus the term mindless terrorism is an oxymoron; by definition, terrorism is always purposeful.

In order for an individual, group or state to gain political effect, it is not even necessary for it to be guilty of the terrorist act. That is why so many catastrophes lead to multiple claims of responsibility, and also to the shifting of blame to enemies. At the other extreme, there can be “generic” terrorism an act for which no one claims responsibility but nonetheless prompts political action based on assumptions about the most likely culprit.

Thus, in the absence of hard evidence, there are now cries that the downing of Flight 103 proves that the United States must not deal with the PLO, with Iran, or with someone else. That is happening even before it is clear that terrorism was involved. And it will continue so long as no other cause for the crash is established.

The downing of Flight 103 illustrates the dilemma that Washington faces as it tries to sort out policy in the Middle East. In the immediate aftermath, the State Department is being pilloried for not having informed the general public about a recent warning of a potential attack on a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt. Assuming that more than coincidence is involved, such public notice would hardly have helped matters; terrorists, if such there were, would simply have chosen another target.

More open to question is what may prove to have been a failure of airport security in the face of the deadly combination of the tip-off and the sharp rise in the risk of terrorism because of the U.S.-PLO dialogue. Even then, there is just so much that can be done to forestall the dedicated terrorist, and too much difficulty in creating perfect airport security. The general public is unlikely to tolerate lengthy and exhausting examinations like those that now precede the boarding of any El Al airliner.

The United States does not have many options in terms of retaliation. These days, both Iran and the PLO are more likely to be targets, rather than perpetrators, of terrorism. Thus even these longstanding villains (in the American way of thinking) would not be eligible for retribution.

For the U.S. government it is most important now to have steady nerves as it pursues diplomatic openings at both ends of the Middle East. And it is important for the American public to understand how little can be done to eliminate terrorism from this difficult world. That, ultimately, is the only way to deny terrorists any political gain.