Terrorists Must Be Taken Seriously : They mean what they say, but do we?

A few thousand radical friends of Saddam Hussein wrapped up a three-day conference in Jordan this week with a threat to conduct terrorist activities against “American interests everywhere” if the United States gets involved in a shooting war with Iraq.

The fact that these menacing words were spoken under the auspices of supposedly moderate and pro-Western King Hussein, who sanctioned the conclave, prompted an angry rebuke from the State Department. That they contained an overt threat to kill Americans demands a more demonstrative response.

That response might run something along these lines:

Radicals like the Palestinian Marxists George Habash and Nayef Hawatmeh must be taken seriously when they threaten--as they just did in Amman--to attack U.S. interests, for the sound and prudent reason that their long terrorist records signal a grimly credible indication of their future intentions.

Because of their international criminal behavior, these persons must be regarded as outlaws. Like other wanted felons, they should be made to feel pursued and in danger wherever they go. They have no legitimate claim to sanctuary; they have no right to be protected; they should have no expectation of being secure anywhere.

This is something the United States ought to announce now, as an official statement of belief and of policy. It is something that those who so outrageously boast about their ability to murder Americans should be left in no doubt about--and it is something that their hosts, whether in Amman or Baghdad or Tripoli or wherever, should clearly understand.

The “inherent right of self-defense” recognized by international law and the U.N. Charter plainly includes the right of a country to protect itself against those who have done violence to its citizens and its laws, and who impudently promise to do so again. The precedents are there. Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, before he left office, revealed that the United States had engaged in a number of successful, if unannounced, actions to strike at terrorists and foil planned terrorism operations.

A preemptive anti-terrorist policy must of course be pursued with the greatest effort to protect innocent lives. What’s important now is not just that there be such a policy, but that it be clearly and openly stated so that there is no uncertainty or confusion about it. Terrorists like the PLO’s Habash and Hawatmeh should be put on plain notice that they are wanted men whose past crimes haven’t been forgotten and whose threats about future activities invite a preventive response.

Equally important, countries and leaders that sponsor terrorism or even--as in the case of Jordan’s King Hussein--that provide a forum for terrorist threats against American interests should know that such complicity isn’t cost-free. Terrorists play a dangerous game. What ought to be made unmistakable is that those who give them material or moral support are asking to share that danger.