October Surprise?

The term "October Surprise" comes from the 1980 Presidential campaign, when the Republicans feared that President Jimmy Carter would pull off a political hat trick and secure the release of the Americans being held hostage in Iran right before the election. (White House staffer Gary Sick later wrote a book of the same name in which he charged that the Republicans secretly cut a deal with Iran promising military equipment in return for not releasing the hostages until after the election. The accusations have never been adequately proved.) Given the Bush Administration's propensity for timing events for political purposes, and with three months to go until Election Day, one has to wonder whether they are planning an October Surprise of their own.

Such an event would likely take one or more of three forms:

1. Osama bin Laden is killed, captured, or found to have died.
2. Massive WMD stockpiles are found in Iraq.
3. A massive al Qaeda attack is loudly and publicly prevented in the nick of time right before the election.

Such political/temporal skullduggery may well have already begun. On July 25, Pakistani troops captured Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a leading al Qaeda terrorist and the alleged mastermind behind the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But The New Republic reports that the Pakistani government delayed announcing Ghailani's capture for four days until midnight Pakistan time (mid-afternoon Washington time) on July 29 -- and did so at the request of the White House.

And what else happened on July 29? Why, nothing less than John Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic convention.

This may not be a coincidence. The magazine had earlier reported that the White House leaned on Pakistan to publicly capture a high-value target (HVT) during the week of the convention. Apparently, a White House aide told Pakistani intelligence chief Ehsan ul-Haq that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July."

Did the Bush Administration deliberately plan a July Surprise to overshadow the Democratic convention? If The New Republic's reporting is correct, the answer is yes. When Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge scarily announced a supposed al Qaeda plot on Sunday (which just happened to push the Democrats out of the spotlight), amid the widespread skepticism over the announcement's timing, a few people wondered why such a thing did not happen during the convention itself and prevent Kerry from taking the spotlight to begin with.

If the magazine is correct, the Administration tried just that with the timed Pakistani announcement. The capture was supposed to have been the first story of that night's TV news, pushing Kerry and the Democrats off center stage. The only problem is that it didn't work, so something stronger had to be done.

The perception that the White House lets politics influence the War on Terror is not a new one. Earlier this year, the Army confidently announced that bin Laden would be captured in 2004. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have repeatedly been let off the hook sdespite their demonstrably shaky commitments to taking on al Qaeda and radical Islam in general. And as we saw earlier this week, the Administration has a habit of announcing terror alerts at politically expedient times. From all that, considering a full-blown October Surprise to lock up the election is not much of a stretch.

On the other hand, an October Surprise only works if people are not expecting it. After all, the magic trick of pulling a rabbit be pulled out of a hat just doesn't work if people are looking for it. So if the White House is aware that they are being watched, they might not try to pull such a stunt. But on the other other hand, that has never stopped them before; why should they start now?

The Bush Administration has already shown it will interfere with its own War on Terror for political purposes. It remains to be seen whether that interference will extend to winning the election.