The President and the Democrats Are Both Wrong

[Neil D]

Thought this might be worth a read... Neil

The NIE: The President and the Democrats Are Both Wrong

The National Intelligence Estimate regarding trends in global terrorism, partially released by the administration yesterday in response to weekend news leaks, is not centrally about Iraq, and it is certainly not the final word on the subject.

While the NIE cites the Iraq war as the "cause celebre" for jihadists, what it doesn't say -- can't say -- is that before and beyond Iraq, a movement grew because of fundamental U.S. policies.

We are not facing an age of terrorism spawned by the Iraq war, nor are we fighting thousands, if not millions, of jihadists because of misunderstandings about the goodness of America.

We are fighting because of America.

The mainstream news media story about the Bush administration's release of portions of the classified NIE on worldwide terrorism is that the movement "is growing and being fueled by the war in Iraq…"

The key sentence in the April, 2006 document (pdf) that we are debating says:

"The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement."

The NIE goes on to say that "four underlying factors" are fueling "the spread of the jihadist movement:"

"(1) Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness;

(2) the Iraq 'jihad;'

(3) the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations; and

(4) pervasive anti-U.S. sentiment among most Muslims -- all of which jihadists exploit."

Though the two observations are juxtaposed in the four-page "Key Judgments" released by the White House, they are not necessarily related.

Even without the Iraq war, the "grievances" would still exist, and they are not just about domestic Muslim stagnation or some inner-Islamic religious war. Furthermore, the "anger" and "humiliation" rampant in the Muslim and jihadist world do not find their origins in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

If anything, the U.S. toppling of Saddam Hussein was not a surprise to most Muslims.

What is more, the Iraq war at this point, and the "jihad" fighting America in Iraq, is having the effect of breeding a strange sense of hope: in Iraq, and in Afghanistan where al Qaeda survives, in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden continues to live, in Lebanon where Israel is defeated, the dominant anti-American narrative is that Osama bin Laden and other defenders of Islam were right from the beginning: just as the Soviet Union was "defeated" in Afghanistan, the United States and Israel can also be defeated.

The simplistic story line that the Democrats are pushing is all about and solely about Iraq: withdraw U.S. forces, defeat the Republicans, tidy up foreign policy by giving human rights to prisoners and being nicer in the world, and voila, terror subsides.

President Bush, on the other hand, loves to insist that before we were "in" Iraq, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon anyhow, hence the age of mega-terror is not about the Iraq war.

"My judgment is, if we weren't in Iraq, they'd find some other excuse, because they have ambitions," Bush said yesterday. "They kill in order to achieve their objectives."

Both the Democrats and the President are wrong.

First, this question of being "in" Iraq: in the eyes of the jihadists, and in eyes of most in the world, the United States has been "in" Iraq since 1991. We continued to bomb Iraq for a decade, we occupied the Middle East with our military forces, and we propped up and supported the most repressive and corrupt governments.

Osama bin Laden's declaration of war against the United States a decade ago was centrally about the new anti-Muslim occupation and the "death" of one million Iraqi babies because of the United States and under international sanctions. The United States, in other words, wanted to subjugate and kill Muslims, and more important, had no regard for civilian life. Bin Laden's historical rhetoric goes back to Hiroshima and he has argues that the U.S. kills civilians whenever it wants to pursue its designs. Hence we have the "justification" for al Qaeda attacks on U.S. civilians.

President Bush may reduce all of this to the terrorists looking for an "excuse," but al Qaeda and the jihadist movement grew out of a complex and convoluted anti-western, dare we say anti-Christian and anti-Jewish, narrative that began with the defeat of Soviet empire in Afghanistan and now promises the defeat of America, Israel, and the west.

The growth of dissatisfaction and terror, the summary of the National Estimate argues, is not only about Iraq: Corruption, repression, and inner battles within Islam and Muslim states are the sources of the spread and growth of today's jihadist movement.

The document, however, only mildly suggests that "greater pluralism and more responsive political systems" in the Muslim world, as well as a sustained U.S. counter-terrorism effort, could "erode" the Jihadists. The four-page summary is otherwise silent on the true sources of what it calls "pervasive" anti-American sentiment, even as it does point to the rise of "anti-US and anti-globalization sentiment…fueling other radical ideologies," such as in Venezuela, though it is unnamed.

We as Americans need to get beyond not just Iraq but also beyond the September 11 retaliation era so that we can look at our adversaries and our potential enemies with a clearer eye, with some openness, and some compassion.

A lot more is needed today than getting out of Iraq.

If the Democrats had their way, and the "war" against terrorism were just accelerated in Afghanistan and Pakistan, my guess is that "it" would become the new "cause celebre." The "war" against terrorism is the problem at this point, as is our simplistic view of ourselves and what we are fighting.

[Dr. Shane]

Muslem violence against infidels goes back to before Colombus sailed the ocean blue. What we need is an anti-war movement to rise up among Muslims in Islamic nations. Let's see some anti-jihad protests in the streets of Meca.