07 April 2008
Iraq and Its Costs
In their OpEd article in the April 7, 2008 Wall Street Journal, Senators Lieberman and Graham demonstrate their wrongheaded confusion over what the conflict is about in Iraq. It should be clear to General Petraeus and to the U.S. Congress to whom he testifies again this week that the American military is only battling, through either armed force or social work, resisters to U.S. aggression. We can call that resistance “Al Qaeda” all we want, but that doesn’t make it part of the conspiracy to destroy the World Trade Center, any more than it does other disaffected groups that rely on terror as their primary tool for attaining political goals.
Al Qaeda in Iraq, in fact, is a red herring. The “surge” has not made possible the liberation from Al Qaeda of any areas of Iraq; it was the apparent success of the “surge” that was made possible by smart Iraqis who are only disappointed now that counterinsurgency buffs, like General Petraeus and his acolytes like Senators Lieberman and Graham, are drinking their own potion. What these Sunni and Shia Iraqis each want from the “surge” is security from attack by the other until one of the sects believes it can prevail in the ultimate competition for dominance of the religious and natural resources of Iraq.
The rest of the Lieberman/Graham expostulation on Iraq is irrelevant nonsense. Iraq’s 7% growth is mainly due to the rise in the global price of oil. Mr. Maliki’s characterization of Shiite militias as “worse than Al Qaeda” is not surprising since he is just as dependent on the U.S. for his power as the fictional Al Qaeda in Iraq, whereas the strength of the Shiite militias is real and dangerous. “The larger struggle to prevent . . . an Iranian-dominated Middle East” is the latest in the succession of reasons to emerge for our going to war in Iraq.
Finally, there is no commonality between American and Muslim opposition to Al Qaeda’s ideology. Terror is not an ideology; it is a tactic. Most Muslims in the modern world oppose the use of terror for achieving political or religious objectives. However, their ideology may be closer to the world view that drives the leaders of Al Qaeda than to that of modern secular democracies. They can sympathize with Bin Laden’s objectives while condemning his tactics.
In their OpEd article in the April 7, 2008 Wall Street Journal, Senators Lieberman and Graham demonstrate their wrongheaded confusion over what the conflict is about in Iraq. It should be clear to General Petraeus and to the U.S. Congress to whom he testifies again this week that the American military is only battling, through either armed force or social work, resisters to U.S. aggression. We can call that resistance “Al Qaeda” all we want, but that doesn’t make it part of the conspiracy to destroy the World Trade Center, any more than it does other disaffected groups that rely on terror as their primary tool for attaining political goals.
Al Qaeda in Iraq, in fact, is a red herring. The “surge” has not made possible the liberation from Al Qaeda of any areas of Iraq; it was the apparent success of the “surge” that was made possible by smart Iraqis who are only disappointed now that counterinsurgency buffs, like General Petraeus and his acolytes like Senators Lieberman and Graham, are drinking their own potion. What these Sunni and Shia Iraqis each want from the “surge” is security from attack by the other until one of the sects believes it can prevail in the ultimate competition for dominance of the religious and natural resources of Iraq.
The rest of the Lieberman/Graham expostulation on Iraq is irrelevant nonsense. Iraq’s 7% growth is mainly due to the rise in the global price of oil. Mr. Maliki’s characterization of Shiite militias as “worse than Al Qaeda” is not surprising since he is just as dependent on the U.S. for his power as the fictional Al Qaeda in Iraq, whereas the strength of the Shiite militias is real and dangerous. “The larger struggle to prevent . . . an Iranian-dominated Middle East” is the latest in the succession of reasons to emerge for our going to war in Iraq.
Finally, there is no commonality between American and Muslim opposition to Al Qaeda’s ideology. Terror is not an ideology; it is a tactic. Most Muslims in the modern world oppose the use of terror for achieving political or religious objectives. However, their ideology may be closer to the world view that drives the leaders of Al Qaeda than to that of modern secular democracies. They can sympathize with Bin Laden’s objectives while condemning his tactics.
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