Posted on 05/31/2008 10:35:22 AM PDT by The_Republican
Don't look now, but evidence of progress in the war on terror is just about everywhere. Last week CIA director Michael Hayden noted some U.S. accomplishments for the Washington Post: "Near strategic defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Near strategic defeat for al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Significant setbacks for al-Qaeda globally." USA Today: Attacks in Iraq are "down 70 percent since President Bush ordered a U.S. troop increase, or 'surge,' early last year."
The New Yorker's Lawrence Wright devoted a long essay to Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, onetime mentor to Ayman al Zawahiri, who now criticizes his former protégé and Osama bin Laden and suggests they be put on trial. In the New Republic, Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank told the story of Sheikh Salman al-Awdah, author of an open letter attacking bin Laden and violent jihad that has caused shockwaves across the Muslim world. The sheikhs of Anbar Province in Iraq lead a national, transsectarian movement preparing for provincial elections by the end of the year. Polling shows a widespread decline in support among Muslims for suicide bombing and for bin Laden. Fareed Zakaria observed that the number of Islamist attacks worldwide has declined precipitously since 2004.
How did this happen? It is partly due to Muslim outrage at al Qaeda's killing of its coreligionists. It is partly due to Muslim rejection of al Qaeda's malign interpretation of Islam. For these reasons, Bergen and Cruickshank wrote that "encoded in the DNA of apocalyptic jihadist groups like Al Qaeda are the seeds of their own long-term destruction."
True. But such seeds must be sown, watered, and tended. Read the authors mentioned above, and you would think that al Qaeda's troubles sprung up overnight. They did not. Its troubles cannot be separated from U.S. counterterrorism policy. From President Bush's policy.
After 9/11, the president mobilized all forms of American power against bin Laden and his global jihadist movement. The constant pressure--cutting off the movement's funding, bringing down the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, hunting down jihadist affiliates in the Philippines and the Horn of Africa, spying on the terrorists' global communications--put the enemy on the defensive for the first time.
Then the president denied the jihadists an ally by removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Bin Laden declared Iraq the "central front" of his war against the West, and the Sunni insurgency helped Al Qaeda in Iraq gain a foothold there. Bush changed strategy last year, sending reinforcements to Iraq and ordering General Petraeus to secure the country's population. The results have been dramatic. By the time the first reinforcements arrived in Iraq, the Anbaris were already turning against al Qaeda. The Americans helped to almost completely eliminate the group in Anbar. Al Qaeda in Iraq is on the run. It has been denied its strategic goal of establishing an Islamic State of Iraq. Its black flag flies no more there.
What once seemed a war between jihadists and the West is now a war between jihadists and Muslims who reject terrorism. Bin Laden is close to losing this fight on his central front. Al Qaeda is no longer the attractive "strong horse" of bin Laden's December 2001 metaphor. It is that fact, more than any other, that accounts for his movement's current disarray.
But a global war has many fronts. Progress in one battle is often accompanied by setbacks in another. Al Qaeda may be on the brink of defeat, but its leadership maintains a safe haven along Pakistan's northwest frontier. In Afghanistan, Coalition forces continue to fight al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other agents of state failure. Meanwhile, the Iranian theocracy moves steadily forward in its quest for nuclear weapons. Iran's proxies in Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon commit murder in the pursuit of illiberal ends. A disturbing number of European Muslims are sympathetic to the jihadists and are a potential source of fresh recruits. And a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would erase all of the progress that has been made in the last year and a half. A precipitous withdrawal would provide aid and comfort to al Qaeda.
The left's analysis of jihadism has been proved incorrect at every turn. It argued military power would be ineffective against the terrorists. Wrong. It argued that intervention in Iraq would energize bin Laden's movement. That movement is in shambles. The left argued Iraq was a lost cause. It isn't. The left argues that a "war on terrorism" is futile, that defeat is inevitable, because terrorism is a "tactic," not an enemy. Nonsense. President Bush has demonstrated through perseverance and (more often than not) sound policy that the war on terror can be won. And right now we're winning it.
True, there is more to all of this then the article is saying though, the firing of Rumsfled for example was the only thing that allowed the Surge and Sunni Deal to happen.
This War is the “Best” reason for me, to make an effort to vote McCain, all kidding aside, we have a clear Communist in the Obamao who wants to declare defeat, and we have Jon McCain who wants to win the war.
For me, as a Conservative, I don’t agree with Mad John on 75% of the issues, I’m willing to suffer that to win in Iraq because the Men and Women who have given so much should not see Defeat in Iraq, if they can sacrifice, so can I, so should we all.
That’s a good point. Better to support the socialist like Truman that fights over a free market Constitutionalist like Ron Paul that surrenders.
Still, voting McCain won’t be easy. Hopefully his VP pick doesn’t suck too bad.
Same here, I ‘liked” Ron Paul, thought his Iraq policy was misguided, but he isn’t important now, John McCain had better pick someone we can get behind or even the Iraq War victory may not be enough to allow people to vote for him.
I am so saddened by this viewpoint. What we need is a fiscal conservative to make us great again. We are horribly in debt to powerful nation states that do not share out values (China) and some small ones that still supply the lifeblood of our economy (the oil emirates). No one is offering any plan on how to deal with it. Terrorists are a band of petty criminals whose ability to inflict lasting damage is minimal. They would have been wiped out years ago if we’d had a real president in 20+ years.
I can see the headlines now. US wins WOT: China calls in its debts. NOT a great day for America.
We need a fiscal conservative to balance the budget and trade deficit, pay of our debt - not more deficit spending traitors like Bush and McCain.
Where are the Patriots out there? Maybe McCain will let Paul run his domestic policy.
WFB this author is not. This turgid prose is almost unintelligible, and certainly is not English. But for the seriousness of the subject I would have skipped right past this.
“Terrorists are a band of petty criminals whose ability to inflict lasting damage is minimal.”
They’re working to change that. Israel just had to take out a reactor Kim Jong Il was building the Syrians. Iran moving full speed ahead on nukes as we speak.
Free markets and the Constitution become nothing if the Party of God (Hezb’Allah) is setting off dozens of nukes in our cities. This is tragic; this is also reality.
What would happen if China called in their debts and the US said they will be paid on time but not before? If they made a major stink about it, where would they sell all of their goods if the US put a 30% tax on every thing coming into here to pay that debt?
Agreed. This was the scenario that many painted about Japan in the Eighties when they were buying up properties throughout the US. I don’t think China will call in its notes.
Most Chinese I know, particularly my relatives, pay lip service to Party operatives but think the party members are leeches living off the entrepreneurs and risk-takers. The relatives had to endure Party cadres from the 1949 Liberation through The Great Leap Forward and The Cultural Revolution; now with all the corruption surfacing, their fuses are growing ever shorter. My cousins would much rather do business with the US than not. In Shanghainese the cleanest expletive translates to “stupid worm,” which is frequently used for the cadres and apologists.
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