It seems to now be the official bi-partisan position that there is a grave danger that al Qaeda will take over Iraq unless we use our military to prevent it.
This line about what will happen if we leave is of course the latest talking point of the Bush administration. In a speech President Bush gave yesterday a large section is devoted to supporting his argument that in Iraq we are fighting the same people who attacked us on 9/11
Today I will consider the arguments of those who say that al Qaeda and al Qaeda in Iraq are separate entities. I will explain why they are both part of the same terrorist network -- and why they are dangerous to our country.
The danger we face is that al Qaeda will take over Iraq, install bin Laden as caliph in Baghdad, and use all of Iraq's resources to mount more attacks on the American homeland. Bush argues that the group called al Qaeda in Iraq has taken a pledge of loyalty directly to bin Laden, something that according to Juan Cole is unsupported
Bush maintained in his speech that the members of "al-Qaeda in Iraq" have pledged fealty (bay'at) to Usama Bin Laden. There is no evidence for this allegation. The foreign fighters who make up "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia" are successors to previously-existing radical Muslim groups such as Ansar al-Islam and Monotheism and Holy War, both of which had distinct identities from al-Qaeda.
As to exactly the nature of the threat that foreign fighters in Iraq present Professor Cole says
Pentagon statistics indicate that the US holds in captivity 19,000 Iraqis suspected of insurgent activities, whereas it has only 135 foreign fighters currently in custody. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" is mostly foreign fighters. Obviously, it just is not that important, though it gets off some bombs, which is not to be taken lightly.
The fact that Bush is trying to push this line is probably not news to most of us here, but I was shocked yesterday hearing Howard Dean on the Rachel Maddow show [Air America Radio] say yesterday that the reason that we had to use care and not withdraw all the troops at once was that, while al Qaeda had not been in Iraq before the invasion, now, if we left the wrong way, there is a real danger that "al Qaeda could take over Iraq".
It is very wrong for Dean to buy into this because it is a Bush talking point. If Bush can convince people that such a non-existent danger exists now, he will be set up next summer to announce that, while there are still big problems in Iraq, at least the surge opposed by most Democrats has saved Iraq from the danger of an al Qaeda takeover.
And when Democrats argue that that threat was never real the Republicans will be able to point to statements like those of Howard Dean yesterday and say that "even" uber-antiwar people like Dean saw the danger of an al Qaeda takeover prior to the victory of Bush's surge.
I hope that everyone on the left will try to prevent mainstream Democrats from buying into the this idea that al Qaeda is threatening to "take over" Iraq. It is total crap.