Finally, we're getting around to discussing this as a nation. The final justification settled on by the Bush Administration after all other justifications were proven to be completely fabricated, is that Iraq is the "central front in the war on terror." As I explain, the very argument betrays a fundamental ignorance on the part of this administration and lays bare the profound strategic and tactical incompetence of their "battle plan."
Recall, that in the summer of 2002, we were first scared into believing that Saddam was in league with the terrorists, was somehow part of Al-Qaida, was mixed up in 9/11 and posed an immediate and imminent threat to the United States through the WMD program that Iraq somehow, inexplicably, reconstituted under our noses in the ten years between the first Gulf war and the present incursion....this, despite our maintaining continuous no-fly zones over the Country and routinely bombing threat level activity.....never mind those facts, we gave Bush the benefit of the doubt.... scared Americans went scrambling for duct tape and sarran wrap while our congress issued a carte blanche authorization for war.
But all that was wrong.
There was no link between these two different enemies. Saddam and Bin Laden were actually enemies, themselves, as it turns out (Bin Laden has declared Saddam an infidel...just like U.S.), the "imminent threat" was greatly exaggerated...the WMD program either did not exist, or was so small that it's been successfully concealed and/or moved under our noses.....
So how did Iraq become the central front in the war on terror?
Because once we committed our troops to Iraq, it presented a target of opportunity to the REAL Al-Qaida operatives. They were not IN Iraq before we got there, but they came once we committeed because they understand something the Bush Administration apparently did not.....Iraq, as a battlefield, is particularly suited to Al-Qaida's purpose....it presents the United States military, exposed in an urban setting, attempting to accomplish a "democracy building" mission for which it was not trained, in a country and culture that it poorly understands and amongst people with whom most U.S. troops cannot communicate and cannot tell apart from "true" enemies.
In other words, Iraq became the central front in the war on terror to Bin Laden and Al-Qaida because it presented an opportunity to inflict damage on the U.S. military that was otherwise impossible. IN retrospect, only two explanations are possible. Bush profoundly misunderstood the threat posed by Al-Qaida....or worse ....he intentionally used our troops as bait to bring Al-Qaida into the open.
Choosing the battlefield. One of the key factors dictating success in any battle. In this case, after making initial (albeit belated) progress in Afghanistan, George Bush took us on an unnecessary detour into Iraq that undermined our mission against the true terrorists in profound ways.
First, outside of the United States, people widely understood that there was no link between Iraq and Al-Qaida and could easily perceive the Bush Administration's campaign to declare otherwise as exactly what it was....war mongering propaganda.
This played into Bin Laden's message. On 9/12/01, he was running for his goddamned life, a pariah even among pariah states. After Iraq, people, particularly frightened Muslims, took a second look.....was the U.S. really after MORE Arab oil? That was Bin Laden's prediction. Was the U.S. really some morally bankrupt cultural Satan? Abu Ghraib didn't help.... highly lucrative no bid contracts to U.S. companies didn't help....condoning torture didn't help....refusing to leave before securing long term contracts in favor of U.S. oil companies didn't help. In a war of ideas, it is important to always maintain the high ground. Invading under false pretenses abdicated that high ground. The subsequent malfeasance only compounded that mistake.
It is much easier to destroy something than to build it. This is a central philosophical underpinning of any terrorist movement. They cannot engage and defeat a superior power like the U.S. through conventional means. So they engage in terrorism, random acts of violence and killng, designed to create the appearance of chaos, instability and fear. Iraq is particularly suited to this strategy and Al-Qaida employed it to devastating effect. The U.S. was stuck in the middle, both the target of frequent attack and, ultimately, the target of blame.....a classic no win situation.
By invading Iraq before finishing off the Al-Qaida fundamentalists, Bush fundamentally underestimated the nature of our true enemy....the religious fanatic fundamentalist....and exposed our military in an environment where it would sustain casualties that were otherwise impossible for that enemy to achieve. Simultaneously, the sheer magnitude of the ridiculous undertaking has strained our military and our economy to the brink.
Couple this with the Bush Administration's "asleep at the wheel" approach to regulating other important aspects of our economy, and you now find the "perfect storm" where our enemies are stronger while we are weaker, our military needs to be redeployed, while simultaneously needing rest and refurbishing. We are weaker today and more vulnerable than at any time in my lifetime.
The FUNDAMENTAL MISTAKE of the Bush Administration's war on terror is its failure to acknowledge that this is an Idea War.... Radical religious fundamentalism is not unique to Al-Qaida, but Al-Qaida is the face of that threat and it needs to be engaged and defeated for what it is....an aberrant, destructive religious philosophy. It is not ANY particular Country. It is not ANY particular military. It is an Idea...it can pop up and live anywhere... and it can only be defeated by a better idea.
This is why redeployment to Afghanistan is absolutely necessary. First, if we leave Iraq, we can claim some "success" (for those of you who need that kind of thing) in that we have, at a minimum, removed Saddam, instituted a basic constitutional framework and introduced basic democratic institutions. What the Iraqis do with it after that is really up to them. We cannot beat democracy into people with the blunt end of a gun. Democracy is a seed that must flower on its own. Might there be strife and sectarian violence? Possibly. But it might not. That's really not up to us.
What is up to us is the way in which we engage the fundamentalist religious enemy from this point forward. That has to be done in a way that the Bush Administration has been utterly incapable of. It starts and ends with a discussion of what place religion has in any civilized society. Should it be a control mechanism, enforcing rigid doctrine to beat the people into compliance with an oppressive religious viewpoint with which many people disagree? Or should religion simply be a thing protected by government, to be investigated by the people as they may choose in the exercise of their free will? Something that may inform and edify you at a personal level, but something not elevated to the level of State doctrine.
In its history the United States has, through no small amount of strife and turmoil, decided that the government should be separate from the Church. That the government should guarantee the freedom of its citizens to believe as they may choose, without enforcing any particular religious doctrine upon them through threat and coercion. This was something uniquely American when this Country was founded. The Bush Administration, however, was uniquely ill-suited for this fight. Strong vocal elements of that Administration fundamentally do not believe in the Constitutional importance of separating Church from State. These same elements are actively trying to undermine the very notion. How can the United States teach Constitutional Democracy without simultaneously teaching the necessity of separating church from State? How can a believer of one denomination EVER feel safe in a government dominated by other believers without this Constitutional protection? But this lesson has not been taught...hell, it cannot even be discussed by Bush without "alienating his base." Consequently, Shi'a distrusts Sunni and vice versa. No wonder they're fighting.
Now is the time. This is the issue. The United States can stand as a light and a beacon to the world by re-engaging the fundamentalist radicals on their own turf, by positing the notion that the government can act as a guarantor of social rights without taking a position on which religion is "right" and which is wrong, by discussing the concept of "freedom" in the context of religious investigation and choice, rather than mis-characterizing the concept, as so aptly done by the Bush Administration, as an "attack on God."
If we do this right, we can not only beat the terrorists, we can find ourselves again....regain our position of moral authority in the world and act a worthy example to other nations, teaching them these fundamental concepts of Constitutional Democracy that have made this Country what it is.
The central front in the war on terror is not IRaq. It never was. It never will be. Afghanistan and Pakistan is the ideological home of the religious fundamentalist radicals who perpetrated 9/11. Saudi Arabia was there actual home. We have to re-engage on this issue and regain the near worldwide support we enjoyed after 9/11 and which has been squandered by this Administration.