Condi Nast[y]*The New York Times closes its article on Rice’s testimony this morning with this quote:
First of all, I’m not sure that’s a valid distinction. Does Rice really believe that al Qaeda is not a global menace? Second, assuming there is a distinction there, Bush chose neither. After demolishing what was left of Afghanistan (to what effect?), Bush has chosen to devote our country’s resources to creating a huge fucking mess in Iraq. As I was saying to Ugarte just yesterday . . .
I continue to believe that American and global security have been ill-served by the invasion of Iraq, not only because of the incredibly poor planning and execution, but because fundamentally I think it has proved to be a very costly distraction from the greater threat of international terrorism (although I continue to believe that even that is hardly the greatest problem our nation faces).
By invading and destabilizing Iraq, we (a) placed a huge American military presence in Iraq and pissed of an extraordinary number of Arabs/muslims/etc. and (b) created an order vacuum which allowed and encouraged anti-American terrorists from outside (including the ones we dispersed from Afghanistan) to come in and attack us there.
If I were an al Qaeda “officer”, Iraq would be a wet dream for me. On the one hand, it is a massive distraction and resource sink that forces the US to fight with one (or more) arms tied behind its back, and on the other hand it is a killing box ready-made for touching pastoral scenes like the charred corpses on the bridge.
If we can help Iraq to establish a stable, non-fundamentalist regime, I do think that will represent a step forward from the current situation vis-a-vis the threat/spread of Islamic fundamentalism. However, it will also represent a return to the status quo ante. Iraq under Saddam was essentially a stable, non-fundamentalist regime. Since there is little indication that the establishment of a stable, non-fundamentalist, democratic regime in Iraq is even possible, I do not believe we have any real chance of “success” in Iraq.
This, I believe, is the fundamental folly of the Iraq campaign: Now, in addition to our own national security, the fate of Iraq (formerly a non-crazy-fundamentalist state) hangs in the balance. All the invasion of Iraq did was commit resources and increase the pressure and the stakes.
I think it is a mistake to treat the threat posed by international terrorists and/or Islamic extremists as a national or geo-political entity. Iraq is not the heart of “their” operations. We are still not quite sure who or where “they” are—and THAT is what we should be focusing on. How will we defend ourselves and our operations against international terrorists if the vast majority of our troops, hardware, etc. are fighting guerillas in Iraq?
I believe that what is needed is, to borrow a phrase from Ugarte, a “worldwide anti-terror force”. Instead, we have unilateral and alienating action. Our virtually unilateral involvement in a power struggle/reconstruction in Iraq was neither inevitable nor necessary, and I do not believe the “fight” in Iraq is more than distantly related to the “fight” brought to our shores by the WTC bombings, etc, nor that success in Iraq (which seems more and more like saying “success in Vietnam") will have any significant positive effect on the threat posed by international terrorists/fundamentalist extremists. Nor have we, as some have argued, localized the fight.
While, sadly, it seems that Al Qaeda and possibly others are taking advantage of our vulnerability in Iraq, I have no reason to believe that there are not as many or more al Qaeda and others all over the world planning attacks on us and our interests and our proxies anywhere and everywhere they can.
The hullaballoo over Clarke vs. Rice is all a bit irrelevant to me, since in my view this administration has since 9/11 consistently shown that neither al Qaeda nor international terrorism are its top priorities. Why in the world would it have been any different before 9/11?
*Note: Ms. Rice was cool and professional throughout her testimony. I just couldn’t resist the headline.
Read Less...
