In his 4th of July speech, President Bush said that we have to keep fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to prevent terrorism at home.
While I agree that we need to keep fighting in Afghanistan since that’s where bin Laden is hiding, Iraq is a much more complicated story. I feel that Mr. Bush is doing a disservice to the American people when he simplifies the mission in Iraq to “preventing terrorist attacks at home”.
Since we can’t depend on the President to explain our current Iraq strategy, we have to look to history and other sources to get a better sense of what we are trying to accomplish in Iraq. The President’s justification for more troops was based on a two part plan. In the first part, our military was going to attempt to reduce the level of violence (sectarian and otherwise) in Iraq so that the moderate voices in the country could begin acting without fear of reprisal. The second part, which is just as important as the first, depends on Iraq. While our military works to create a less dangerous environment, the leaders in Iraq are supposed to be working out the power and money sharing compromises which will give the current warring factions some reasons to stop killing each other. While we have seen some progress on the first part, we have seen very little progress on the second. That’s why the original benchmark date of September to evaluate progress is going to pass with very little to show.
Mr. Bush has also said that he wants to keep politics out of the war, but our military leaders have a very different view. According to Thomas Ricks, the New York Times correspondent on Iraq and the author of Fiasco, the military are hoping that there WILL be an active debate in this country to select an exit strategy. The army is evaluating all options, but believes it is the responsibility of our political leaders to choose which strategy to follow. For example, what do we do if we are able to create some short-term stability but the Iraqi government doesn’t make progress toward building a viable coalition? Hopefully that debate can begin before we have a new president.
I also hope that the American people will reject the scare tactic of predicting that fighting in Iraq is somehow preventing terrorists attacks at home. If there is any connection, it is exactly the opposite. According to our own spy agencies, our fighting in Iraq creates MORE terrorists than if we weren’t there. Bin Laden, for example, was trained in Afghanistan during the Russian invasion. If there is any good news, however, those folks aren’t coming here. They are going to go back to their own countries, or other Middle East countries where they feel they have family or religious ties, and use their new skills to try to bring about political change there.
The terrorist attacks that ARE occurring outside the Middle East are being carried out by folks living in those countries, in most cases native born citizens.
If we have another attack in the US, it’s going to be carried out by our citizens, not some wild-eyed jihadist fresh from the battlefields in Iraq.
So, though the war in Iraq may be used as justification for home-grown terrorist attacks, the actual fighting in Iraq does precious little to make us safer. We stop terrorist attacks here by reducing the conditions in this country that produce disenfranchised hateful people. We reduce those conditions at home by offering everyone the economic opportunities to build a better life for their families and the feeling that they have a say in the policies of their government. We reduce those conditions abroad by returning to the moral high ground in our foreign policy. Beyond that, we have to be vigilant, honest, and realistic.
It took almost twenty years to capture Ted “Unabomber” Kaczynski. We still haven’t captured those responsible for the anthrax poisonings in 2001. There is still a John Doe #2 suspect at large from the Oklahoma Federal Building bombing twelve years ago.
The honest truth is that there is no practical way to defend ourselves from every individual who is crazy enough to kill others to prove a point. Those who suggest that the war in Iraq (or any war anywhere) can do that are mendacious or delusional.
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