Bush has reiterated that US troops will not leave Iraq anytime soon. Good.
But the truth of the matter is Bush hasn’t really driven home why an Iraqi democracy is important. We hear from the anti-war crowd that Iraq had nothing (directly) to do with 9/11. While this is true, Iraq is critically important. I could explain in a paragraph or two, but let’s go the long route, primarily because the Global War on Terror (GWOT) has pretty much become a confusing fog in so many heads. So make sure you have the time to read a lengthy post.
Identifying the Problem
Terrorism has been on the rise for some time. It can be argued that terrorism is guerilla warfare focused on a civilian population rather than a military population. In Vietnam, “insurgents” (Viet Cong agents) routinely bombed civilian locations frequented by US personnel, often resulting in numerous civilian casualties as well as military casualties.
After the Vietnam war, the PLO began using terror tactics against Israelis, most notably the kidnapping and killing of the Israeli Olympic squad in Munich in 1972. Additional terrorism can be seen with the IRA, the ULF, Northern Ireland and Great Britain and the struggle between the Catholic and Protestant factions. Fortunately, that campaign seems to be over.
Vietnam and Northern Ireland, and the early PLO movement, were political movements. Each was a civilian/para-military resistance to the “occupying” forces in the area.
However, terrorism has changed in the modern age. No longer is terrorism a purely political action. In fact, the recent suicide attacks against Spain, England, Germany and the United States have driven home a realization that Islamic fundamentalists are fighting a war against a global occupier– the Western World. The best way, in their minds, to convert the “infidel” is by the sword. There is no political solution. The only solution, in the fundamentalist mindset, is conversion by the infidel to Islam, and subsequently, Sharia (strict Islamic law).
The Western nations have been attacked. Messages have been sent by the fundamentalists that violence will continue unless these governments obey the will of the terrorist groups. Effectively, submit to our will or your people will die.
The terrorists are all being generated by radical clerics who are teaching a path to global Sharia by martyrdom. This presents a fundamental difficulty for a Western, organized government, as the movement comes from a religious front, not a political one. There are no borders. There are no centralized governments to topple. The movement is religious and drafts people from all walks of life, from all nations. While there are nations that have fundamentalist governments (Iran, Taliban Afghanistan), the problem does not necessarily lie within those governments but within the religious dominance of fundamentalists within their borders.
When we were hit by 9/11, it was easy to identify Al-Queda as the culprit, but there was not clear target to retaliate against. The US invaded Afghanistan and, within a short amount of time, the Taliban government was no more. However, Al-Queda, a lose organization under leadership of Osama Bin Laden, was spread out amongst many countries, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The United States could not justify striking all countries harboring Al-Queda as it was such a small organization. However, the overall mindset of Muslim extremist clerics in these countries was generating the very soldiers who would fight the ongoing terrorist campaign.
So, how does a Western civilization combat a multi-national fundamentalist movement? How does the United States work to eliminate terrorism without completely relying upon military action?
Solutions to the Problem
Let’s take a look at four different Islamic countries and examine the pros and cons of military action to overthrow governments tolerant of terrorists and such activities.
Saudi Arabia: Pro: Invasion would be quick. Saudi military is weak. Attack would target the clerics who are most responsible for converting followers to the route of martyrdom.
Con: Saudi Arabia is an ally, invasion would destabilize oil shipments to the world, invasion would be seen as irresponsible because Saudi Arabia has already pledged support
for the US and its war.
Pakistan: Pro: Destruction of Islamic militia in the area would ease stress with India, remove a ready-made Islamist-Nuke connection, remove hiding spots for Taliban refugees who fled to Pakistan after US invasion
Con: Pakistan is a nuclear power– would retaliate with atomic firepower, mountainous terrain guarantees survival of some hold-out Imams that would difficult to completely remove, loss of Pakistan as a minor ally in the war on terrorism
Iraq (2001): Pro: Iraq already defeated in the Gulf War; relatively simple to neutralize again, Iraq has continuously violated UN-brokered cease fire by firing on aircraft in No-Fly zone, Iraq generally recognized to be hostile by the world and UN and invasion would be easy to justify, Iraqis are a more secular culture than its neighbors
Con: Iraq’s connection to terrorism is as a minor player, at best. Hussein is more secular and his brutal oppression has staunched fundamentalist growth in his country
Iran: Pro: Iran is developing nuclear weapons; better to invade now than let them develop ‘the big one’, Iran has a religious authority that has fueled Islamic extremism throughout the world for more than 25 years, known terrorists have sought refuge within Iran
Con: Iran’s terrain makes it difficult to wage an effective ground campaign, shutting down Iranian oil could cause a global fuel crisis, Iran has close ties with China and Russia, and one or both may come to Iran’s aid if attacked.
With the exception of Iraq, all of these big-time Islamic countries pose significant political fallout if unilaterally attacked by the US and/or some Western allies (the UK, for example). In addition, attacking a “friendly” nation like Saudi Arabia would lead to cries of imperialism and would alienate any other Islamic ally we have in the region.
Militarily, the only country we could affect militarily and stay on solid diplomatic footing was Iraq. The other countries will have to rely on a more subdued approach to attacking terrorism. Rather than toppling the governments, there has to be another method to defeat the fundamentalists. And that’s where the current GWOT strategy comes to the forefront.
Islamic fundamentalism has a rife picking ground in countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Imams have established Muslim academies which take in students and train them in classic education, with a splash of jihadism thrown in. The clerics are ensuring that the best and brightest Muslims are not only good scientists, but trained radicals capable of “defending Islam” when called.
One observation that can be made of the terror organizations is their excellent training. They are well-organized. Their people blend into situations without much of a second look. The 9/11 terrorists received flight training in America. People never knew the evil that lay at the heart of these terrorists because it was all part of their education. The terrorists never thought of themselves as evil simply because they thought they were doing God’s work. So they could be happy, jovial people who were about to commit murder on a grand scale and feel good about what they were doing, fully brainwashed into the idea that mass murder for Allah is a good idea.
So how do you combat this “education” without invading a country and destroying the school? You invade their culture. The Western societies feel they are poorly represented in the Islamic world, and if you’ve ever watched Al Jazeera, you know they’re right. The Islamic countries themselves are not democracies and the people are held to rigid standards. Failure to obey Sharia results in severe consequences. For some strategists (the Neo-Conservatives), the idea of introducing democracy into these countries would free these people from their oppressors and show them just how good self-determination is.
However, if you have a stretch of land from Pakistan to Morocco that’s ruled by dictators, oligarchs, and theocrats, there’s no room for self-determination. How can Western society inject democracy into the region?
Iraq — the test case
Iraq was invaded for two reasons: to get Saddam out of power, and to install a modern Islamic democracy– a neighboring model that would inspire democratic revolution in neighboring countries. The easiest method to justify the war was the search for WMDs. But that was a secondary objective that made selling the war very easy. The true objective was dropping a Western nation in the midst of the Islamic world. A Western nation of Muslims.
It was thought that as America rolled into Baghdad they would be greeted with roses and falafel. Instead, we have the current insurgency and the tension between the Sunni, Shi’ite and Kurd ethnic regions. People have called the violence in Iraq “civil war”. It very well may be civil war, and people have marked it a failure of the Bush Administration not to squash such a rebellion. Squashing the rebellion like Saddam would.
What is missed is that the civil war is a good thing. I’m not talking about the deaths, which are tragic. But in any fledgling democracy there must be strife. People have to fight to have a decent government. America is there to help, and many forward-thinking Iraqis believe in a Democratic Iraq. However, religious factions, especially radical Shi’ites (following the same courses of action as their brethren in Iran), are battling to attempt to turn Iraq into a country ruled by Sharia.
And this is where the Iraqi Civil War becomes not just a war between ethnic and religious factions, but something altogether more important. It’s the Battle of Midway. It’s the Battle of the Bulge. The war is being fought to run Iraq as a modern Democracy or hand it over to be another Islamic fundamentalist state. If Iraq deteriorates into the latter, it’s dangerous to the whole of the Western world. It means the Westerners have lost– they cannot defeat the Islamic fundamentalist movement. If Iraq rises above the religious factionism, then it will become proof that there can be a Muslim democracy that works with Islam. It will be the turning point in the GWOT and encourage all the “moderate” Muslims to seek Democratic reforms.
Once Democracy has a hold in Muslim world, education will become freer. The societies will be free. The people will be free. While some may follow Sharia, the entire country has a more enlightened stance, and the benefits of Western culture will quickly overwhelm the fanatics who seek to keep their world in the 8th century.
The Importance of Unity in the GWOT
This war relies heavily on propaganda on both sides of the coin. The fundamentalists know that any invasion by Western culture into theirs will weaken their base and erode the false constructs the imams have placed in their followers heads. They need to use any means necessary to combat the invasiveness of Western civilization. Al Jazeera is one such source. However, word of mouth and, more importantly, realization of the greater potential of a democratic society will eventually spread from Iraq to its neighbors.
The fundamentalists know that the best way to defeat America is make the American population lose heart in the GWOT, so they fight it the best way they know how– through the media. While it may be unfair to say that all reporters are supporting radicals fighting America, it is certainly true that these terrorists know how to make use of the press. How many times have we heard of “weddings” that were bombed, only to find out later that it was not a wedding at all? The retraction is not important. What is important is that the first headline was released. We know soldiers are dying. We think that the civil war in Iraq is a horrible thing. We fear that there may be no way to stop the terrorists. And why do we feel so despondent?
Because the mainstream press tells us to.
There is a total lack of foresight as to the importance of our Middle East struggle. By undermining the domestic support for the war, the odds of winning the war are greatly decreased, because such a despondency is a victory for the Muslim propaganda machine. If we do not stand united and focused in our desire to stamp out terrorism, we will never truly defeat it.
We all say no to terrorism. Nobody wants to see any more terrorist actions on anyone’s soil, not just America. But in government there is a political reality. The easiest course of action to distinguish yourself from an opponent is to take an opposite side. With Howard Dean and the DNC moving further to the left, the new political opposition isn’t so much Republican vs. Democrat so much as it is War vs. Anti-War. The strength of this movement within the Democratic party is evident with the defeat of Joe Lieberman by Ted Lamont. These anti-war democrats are so fixated on one particular point that they have lost sight of the big picture, and that makes them the political allies of Islamic fundamentalists, although not by conscious choice.
If the modern Democratic party had half a brain, they would simply run as the party to continue the GWOT, run it “better than Bush”, and continue to pursue democracy in the fundamentalist regions. Had we been united over Iraq for the past 4 years, I’m sure the insurgency would have been much different, and I’m sure Iran and Syria would be acting different as well.
With elections coming up, it is necessary to keep these thoughts forefront in your mind. The Bush Administration has run a war in Iraq that hasn’t been pretty. Would more troops have made a difference? Possibly. But we aren’t there. Instead of Monday-morning quarterbacking, we should realize the importance of this war, and support the actions behind it rather than nitpicking decisions. But know one thing for certain– the war needs our support, now more than ever. A failure in Iraq will embolden the Islamic fundamentalists, and that is a place we do not want to be.
Recent Comments