Beware a feint.

Posted by: John C at July 19, 2008 11:50 AM

"Gen. David Petraeus also said al-Qaeda may be reconsidering Iraq as its highest priority war front."
-- from the article above

The American civilian leaders, and the generals, too, seem to decide what should be their highest priority based on what the other side decides, or seems to think, is its highest priority. But of course Al Qaeda, which is a terrorist group, conducts its own war by using terrorism, and in some cases, as with such allied groups as the Taliban, conventional qitaal or warfare (as on the recent attack on the American baselet in Afghanistan, an attack in which nine Americans were killed, and that was subsequently abandoned).

Is this the correct way to think? Should American policy continue to be based on merely reacting to, and deciding that whatever Al Qaeda wishes to make its "main theatre of operations" therefore should be ours?

No. Because clearly the most important things to be done remain what they have always been. They are two. The first is always and everywhere to ensure that no Muslim state or group or groupuscule can get hold of that kind of weaponry we identify as "weapons of mass destrucrtion." Criminal negligence by the Western powers allowed A. Q. Khan to work in a nuclear lab, or several, in the West, and to steal information without which Pakistan could never have built its bomb, or bombs. And European negligence was compounded by American military and economic aid, all during this period, to Pakistan, aid that helped to pay for the development of that "Islamic bomb." In the case of Pakistan, one hopes that the Americans are vigilant, and vigilantly ensuring that Pakistan does not obtain the means of delivering such weaponry, and that the government of Pakistan has been put on notice that economic and physical desruction will be the immediate result if any bombs in Pakistan's possession somenhow make their way to others.

That is why dwarfing whatever happens in Iraq or Afghanistan is what happens in Iran -- whether or not, out of confusion, fear, and a wrong ordering of priorities -- the American government does not take action to destroy or at least severely damage and set back for many years, the nuclear project that has been underway, full speed ahead, over the past few years -- with a short interruption in 2003 just after the Americans invaded Iraq -- by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet the American government shows not only little sign of ordering its priorities right, but also, incredibly, shows every sign of trying to prevent Israel from taking appropriate action, to defend itself against a mortal threat.

The second, of course, is Western Europe -- that is much more important than Iraq or Afghanistan. And that needs to be talked about, along with the other, most important instruments of Jihad, the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, and demographic conquest.

Posted by: Hugh at July 19, 2008 12:23 PM

Does not surprise me because al-Qaeda has had its ass kicked in Iraq. The American soldier is far superior to any jihadist fighter and, if not restrained for political or other reasons, the American military will devastate any jihadist group.

Posted by: Wellington at July 19, 2008 12:24 PM

What if Al-Qaeda doesn't pack up and leave? What if they go underground, hunker-down, wait, plan, reorganize, rethink strategy until they find opportunity to reemerge, destabilize, and reignite civil war following major U.S withdrawal and redeployment? A tactical retreat by Al-Quada in anticipation of ultimately prevailing in Iraq? Iraq is still a major front, if not the major front for World Jihad.

Posted by: John C at July 19, 2008 12:25 PM

Hugh,

It does indeed look like the Admin. is going to reach an accommodation with Iran; we certainly wouldn't be opening up an "interests section" in Tehran if we had plans to bomb the country.

It looks like Bush was worn down by the opposition in America to Iraq and that he has no fight left in him for taking on Iran.

Very, very unfortunate.

Posted by: Cornelius at July 19, 2008 12:32 PM

The NYT had an interesting bit on this in a recent item:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/021720.php

Having an unchallenged base of operations over the border in Pakistan helps, too:

The American officials say the influx, which could be in the dozens but could also be higher, shows a further strengthening of the position of the forces of Al Qaeda in the tribal areas, increasingly seen as an important base of support for the Taliban, whose forces in Afghanistan have become more aggressive in their campaign against American-led troops.

According to the American officials, many of the fighters making their way to the tribal areas are Uzbeks, North Africans and Arabs from Persian Gulf states. American intelligence officials say that some jihadist Web sites have been encouraging foreign militants to go to Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is considered a “winning fight,” compared with the insurgency in Iraq, which has suffered sharp setbacks recently.

Posted by: MarisolJW at July 19, 2008 1:24 PM

It would be encouraging if it were true - and what is true that there have been some real Coalition successes in Iraq over the past year, despite what the MSM would have us believe.

But I can't help wondering, given this belief system that has institutionally-sanctioned lying to outsiders (Taqiyya) at its heart; just how good the quality of the HUMINT coming from Iraq really is?

One would hope at the very least that there were some pretty robust verification processes in place.

Posted by: Un:dhimmi at July 19, 2008 2:02 PM

"Gen. David Petraeus also said al-Qaeda may be reconsidering Iraq as its highest priority war front."

Look at it from al-Qaeda's perspective. You can fight in Iraq against the Americans, and then have to the fight the Persians, Kurds, and every other half-baked claimant to the throne of the "true Jihadi", or you can go to Afghanistan, where everytime you get in trouble you can just run across the border to Pakistan. There you can re-arm, re-group, and fight again. Plus it is a Sunni dominated land, unlike Iraq, in the which the Sunni population is folding like a house of cards (at this time).

In some ways this is what Hugh has been saying, just that al-Qaeda took the advice and bolted first. Iraq is going to be a rough place to make a stand for everyone. Too many folks trying to "win" in Iraq. The place has been a battlefield for hundreds of years, and will continue to be one.

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at July 19, 2008 2:12 PM

"Hugh,

It does indeed look like the Admin. is going to reach an accommodation with Iran; we certainly wouldn't be opening up an "interests section" in Tehran if we had plans to bomb the country.

It looks like Bush was worn down by the opposition in America to Iraq and that he has no fight left in him for taking on Iran.

Very, very unfortunate."
-- from a posting by "Cornelius" above

To which I offer, by way of reply and comment, the following:

From a posting last year, similar to dozens of others I have put up on how Tarbaby Iraq gets in the way of dealing with Iran's nuclear project, a far more important matter:

"The truth is until the Iranians are dealt with it would be folly to move out of Iraq."
-- from a posting above

You have it exactly backwards. Tarbaby Iraq makes it far less likely the United States will intelligently deal with Iran. At this point, with the various Iranian agents going back and forth, it is clear that the American troops are hostages -- or rather, that American policy is being held hostage to Iran which could retaliate against those troops, that are in the midst of 27 million Muslims, and in no condition to conduct a war against Iran from Iraqi soil. And this is something Iran knows very well.

Furthermore, even if the American government tries to use economic sanctions to get the Islamic Republic of Iran to finally stop its nuclear project, those sanctions will not work because Iran has greatly increased its trade -- by 30% in the last year -- with Iraq. It is all that American money that has been poured into Iraq that is used, in turn, to buy Iranian goods and helping to keep Iran sufficiently prosperous so that it can afford to ride out -- or thinks it can -- sanctions.

In other words, the American presence in Iraq makes it far less likely that the Americans will be able to stop Iran's rush to manufacture nuclear weapons for two reasons:

1) A policy that must necessarily end in attacks -- not an "invasion" of Iran -- on Iran's nuclear facilities is now inhibited, even held hostage, by the fact of about 150,000 American soldiers, surrounded by Muslims who do not wish them well and many of whom are either indifferent, or positively delighted, when those Americans are attacked and wounded or killed, and if the Sunni Arabs have to date been the most dangerous, the Shi'a Arabs would, if Shi'a Iran is attacked, not think twice about attacking the Americans in their midst. And the American officers and men know this, and so does the Pentagon, and so must even that remarkably ignorant man, George Bush.

2) If plans for attacking Iran are inhibited by the American presence, as it is currently configured (if all those soldiers were in the desert, or in Kurdistan, and not spread out through the streets of Baghdad, that would be better though still not nearly as good as removing them altogether), then that leaves economic sanctions. And as noted above, economic sanctions will not work if the Bush Administration keeps up this cockamamie idea of pouring still more American money into Iraq, for what is politely called "reconstruction" (it should be called "construction" for there wasn't much to begin with).

In other words, while the Iraq policy makes at this point no sense, and hasn't made any sense since the beginning of 2004, when the country had been scoured for weapons, and represents a squandering of men, money, and materiel on exactly the wrong goal, it is even worse than that.

Why? Because remaining in Iraq is not helping deal with Iran, but positively getting directly in the way.

This colossal error, this stupidity, cannot ever be forgiven. And those who refuse to attack it -- for the right reasons-- will not be forgiven either.

As for your notion that if we talk openly about the Sunnis and Shi'a attacking each other then they will promptly stop -- for god's sake, get real.

[Posted by: Hugh at March 17, 2007 7:00 PM]

Posted by: Hugh at July 19, 2008 3:03 PM

Let me nuance something I stated above:

" ...even if not the major front for World Jihad."

Posted by: John C at July 19, 2008 4:41 PM

"There is some intelligence that has picked this up...It's not solid gold intelligence," he added, stressing that the reliability of the information has not been confirmed.

What I find disturbing is that the world's best equipped army, with historically the most comprehensive "intelligence system" ever is not able to compromise the insurgents in Iraq enough to have any confidence in the "intelligence" they gather. I ask myself why they have not, but the answer is pretty clear. They have not because they have made bad personnel choices. The collaborators and informants they have are unreliable because of divided loyalties, too many trojan horses have been treated like trusted confidantes, and too much work of critical value has been farmed out to people who adhere to an ideology at odds with the U.S.' own military doctrine.

But more to the point they have squandered what little expertise they have, when not hamstringing it altogether, in cases like that of Steve Coughlin. If you don't understand the enemy you will neither infiltrate them nor will you understand their messages even if you do. If you can't parse the ideological message they broadcast from the mountaintops to the whole world, then you will never understand the more nuanced strategic communications they whisper in dark alleys.

The Americans will probably win in Iraq/Afghanistan by sheer military might, or by clear moral superiority, or by good old-fashioned American grit, blood and tears. But they may still lose, though they have winning momentum right now. And, if so, it may be the first war in history whose outcome was determined by the stifling power of Political Correctness.

Posted by: Archimedes2 at July 19, 2008 4:51 PM

Our Iraq policy is the worst--except for its alternative, an Iraq submerged in chaos, out of which one enemy or another, Al-Qaeda or Iran, emerges victorious.

Posted by: John C at July 19, 2008 5:14 PM

Hugh,

I'll certainly agree that our presence in Iraq has complicated our ability to hit Iran, particularly as it pertains to the reaction of the Iraqis and how it would affect stability there.

It could also be argued that our current control of Iraqi airspace and the preponderance of US bases in Iraq will make the eventual attack on Iran - should it ever happen - that much easier to execute.

As for the overall question of Iraq, my position is well-known...turning the country over to the most fanatical elements in the Muslim world is certainly not a solution I could support.

Posted by: Cornelius at July 19, 2008 7:01 PM

I think that the jihadists think that Iraq is a lost cause. Afghanistan is their priority because they have safe area to operate from...Pakistan.

Posted by: kyros at July 19, 2008 9:24 PM

'turning the country over to the most fanatical elements in the Muslim world is certainly not a solution I could support.'
-- from a posting above

Is that the "solution" that I favor? Have I ever suggested that the word "solution" is appropriate at all? Have I ever said that "the most fanatical elements in the Muslim world" would take over, that an American withdrawal amounts to "turning the country over to the most fanatical elements in the Muslim world"?

And if I did none of those things, and of course I did not, then is it you who thinks that if the Americans withdraw this is equivalent to turning over Iraq "to the most fanatical elements in the Muslim world"? Tell us which ones. Al Qaeda, an uber-Sunni group? A Shi'a group, a kind of Iraqi Hezbollah? Which? Or would it be to both of those, the most fanatical Sunnis -- who hate the Shi'a -- and the most fanatical Shi'a -- who also hate the Sunnis because the Sunnis do not accord them the respect they think they deserve -- which is it? All? Both? None?

Be specific. Tell me exactly what would happen when the Americans withdraw.

After all, it is now clear that they will withdraw, possibly within two years. Will, in that time, the American presence make more or less likely an attack on Iran? By the United States? By Israel? Will it have no effect?

Tell me. Let me know whether or not you are willing to concede, at all, at this point, that the correct description for Iraq is of a Tarbaby, one that has resulted in a vast squandering of resources, and where the outcome, unless it is that I favor, where there is never-ending hostilities, sometimes reduced to low-level quarreling, sometimes becoming something more, between the Sunnis who will never acquiesce in, and the Shi'a who will never yield enough of, the power that has been transferred by the removal of Saddam Hussein from Sunnis to Shi'a.

The more detailed your predictions about what Iraq will look like, when the Americans finally leave, and what will, in that future Iraq, contribute to weakening the Camp of Islam and what will not, and what might be achieved by leaving right now, or could have been achieved by leaving yesterday, or in 2006, or in late February 2004.

Please be as detailed as possible. I want to understand what it is, exactly, you think Iraq can be and how that will help Infidels, in this country, in Western Europe, anywhere.

Posted by: Hugh at July 19, 2008 11:22 PM

Hugh,

What a difference a year makes.

If we had followed your advice last year at this time and just pulled out surreptitiously, then yes, the most fanatical elements in Iraq - the ones with the guns, AQI and the Mahdi Army, would have taken control of the country. They may or may not have fought it out with each other. If either had defeated the other or if they had reached some sort of understanding, the result would have been the same: A radical Islamic regime with eventual access to its own oil trillions and a program to subvert its neighbors and terrorize the world through unfettered terror plotting and financing...(of course, your hypothesis of perpetual conflict could also have played out).

Jordan would probably have been the first neighbor to go under. Other allies of America in the region like Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar might have felt compelled to expel the US forces stationed in their countries in order to adjust to the new realities in the region...a fickle America seen as abandoning allies in need and a surging Islamist camp represented by Iran, Al Qaeda, or both. Perhaps the subsequent down-sizing of America's presence in the region, the loss of bases, etc., is something that you're for, I'm not sure.

The Sunni-Shia Civil War in Iraq you were/are banking on...or even just the triumph of a radical regime composed of one, the other, or both, and the pressures brought to bear on Iraqi moderates and the Kurds, would have created a refugee crises that would have significantly impacted Western Europe and the USA...through a humanitarian relief effort that would have mirrored the inundation of Vietnamese refugees into the West after the fall of Saigon in '75. YOU might strenuously advocate against admittance of these refugees, but what you advocate, and what America would do in such circumstances, are two entirely different things.

As things stand now, Iraq is on the cusp of normality, governed by a quasi-democratic government that figures to be dependent on America for quite some time. That means many things, some good, some bad. The USA will in all likelihood have access to bases in Iraq from which to project American power in the region should the necessity arise. And Al Qaeda and Iran will be correspondingly denied a significant presence there.

The most untenable part of your program was your post-withdrawal advocacy on behalf of the Iraqi Kurds. Whatever your own geo-political inclinations, US policy makers and the American public would NEVER have stood for re-involving ourselves on behalf of the Kurds after withdrawing from Iraq and watching the country go up in flames. Your refusal to acknowledge this continues to mystify me.

Posted by: Cornelius at July 20, 2008 12:49 AM