The future of Al Qaeda and its likely leader in the Christian Science Monitor is a good read. But there are two aspects of it that are of particular interest.
President Bush was vilified by liberals — and many conservatives — for his entry into Iraq, and remaining until the job was done. The most often raised criticism is that there were no weapons of mass destruction there.
While I still wonder what role Syria played in Iraq’s final days under the butcher of Baghdad, just about every national intelligence service, along with the same nations’ leaders, believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Nevertheless, despite the unending repetition of the baseless claim that Bush lied, WMD was not the sole reason we went to Iraq. In fact, there were many reasons.
One was to help establish another democracy in the Middle East, in addition to our ally Israel. (And what influence has this advance of democracy played in the changes we have seen in Egypt and other countries now? More than Bush’s critics would ever dare to concede.)
Another was that we wanted to fight the terrorists over there, not here. And here is where the CSM article is particularly insightful, if not necessarily designed to address this matter:
In bin Laden’s eyes, 9/11 was the sort of moment that would inspire millions of Muslims and cause young men to flock to his cause.
And indeed, thousands of fighters converged on Iraq. Al Qaeda was developing a new core of radicalized fighters one country away from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam. Bin Laden was convinced that the US would be defeated there and that Muslims worldwide would reject secular politics.
As it turned out, it became the beginning of the source of destruction of bin Laden and his Al Qaeda.
The other especially interesting aspect of the article was its highlighting of Muslims killing Muslims.
Here:
But Al Qaeda’s atrocities in Iraq, where it killed thousands of civilians and stoked the Shiite-Sunni civil war in 2006-07, undercut the image of bin Laden’s group. Rather than millions in Egypt or Saudi Arabia being inspired, they were sickened by Muslims killing Muslims.
And here:
Indeed, Zawahiri has set his sights not only on the West. He has urged takfir, under which Muslims with whom one doesn’t agree are declared to be apostates, and thus fair targets for the jihad.
These are compelling because they recall something I read years ago about signs during World War II that Nazi Germany was heading toward its demise. The Nazis began to turn the guns on themselves as Hitler saw, or thought he saw, more and more traitors. When they begin to kill themselves, the writer noted, it is a sign of decline and, eventually, defeat.
