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Left Continues to Mischaracterize the Iraq War and Ignore Our Enemies

Liberals who favor withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq believe the situation there is relatively straightforward: We are enmeshed in a civil war, a deeply-rooted sectarian conflict the outcome of which matters little to the U.S. Disengaging is the only way we can engage the real enemy -- al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations bent on our destruction -- in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

"The civil war we have on our hands in Iraq," Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) opined in a recent op-ed, "is not our fight and it is not the fight Congress authorized. Iraq is at war with itself and American troops are caught in the middle." To rising House Democratic leader Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), Congress faces a stark, either-or proposition: "There are those who want to police a civil war between Sunnis and Shia, and those of us who believe in fighting the war on terror. That is the choice."

Liberals, moreover, see the present conflict as more of the same sectarian strife that has plagued the region for millennia. "The sectarian violence has only been going on for 1,327 years, ever since the battle of Karbala in 680 A.D.," Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) observed. "The situation in Iraq," Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) agreed, "is a civil war compounded by civil wars that have been going on ever since Abraham, Hagar, Sarah, Isaac, Ishmael, Esau, Mohammed and his son-in-law . . . "

Conservatives, by contrast, see an entirely different, and more nuanced, challenge. They see many shades of gray -- centuries-old regional hatreds, yes, but hatreds complicated by foreign jihadists trained and underwritten by al Qaeda and Iran. According to Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, spokesman for the Multinational Force in Iraq, foreign fighters now account for at least 80% of Iraq's suicide bombings. John Burns, The New York Times' correspondent in Baghdad, explains how the nature of the Iraqi war has evolved: "The generals here who a year ago were saying quite bluntly that the biggest security threat were the [Iraqi] Shiite death squads . . . are saying now . . . that the principal threat is al Qaeda. . . . The principal target of the surge are those al Qaeda-linked groups."

White House Homeland Security Adviser Fran Townsend believes the global war on terrorism and the war in Iraq "are clearly a single conflict by a single determined enemy [al Qaeda] who is looking for a safe haven." Al Qaeda, she says, would "like to find [that safe haven] -- and bin Laden's been quite clear on this -- in Iraq." Thus, as Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) emphasizes: "It is a false choice to suggest we should either be fighting in Iraq or going after Osama Bin Laden. . . . We cannot leave Iraq to al-Qaeda in order to go after Osama Bin Laden." The war's opponents, according to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), are really asking us to "accept an American defeat in Iraq" and "a victory for al Qaeda and Iranian-backed terrorists."

Why is Iraq so important to al Qaeda? Heritage Foundation Mideast expert Jim Phillips says it's because of Iraq's strategic location. Specifically:

    * Iraq is close to the Persian Gulf oil fields, a high-value target for attack, and is a more useful staging area for attacks on neighboring countries and Israel.
    * Baghdad was once the seat of the caliphate that al-Qaeda seeks to recreate,
    * As an Arab-dominated movement, al Qaeda would find it much easier to recruit jihadists and operate from bases in Sunni Arab regions in Iraq than in Afghanistan or Pakistan, where Arab travelers stand out.

If you don't believe Phillips, then examine the actual road map for Iraq set forth by al Qaeda's own leaders. As Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, explained in a 2005 letter to the late head of al-Qaeda-in-Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, "Jihad in Iraq requires several incremental goals."

First: "Expel the Americans from Iraq."

Second: "Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate -- over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq."

Third: "Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq."

Fourth: "The clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity."

Faced with this evidence, who can seriously insist this is "not our fight"?

Fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq

According to unconfirmed news reports, the commander of al-Qaeda operations in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was killed earlier this week in a clash with Sunni Arab tribesmen north of Baghdad. While these reports may prove to be false--the Iraqi Interior Ministry had mistakenly claimed that Masri was killed in February--the news this time comes not from the Iraqi government but from Sunni Arab tribes that had formerly cooperated with the terrorist group. The estrangement of al-Qaeda in Iraq from its erstwhile allies is a hopeful sign for U.S. Iraq policy. Yet many opponents of the Bush Administration's policy in Iraq are unlikely to recognize it as such, in part because they mistakenly see the war in Iraq as a distraction from the war on terrorism.

Masri, an Egyptian who honed his terrorist skills in Afghanistan, has led al-Qaeda in Iraq since the death last June of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian. In April, Masri was named as the "Minister of War" of the "Islamic State of Iraq," an umbrella organization for radical Sunni militant groups that seek to transform Iraq into a revolutionary Islamic state. Their goals and tactics, which include extensive and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, have been rejected by other Sunni Arabs, including many Sunni insurgent groups, who increasingly have turned against them.

This growing backlash against al-Qaeda in Iraq has led to the formation of the Anbar Salvation Council, a coalition of Sunni tribes opposed to al-Qaeda in Anbar province, a bastion of the Sunni-dominated insurgency. Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha, head of the council, claims that his men killed Masri in a fierce battle earlier this week. He has appealed to the Iraqi government to dispatch security forces to support his tribal militia against al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has repeatedly launched terrorist attacks against his supporters, including car bombs, suicide bombers, and chlorine gas bombs. Meanwhile, Abu Reesha has ordered thousands of his supporters to join the local police forces, greatly improving the security situation in the province.

The council's efforts are a positive development that demonstrates progress has been made by the United States and the Iraqi government in driving a wedge between some Sunni insurgent groups and the most radical groups, such as al-Qaeda in Iraq. The U.S. Army reportedly has provided the Anbar Salvation Council with ammunition, while the Iraqi government has provided vehicles.

Despite this progress, if the Democrat-controlled Congress has its way, U.S. troops would rush to withdraw, leaving the Iraqi government and the Anbar Salvation Council at the mercy of al-Qaeda in Iraq and other bloodthirsty groups. Many opponents of the Bush Administration's Iraq policy continue to indulge in wishful thinking about the consequences of a rushed exit from Iraq, despite the fact that the most recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq, released in February, concludes that such a policy would lead to a catastrophe. Some deny that Iraq means anything in the broader war against terrorism, despite a NIE released last year that concluded that a defeat for the U.S. in Iraq would be perceived as a tremendous victory for Islamic radicals and "would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere." Others would prefer to fight al-Qaeda in Afghanistan rather than Iraq, despite the fact that al-Qaeda's operational commander in Afghanistan stated in a video released on April 28 that Iraq is "the focal point of the conflict."

Al-Qaeda's strategy is to carve out a state-within-a-state in Iraq to use as a springboard for exporting terrorism and subversion. Iraq looms much larger in al-Qaeda's plans than Afghanistan because of its strategic location in the heart of the Arab world, in close proximity to the Persian Gulf oil fields, a high-value target for attack. Iraq is a more useful staging area for attacks on neighboring countries and Israel, which is likely to become more of a target for future al-Qaeda terrorism. Moreover, Baghdad was once the seat of the caliphate that al-Qaeda seeks to recreate, which is an important ideological consideration. Finally, as an Arab-dominated movement, al-Qaeda would have a much easier time operating from bases in Sunni Arab regions in Iraq than in Afghanistan or Pakistan, where Arab travelers stand out from the local population.

Congress must seriously confront the consequences of a rapid withdrawal from Iraq and support continued efforts to help the Iraqi government contain and defeat the insurgency. Abandoning Iraqis to an al-Qaeda-provoked civil war would have devastating consequences for U.S. national interests, the Middle East, and the Iraqi people.

It has already been proven that Al Qaeda had eyes on Iraq prior to the start of the one in Afghanistan. Iraq's strategic location was and is of utmost importance to their agenda, that of being the major power of and unification of the entire region. It is the same reason that Bin Laden went for Saudi some years earlier. It was completely foreseeable that Al Qaeda would move into Iraq once their stronghold in Afghanistan was weakened. Unfortunately the left and many others that are opposed to Iraq either cannot see this or just plain don't want to.