It is fascinating to watch critics of President Bush’s conduct of the war on terrorism in Iraq seizing upon a newly revealed 30-page National Intelligence Estimate as evidence that deposing Saddam Hussein was wrong. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte characterizes the section of the report at the heart of the new flap as a mere “fraction of judgements” in the NIE, but that hasn’t stopped critics from leaping to a predictable conclusions — it’s all Bush’s fault.
The NIE — actually produced in April but only now being reported — says the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and our subsequent efforts to rebuild that nation as a democratic outpost in the Middle East have been a rallying point for extremist Muslims around the world. Many of them are inspired to take up arms against the U.S., either in Iraq or elsewhere, and their ranks are continually augmented by terrorist Web sites and other communications that portray the war as a continual series of insurgent victories. The result is more terrorists in Iraq and around the world and a less safe America.
That analysis, as described by the mainstream media, leads normally sensible people like Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., to contend that “even capturing the remaining top al-Qaida leadership isn’t going to prevent copycat cells, and it isn’t going to change a failed policy in Iraq.” Similarly, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., calls the new NIE “the final nail in the coffin for President Bush’s phony argument about the Iraq war.”
There is nothing new here from critics. Again, they tell us it’s all Bush’s fault — and by extension America’s as well — that the ranks of the jihadist radicals have grown since Sept. 11, that the insurgency in Iraq continues to blow-up civilians daily, that terrorists attacks are still killing innocent men, women and children elsewhere around the world and that rabid crowds regularly pour into the streets of despotized places like Tehran, Damascus and Gaza demanding death to the U.S. whenever somebody like the pope dares to suggest forced conversion or decapitation wins few converts to a religion of peace. Put simply, all would be peace, love and flowers here at home except for “Bush’s War.”
If the U.S. fighting back after Sept. 11 causes terrorists to attack America and the West, then logically, Bush’s critics must believe the U.S. is wrong to do anything in the war on terror except perhaps to apologize. By this logic, the U.S. was wrong to avenge Pearl Harbor by destroying Japan’s military forces wherever they were found throughout the Pacific. Similarly, we should not have sacrificed thousands of American lives to liberate Europe from the Nazis after Hitler declared war on us.
In fact, if the U.S. response had been limited to destroying the Taliban, the jihadist propaganda today would simply substitute “Afghanistan” for “Iraq” in the same attacks on America. When Osama bin Laden and his jihadist minions declared war on the U.S. in 1998, they meant to kill us and they will not rest until they achieve that aim or die trying. That is their choice. Our choice is whether to submit to the extremists or defeat them and live.
