Is Bush Al-Queda's Useful Idiot

["Robert L Bass" <RobertLBass@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

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If Western intelligence agencies are right - that the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq and the two-year-plus military occupation have been
recruiting boons for Islamic terrorism - why is it logical to commit
American troops to an indefinite deployment there? Won't that just
create more terrorists?

Put differently, has George W. Bush's Iraq policy done more to help
than hurt al-Qaeda, from Bush's hasty decision to redirect U.S.
military assets from Afghanistan to Iraq while Osama bin-Laden was
still at large, to the loose talks about an American "crusade," to
supplanting Iraq's secular government with one favoring Islamic
fundamentalism?

In the 1980s, when I was covering the wars in Central America,
neoconservative theorists liked to call U.S. peace activists "useful
idiots" because their opposition to the hard-line Reagan
administration was seen as unwittingly aiding and abetting communists
and other leftist enemies. In that vein, is Bush now al-Qaeda's
"useful idiot"?

These questions are relevant today because Bush is again making clear
his determination to "stay the course" in Iraq. He is rejecting the
advice of some military strategists and a few political leaders that
a wiser course might be for the United States to begin a phased
withdrawal from the war-ravaged country.

In a speech in Idaho on Aug. 24, Bush rejected that idea, saying it
would play into the hands of Islamic terrorists who "want us to
retreat."

"An immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq, or the broader
Middle East, as some have called for, would only embolden the
terrorists and create a staging ground to launch more attacks against
America and free nations," Bush said. "So long as I'm the president,
we will stay, we will fight, and we will win the war on terror."

Dubious Claims

Bush also repeated some of his dubious assertions about the cause of
Islamic terrorism. For instance, Bush said, "our enemies murder
because they despise our freedom and our way of life," though
intelligence experts have long concluded that the dominant goal of
al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists is to drive Western forces and
influence out of the Middle East.

It's not hatred of "our way of life" that motivates most Islamic
extremists, but rather a perception that the West is threatening
"their way of life." While there have been violent strikes against
the West, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and
Washington, Islamic fundamentalists generally see their struggle as
defensive.

So, when Bush prescribes an offensive strategy - "to go after the
terrorists where they live . until the terrorists have nowhere to run
and nowhere to hide" - his projection of U.S. power into the Islamic
world not only portends a virtually endless war but has the
detrimental effect of reinforcing the arguments that Islamic
extremists use to recruit impressionable young people to terrorism.

For that reason, some observers see the current dynamic as a vicious
cycle - an escalating pattern of tit-for-tat violence with both sides
nursing grievances bathed in blood. More cynical analysts go further,
seeing a symbiotic relationship in which Bush and bin-Laden - whether
wittingly or not - serve each other's political needs.

At home, Bush and his right-wing allies have used the American fear
of Islamic terrorism to consolidate political control. Among Muslims,
bin-Laden and al-Qaeda have exploited their battle against the world's
superpower to transform themselves from a marginal - albeit
dangerous - organization into an international force attracting
thousands of recruits in the defense of Islam.

For their part, al-Qaeda's leaders get international standing as
warriors for the faith - rather than their deserved notoriety as
thugs killing innocents - while the Bush administration gets to
reorganize the United States along the authoritarian lines of a
nation at war. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Bush's Grimmer Vision."]

'Godfather' Scene

Soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush recognized that a
targeted assault on al-Qaeda in Afghanistan would be too remote and
too limited for his elevation to the pedestal of heroic "war
president." Bush quickly turned his gaze toward Iraq, according to
accounts by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, counter-terrorism
chief Richard Clarke and author Bob Woodward.

So, even though Iraq's Saddam Hussein wasn't tied to Sept. 11, Bush
and his neoconservative advisers perceived the political advantage of
expanding the fight against al-Qaeda into a broader war against U.S.
adversaries in the Middle East.

Like a climatic scene from a "Godfather" movie, Bush and his neocon
capos seized on the Sept. 11 attacks as an excuse to settle the Bush
"family accounts," which included eliminating Hussein, whom Bush once
called "the guy who tried to kill my dad."

But Bush's revenge-driven invasion didn't achieve the finality that
some expected. Though Saddam Hussein was captured and his two sons
were slain, the invasion of Iraq wasn't the "cakewalk" among grateful
Iraqis that some on Bush's foreign-policy team had predicted.

Rather than accept U.S. occupation, thousands of Iraqis - especially
from the nation's Sunni minority - picked up guns and began making
bombs to kill Americans. Thousands of foreign jihadists also slipped
into Iraq to battle the Western invaders, often by becoming suicide
bombers.

Soon, a full-fledged insurgency was underway with hundreds of
American soldiers dying along with thousands of Iraqis, both
civilians and combatants. Amid the chaos, American diplomats were
caught up in the kind of complex "nation-building" that candidate
Bush had vowed to avoid when he was seeking the presidency in 2000.

Yet, even as events in Iraq spun out of control, Bush and his
political advisers found the "war on terror" a useful device for
restructuring the U.S. government, redirecting tax money to friendly
corporations, and reframing the American concept of civil liberties
to give Bush the unbridled power to imprison anyone he deems an
"enemy combatant."

Bush also could count on legions of right-wing supporters to denounce
domestic critics as "traitors," obsessed with "blaming America" and
guilty of violating the edict to "support the troops." In this
poisonous climate, most Democratic politicians and mainstream pundits
shied away from any sustained criticism of Bush's war policies.

Hart's Advice

Former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., observed this phenomenon in an Aug.
24 op-ed column for the Washington Post, entitled "Who Will Say 'No
More'?"

Hart urged Democratic leaders to admit they were deceived by Bush
into supporting the Iraq War and ask forgiveness from the military
families that have suffered. Then, the Democrats should give speeches
explaining why the conflict is hurting American security, how the
nation must move toward energy independence, and "what we and our
allies can do to dry up the jihadists' swamp," Hart wrote.

"The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war," Hart
continued. "The real defeatists are those in power and their silent
supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating 'Stay
the course' even when the course, whatever it now is, is light years
away from the one originally undertaken.

"The truth is we're way off course. We've stumbled into a hornet's
nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less
secure today than before this war began. Who now has the courage to
say this?" [Washington Post, Aug. 24, 2005]

As Hart noted, many Democratic leaders either have chosen to finesse
the Iraq War by quietly supporting Bush's policies or they have tried
to outflank him from the Right by demanding that he send more troops
and fight to win.

Only a few senior Democrats, such as Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin,
have ventured so far as to suggest a phased withdrawal by the end of
next year.

A commonly heard Democratic mantra on Iraq is that "failure is not an
option." But no one in Washington has made a convincing case that
failure is not at least a strong possibility. Simply declaring that
success must occur doesn't mean it will. [For more on this wishful
thinking, see Consortiumnews.com's "Iraq War's Two Constants."]

Enduring Paradox

The enduring paradox of the Iraq War is that Bush and other U.S.
leaders insist that the presence of U.S. troops is necessary to bring
political stability to Iraq, yet it is the presence of those U.S.
troops that has become the driving force for both foreign jihadists
and Iraqi insurgents to continue inflicting havoc across Iraq.

There might have been a way out of the paradox if Sen. John Kerry had
won the White House in November 2004 and had enlisted some
non-Western surrogate forces to fill the void as U.S. and British
troops left. But Bush's second term precluded that possibility.

Since then, Bush has been able to sustain an anti-withdrawal
consensus in Washington by arguing that U.S. troops are needed to
keep Iraq from turning into a "failed state" - like Afghanistan - and
thus a potential base for Islamic terrorists to strike against the
United States and its allies.

"We will not allow the terrorists to establish new places of refuge
in failed states from which they can recruit and train and plan new
attacks on our citizens," Bush said in his Idaho speech.

But that prediction about Iraq may be just another of Bush's
worst-case scenarios, not a likely danger. Another scenario could be
that a U.S. withdrawal might improve Iraq's chances for stability by
removing the chief rallying point for Islamic extremists.

Without the American presence to incite young Muslims to strap on
suicide belts, the foreign terrorist operations in Iraq might
shrivel. Even the Iraqi Sunnis, whose anti-American interests now
overlap with those of the foreign jihadists, might have little
stomach for the civilian-butchering jihadists if the Americans were
gone. The Sunnis might well revert to Hussein's approach of
ruthlessly repressing Islamic extremists.

In other words, as odd as it might seem, an American withdrawal could
actually contribute to the precise result that is now the chief U.S.
policy goal, preventing Iraq from becoming a haven for terrorists.

That does not mean, of course, the future of Iraq will be peaceful.
The blood shed over the past two-plus years will almost certainly
fuel new rounds of revenge. A civil war among the Sunnis, the Shiites
and the Kurds also remains a distinct possibility.

But the United States may have to recognize that - having opened the
door to this chaos - it is the wrong party to set matters right.
Sometimes, the best course of action is to step back and provide
encouragement, but leave well enough alone.

[See Consortiumnews.com's "Iraq & the Logic of Withdrawal."]

Ironically, the key to resolving the Iraqi paradox might be what many
families of American soldiers desperately long for already, the
return of their loved ones safe and sound.

The tragedy of Iraq, however, may be that George W. Bush will insist
on "staying the course," Democratic leaders won't dare contradict
him - and the killing will go on.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for
the Associated Press and Newsweek. His new book, Secrecy & Privilege:
Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at
secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his
1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project
Truth.'

--

Regards,
Robert L Bass

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