I fear the debate over the surge is beginning to resemble the debate over whether to go to war in the first place. One assumption in particular has been set in stone – just as the WMD assumption was taken for granted in 2002 and early 2003. Here’s the new orthodoxy: If we were to withdraw now, it would mean a huge victory for the Jihadists who would use their new bases in Anbar to directly threaten us. I certainly don’t think this is an idle worry. It may be the best argument for starting over, as the president seems to want. But it’s worth airing again a counter-factual on this. If we withdraw from Iraq cleanly, it seems to me that the narrative of the war on terror also changes – in ways potentially beneficial for the West. Until very recently, the narrative of this war followed Osama’s script: the world of faithful Islam versus the corrupt West. But the unleashing of sectarian warfare in Iraq makes the story something else: not Islam against the West, but Islam against itself. If we can change the narrative of this war to one of a battle within Islam, which in essence it is already, we will have pulled off a major victory in the world of ideas. And ideas matter in long wars.
Or look at this another way: what is the greatest weakness of our enemy? The answer is fanaticism. It was fanaticism that prompted bin Laden to attack on 9/11/2001 before he had access to WMDs. He struck too soon, because he couldn’t help himself. His rage forces him to make mistakes. Same with Zarqawi, who alienated all of Jordan with bombing a wedding, and who even promoted bin Laden to worry about killing too many Muslims in Iraq. Al Qaeda hates the West, but their main beef is with fellow Muslims who will not bend to their extremism or persist in what they see as Shiite blasphemy. So let them hang themselves by this rope. By leaving Iraq, we create a dangerous civil war that nonetheless has huge propaganda potential for changing the entire game of this war. It takes the West much further out of the picture, and focuses the mind where it truly belongs: on current Muslim pathologies, paranoia and self-hatred. We can still prove our pro-reform bona fides, by concentrating on Afghanistan, where we still have a chance to turn things around. And we also give Iran a huge headache in grappling with the chaos on its border.
The other likely result of a Sunni-Shia war is serious damage to the world’s oil supply. But isn’t that just what the West needs? Don’t we desperately need to wean ourselves off oil – and wouldn’t $100 a gallon be the best way to accelerate that? I’m not saying leaving a civil regional war in Iraq is not dangerous. But so is staying. And the upsides of leaving haven’t been fully thought through yet. So let’s think them through, shall we?
The Dish 