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August 22, 2003

Fight Islamic Extremism in Iraq Now—or Here Later.

Avigdor Haselkorn, author of “The Continuing Storm: Iraq, Poisonous Weapons and Deterrence”, has written an insightful article about the current situation in Iraq. The article is called “Jihadis View Iraq as the Place to Slay the Great Satan—The United States must not bow in the face of escalating attacks.”

By positioning itself militarily in this area, the U.S. has turned the tables on its enemies. It seized the strategic initiative and, instead of radicals holding it and its allies hostage, it is regimes such as those in Iran and Syria that have been boxed up.

The mullahs in Tehran, for instance, who have staked their survival and Iran’s regional designs on Iran building nuclear weaponry, are now afraid to do so. They are aware that pursuing this course would probably end their political longevity. After all, the U.S. military is now poised on Iran’s western and eastern borders. Moreover, as long as U.S. forces are patrolling the Syrian border, Iran can’t use Hezbollah to distract Israel from going after Tehran’s nuclear efforts.

The Syrians have been under heavy U.S. pressure to cease their support for Hezbollah and an array of Palestinian terrorist groups. But Damascus is even more nervous that the U.S. example in Iraq the forceful disarming of an extremist regime believed armed with weapons of mass destruction signals that its vast stores of chemical weapons could become the next casus belli for the Bush administration.

...Were the U.S. to be successful in establishing a functioning democracy in Iraq and rehabilitate the country’s economy, the political danger of the new regime serving as an example to the rest of the neighborhood would have led to intensive efforts to subvert the experiment. The extensive campaign of sabotage underway in Iraq, exemplified just recently by new bombings of the oil pipeline to Turkey and the water main in Baghdad, should be seen as confirmation of this trend. It is imperative that the U.S. prevail in this conflict. Were the American forces to pack up and leave Iraq under pressure, as some have already called for, the war on terror would crumble.

If the U.S. forces were to retreat now, the perception that the U.S. is nothing but a paper tiger unable to sustain casualties would prove itself. Such a realization would open the gates to a relentless onslaught against the U.S. itself, its interests worldwide and its regional allies.

Iraq is serving as a lightning rod, attracting Islamic extremists, and those who just want to preserve the oppressive political order in nations such as Syria and iran. With the US on the ground in their own back yards, they are fighting us there, in Iraq, rather than here, on our soil.

That’s where we want them. We need to stay the course in Iraq.