Much attention has been focused in recent days, and for understandable reasons, on the emergence of al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists as a serious threat in Libya. Indeed Lt. Col. Andrew Wood of the Utah National Guard, who led a security assistance team in Libya, testified yesterday that its “presence grows every day. They are certainly more established than we are.”
Libya is hardly alone, however. There is also growing evidence of al-Qaeda’s reemergence in Iraq. The Associated Press reports that “the insurgent group has more than doubled in numbers from a year ago — from about 1,000 to 2,500 fighters. And it is carrying out an average of 140 attacks each week across Iraq, up from 75 attacks each week earlier this year, according to Pentagon data.” There are said to be as many as ten al-Qaeda in Iraq training sites in the western deserts of Iraq.
Meanwhile, other al-Qaeda-associated organizations are gaining strength in Mali and Yemen, among other places. According to one report, Tuareg jihadists in Ansar al Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, both affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, now control a region the size of France in Mali. And they are also making fresh inroads in Syria where the al-Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front for the People of the Levant has claimed responsibility for an attack on Tuesday by suicide bombers on an intelligence compound near Damascus.
This is an obvious election issue since President Obama keeps saying that “al-Qaeda is on its heels.” It is true that “al-Qaeda central”–the organization headquartered in Pakistan and headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri–does appear to be on its heels; certainly it is less of a threat than it was in the days when Osama bin Laden was alive. But al-Qaeda has managed to spread its tentacles to other corners of the greater Middle East, and its franchises and affiliates remain far from being on their heels. These groups are increasingly well-funded through criminal rackets such as hostage-taking for ransom. Daniel Cohen, the Treasury Department’s top official on terrorist-financing, has recently said that “the U.S. government estimates that terrorist organizations have collected approximately $120 million in ransom payments over the past eight years.”
Part of the reason why al-Qaeda has been able to infiltrate Libya is because of the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi–a war that I believe was, on the whole, in our national security interests. But there has been too little follow-up to try to help the nascent, pro-American government in Tripoli establish its authority. In Iraq, AQI’s reemergence is tied directly to Obama’s ill-advised withdrawal of U.S. troops after half-hearted negotiations with the Iraqis to extend their mandate failed. In Syria, al-Qaeda has an opening because the administration refuses to do more to help the non-jihadist rebel groups overthrow Bashar Assad’s regime. And in Somalia and Yemen the group is finding traction because of the breakdown of state authority–conditions that the Obama administration can hardly be blamed for and that it is grappling with just as the Bush administration did. Overall, the resurgence of al-Qaeda shows the limitations of the Obama administration’s preferred response–drone strikes. They are a good idea, but insufficient to prevent extremists from gaining control of territory. That can only be done by bolstering state authority–something that is notoriously hard to do, especially in lands where the U.S. does not deploy large numbers of ground troops.
However this issue plays out in November, the resurgence of al-Qaeda is a worrisome trend that the next president will have to confront through a variety of mechanisms which will draw the U.S. even more closely into the morass of the Middle East. There is simply no other choice. If America retreats, our enemies advance.
This is completely contradictory to what our current administration is telling America. The current story is that the Middle East is fine as it is. The United States can safely withdraw and allow the current regimes to do as they will. Al Qaeda is not a problem, they are either in retreat, or shrinking. The real action, where the United States is desperately needed is in Asia, hence, the so-called pivot to Asia policy. n nWhile it's true that the U.S. does need to have a strong and forceful presence in Asia to counter the claims of China and to keep the shipping lanes free for passage for all international shipping, we cannot let the Middle East simply go unattended. There is too much at stake in the Middle East to allow that geo-political area to languish. Should we follow our current president and let the region be free of U.S. influence and protection, our nation will suffer for it, as will all the Western nations. Al Qaeda is just a piece of that, the current trend in many of the middle east countries is not only counter to Western values and ideals, but directly counter to the interests of the United States. n nThere needs to be more emphasis placed on the role of the U.S. in international peace-keeping and international stability. We are not doing that and are now focusing inward. Witness Mr. Obama's statement of "nation building at home." Sooner or later, that inward look will leave us near-sighted and unable to see what's coming ahead. n nKudos to Max for drawing our attention to these issues.
Good thing Iraq is now going to buy helicopter gunships from Russia. nAnd, no reason to worry about AQ re-settling in Afghanistan, what with so many other options. n nAs if any great power can control any of this…
No, “the resurgence of al-Qaeda shows” far more than “the limitations of the Obama administration’s” policies. It exposes the fundamental premise, that we must fight and prevail in Afghanistan in order to lick al Qaeda, as false and ignorant.
There never was anything special about Afghanistan that made it the only or best place for terrorists to operate from. It just happened to have been the place where OBL made his base, but he could have organized 9/11 from a dozen other locals.
Now Boot and Rubin and Obama discover that al Qaeda can operated nicely from Yemen, Sudan, Somali, Syria, etc. In other words, the whole idea of making Afghanistan “the central front in the war on terror” was ridiculous because Afghanistan was not central to terrorism. It was just one of the many terrains from which al Qaeda like organizations can operate.
People like me have been saying this for ten years, calling the al Qaeda rationale for turning Bush’s Afghanistan sideshow int a blazing war, nuts and a lame excuse. Now, slowly, Boot and others are noticing that al Qaeda and other terror networks can operated nicely far away and unconnected to Afghanistan. You are a little late, Sherlock.
They canu2019t beat us on the battlefield? What the hell have we been on that cost us this many lives. I for one will not fololw the administration blindly and we should all demand more from them. Itu2019s not the cause, itu2019s not the mission, itu2019s the execution of it. Iu2019ve gone from being a part of the majority who supported those who were leading us to where I donu2019t know why the hell I ever did that.Not to be blunt, but we’re at war. Even when you’re winning, people are going to die. Every life lost is a tragedy in itself, but to be honest, if we’re so squeamish about sending our soldiers into harm’s way then we should start preparing for a life under Shari’a law. If we want this thread to be ended, we have to be willing to make sacrifices. Our troops aren’t a bunch of dumb kids. They know that their job entails them putting their lives on the line for this country, and we’re not supporting them when we start thinking that we know more than the people on the ground in Iraq.This country has never done anything like this before. Iraq is a fractious country that’s been raped nearly to death by 30+ years of abject tyranny. There’s almost no civil society left. Saddam emptied every prison in the country and those people are still causing chaos.And there’s the pesky matter of Syria and Iran fighting a proxy war against us by arming the insurgency an insurgency which is now almost entirely working for foreign agents and not the Iraqi people.Have their been mistakes? Again, this is war. You don’t fight a war perfectly the first time. The military has learned a hell of a lot about counterterrorism in the last 4 years, and we’ve still got a lot to learn. Of course there have been mistakes Abu Ghriab being the biggest. Pulling our punches in Najaf in 2004 was a major mistake. Not taking down al-Sadr early on was a mistake. Not doing more to lay the groundwork for elections was a mistake.But most of the mistakes we made were because we’re actually trying to find a strategy that works. The problem is that our society has ADD we want everything now, and damn the long-term realities. We’re fighting an enemy that has a cultural memory that spans centuries. We can’t even remember what happened in the 1980s, and the enemy is still pissed off over the Reconquista.Tell me why Iu2019m wrongu2026I want to come homeu2026but canu2019t.It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that you’re not looking at things through the right perspective. Look at the big picture. If we pull out of Iraq, what then? Do things get better for us? How would al-Qaeda view such a move. Again, don’t listen to Big Media, just spend an evening or two thinking things through on a deeper level.I’m a law student, and when you look at a complex legal issue, you break it down into its component arguments. So, let’s do the same here.We are fighting al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is based off the Arab culture, which is an honor-shame culture. As bin Laden himself said, . That is the mindset of the enemy. Strength is valued, and weakness is shunned.We’re engaged in a battle in Iraq that is not only with Ba’athist dead-enders (who now are mostly on our side) but also with al-Qaeda. There is no question that if not the key battleground in this war.Now, what happens if we withdraw, surrender, or redeploy to the periphery in Iraq? Whatever euphemism you use, it certainly looks like a defeat to the rest of the world. And guess what, .Now, think about basic human psychology. Remember what bin Laden said, Arabs admire strength and shun weakness. Look at recent history what was the event that convinced bin Laden that al-Qaeda could take on the West? It was the . It was then that bin Laden had us pegged as a weak, decadent culture that could not stomach a lengthy fight.Now ask yourself this: is bin Laden right? If we’re not willing to expend the blood and treasure necessary to fight al-Qaeda wherever the battle calls us, doesn’t that vindicate exactly what bin Laden said about us? Does it not mean that we really are a weak and decadent culture spill a little of our blood, and we lose all taste for pursuing the enemy?Now, can we win in Iraq? The answer to that is yes. Less than a year ago all the analysts said that . We could not win, we couldn’t fight off the insurgency and the whole place needed to be written off. That was only a few months ago.And what happened since then? . Al-Anbar, the place that was the worst in Iraq, the home to the insurgency, and the place where a high school classmate of mine was killed by a terrorist IED when his Humvee was blown apart with him in it is now a place where markets are opening and people feel free to live their lives. Again, the media doesn’t report those things because they don’t leave the Green Zone, so the only news they get is what they’re being fed. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening, and their are who actually are there and are covering what the media does not.Now, if al-Anbar can change like that, why can’t the rest of Iraq?The reality is that democratization is a process, not an event. There won’t be a V-I day in which there’s a formal surrender and a ticker-tape parade. This isn’t that kind of war. What there will be is an ongoing process in which terrorists are eliminated, pockets of security are created, and small associations become the building blocks of a new civil society.But all of that requires a hell of a lot of patience on all sides. Our biggest mistake has been in rushing everything and trying to force events to comport to our wishes rather than making the incremental changes we need to make. That was Rumsfeld’s mistake, Bush’s mistake, and now it’s the Democrats who are making the same mistake. Even if one accepts the dubious principle that this was a war rushed into under false intelligence then that provides no excuse for rushing out under equally false intelligence.We have an opportunity to stabilize Iraq enough so that there can be some real progress. If we give up on that before it’s even had a chance to work, then we had better be ready to give up on this war.Think for yourself. Take every silly little slogan and half-assed argument you’ve heard, read as much as you can, and then start with basic logical positions taken from the facts. The reality is that we cannot afford to lose in Iraq, or things really will get worse. We’ll have proven bin Laden right, and no matter how bad things are now, if we leave, they will get a hell of a lot worse.Do you really think that if we leave Iraq and it becomes a haven for al-Qaeda, that we won’t be forced back to finish the job again? And how many lives will be lost to an Iraq that’s spun completely out of control?At the end of the day, if you really value the lives our our soldiers, if you really value the future security of both the American people and those of Iraq, you cannot blindly advocate withdrawal. We may save some blood and treasure now, but we’ll pay for it with interest down the road when this conflict has spiraled into something that’s a lot more dangerous than what we’re seeing now in Iraq.