I’ve been watching the coverage of the Zawahri tape on the news today. I’m struck by one main point. How is these guy able to mobilize our nation’s military, indirectly cause the overthrow of two governments, and lead our government to trample constitutional freedoms in furtherance of the “War on Terror”? How does the he and his ilk rise to the level of threat that would warrant this kind of reaction? In short, why our we so scared of him?
I would maintain that the threat of Islamic fundamentalism posed by Al Qaeda comes no where near that level. The threat of a nuclear Iran on the other hand gives me real pause. Unfortunately we are already heavily committed in Iraq and Afghanistan and any type of serious contemplation of military action in Iran must be giving Pentagon planners nightmares right about now. They have economic weapons and now a looming nuclear threat that makes Saddam and Al Qaeda look like complete amateurs, and we’re not in a position to do anything about short of seizing Iranian oil infrastructure and hoping nothing gets broken of sabotaged in the process. The “geniuses” running this conflict have thoroughly painted this country into a corner. A real threat has emerged and we’re still fighting the bogeyman of Al Qaeda.
Update: Bush steals Kerry’s plan for dealing with Iran
Now the President is in essence adopting the same approach he pooh-poohed as appeasement during the campaign as suggested by Kerry. It’s almost verbatim from the Kerry campaign. I guess he was against it before he was for it. I’m glad we have such resolute leadership.
The terrorists can’t get the upper hand, they simply don’t have the resources to do it. As I believe you pointed out on your blog:
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1138399254.shtml
the Iraqis are getting tired of the needless death and destruction Al Qaeda and it’s proxies have been causing. They can hurt us here and there, but they don’t threaten the foundation of our democracy. They reaction by the Bush administration is more of a long term threat to the underpinnings of society in the US than Al Qaeda can ever be.
Heck I can recall Mr. Bush dismissing the relevance of Bin Laden a long time ago:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html
Has Al Qaeda undergone some kind of renaissance since then despite the concerted effort of the most powerful nation in the world? Or maybe Mr. Bush needs the bogey man to justify his policies?
I would maintain that the relevance is quite direct. Sitting in the mideast is Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria, all of whom would like nothing more than to see the US fail and collapse. But they’re not foolish enough to take the US on themselves.
However, if the terrorists ever managed to get the upper hand – either by convincing enough Americans that the fight isn’t worth it or by turning public opinion in the mideast HEAVILY in their favor, those three countries wouldn’t hesitate to turn on us and salivate at the chance of seeing us fail.
IOW, they’re perfectly willing to use the terrorists as proxies to test the US will as well as public opinion in their own countries.
Now, you may not think the terrorists are a threat, but the Saudia Arabia, Iran and Syria, united together, would most certainly be. And I suspect several other mideast countries as well as Egypt would succumb to the temptation in short order.
The Europeans would be no help. They’d love to see us taken down a peg or two. Russia and China – well, they wouldn’t sit on the sidelines – they’d happily supply whatever arms and materiel were needed once the conflagration began.