I Don't Think We Can Take Much More Victory

In other news today, the Iraq war's over. I mean, the Bush Administration has constantly defined the war in Iraq as a war against Al Qaeda in Iraq, which incidentally is but a tiny fraction of the overall source of the violence over there, so if they've been "defeated," can we bring our men and women home now?

The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.

Sounds good, pack up the battleships, last one one is a rotten e-

But as the White House and its military commanders plan the next phase of the war, other officials have cautioned against taking what they see as a premature step that could create strategic and political difficulties for the United States. Such a declaration could fuel criticism that the Iraq conflict has become a civil war in which U.S. combat forces should not be involved. At the same time, the intelligence community, and some in the military itself, worry about underestimating an enemy that has shown great resilience in the past.

Premature step? When has this government ever been so hungry to declare victory that they did so prematurely?

Today’s Washington Post reports that some military generals are advocating a “declaration of victory” over al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). A military intelligence official tells the Post that Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal is the leading voice in calling for such a declaration [...]

McChrystal happens to also be one of the military generals who also fiercely advocated the declaration of “Mission Accomplished.” In April 2003, McChrystal assessed that “major combat” was over in Iraq:

“I would anticipate that the major combat engagements are over,” Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal told reporters at a Pentagon briefing. He said U.S. forces are moving into a phase of “smaller, albeit sharper fights.”

St. Petraeus and Admiral Fallon, by the way, both don't want to go the "last throes" route either. But the Administration is desperate for a victory, so they propagate the myth.

And this is indicative of their entire "war on terror" strategy. They want to hype threats when the goal is to rally the public in favor of an attack, then dismiss the same threats when they get bored and want to go attack something else. Peter Bergen, who's forgotten more about terrorism than George Bush and his pals have ever known, has an article in The New Republic that plows over the famliar ground of how bin Laden has managed to remain public enemy number 1 for six years and still survive. The truth is we had our boots on the collective necks of Al Qaeda and relaxed.

When Omar fled the Al Qaeda training camps, the organization was in disarray. A 2002 letter written by an Al Qaeda member--and addressed to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the operational commander of the September 11 attacks--gives a sense of just how demoralized the group was:

"Consider all the fatal and successive disasters that have afflicted us during a period of no more than six months. Those observing our affairs wonder what has happened to us. Today we are experiencing one setback after another and have gone from misfortune to disaster. ... I say today we must completely halt all external actions until we sit down and consider the disaster we caused. The East Asia, Europe, America, Horn of Africa, Yemen, Gulf, and Morocco [terrorist] groups have fallen, and Pakistan has almost been drowned in one push." [...]

But that was five very long years ago--five years during which Al Qaeda has not only survived but also managed to rebuild at an astonishing clip. The group's leadership has reconstituted itself and now operates rather comfortably along the largely lawless Afghan-Pakistan border. Last year, it came close to downing ten U.S. airplanes using liquid explosives--an attack that would have rivaled September 11 in magnitude. Al Qaeda has continually massacred Iraqi civilians over the past three years and has managed to keep the country locked in the grip of sectarian violence. Swathes of Afghanistan are in danger of reverting to Islamist control. The largest Algerian terrorist group announced last year that it was putting itself under Al Qaeda's umbrella--and has subsequently launched a series of attacks in North Africa against Western targets. Britain's domestic intelligence chief said last November that 30 terrorist plots were underway in her country--some of which would involve "mass-casualty suicide attacks"--and that Al Qaeda's Pakistan-based leadership was giving direction to its British followers "on an extensive and growing scale." Last month, Al Qaedalinked militants who had trained at camps in Pakistan were arrested in Germany, where a prosecutor said they had acquired enough chemicals for what would have been "massive bomb attacks" targeting Americans in the country. In a small but telling sign of its restored confidence, Al Qaeda's production arm has cranked out a record number of videos and audiotapes this year. To top things off, according to Hoffman, the group's "determination to strike the United States from abroad again remains undiminished." And it may be getting closer to doing just that: A recent National Intelligence Estimate noted that Al Qaeda "has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability."

America's most formidable foe--once practically dead-- is back. This is one of the most historically significant legacies of President Bush. At nearly every turn, he has made the wrong strategic choices in battling Al Qaeda. To understand the terror network's resurgence--and its continued ability to harm us--we need to reexamine all the ways in which the administration has failed to crush it.

It's a must-read article that lays bare all of the crude assumptions made by the commentariat about the perceived strength of the Republican Daddy Party in combating terrorism. In actuality, their decision-making has always been fatally flawed. And they've walked into the same trap in Iraq.