Where is it?

This past week the Senate soundly rejected two amendments to the Defense Authorization Bill.  Both amendments demanded a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.  In presenting his amendment before the Senate John Kerry offered this.

"Redeploying United States troops is necessary for success in Iraq, and it is necessary to be able to fight a more effective war on terror," Mr. Kerry said. "We helped make the policy that put them there, we ought to help make the policy that helps to get them out."

"To fight a more effective war on terror."  If, as Senator Kerry and his allies often say, the war in Iraq is a distraction from the real war on terror, then where is the real war on terror? Where and how would we fight it more effectively? 

If Iraq is not part of the real war on terror, what was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi doing there?  Why did he go there of all places after he was wounded in Afghanistan?  Fact is, he told us what he was doing there.  In his now famous letter that begins "In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate," he said,

I send you an account that is appropriate to [your] position and that removes the veil and lifts the curtain from the good and bad [that are] hidden in the arena of Iraq.

As you know, God favored the [Islamic] nation with jihad on His behalf in the land of Mesopotamia. It is known to you that the arena here is not like the rest. It has positive elements not found in others, and it also has negative elements not found in others. Among the greatest positive elements of this arena is that it is jihad in the Arab heartland. It is a stone’s throw from the lands of the two Holy Precincts and the al-Aqsa [Mosque]. We know from God’s religion that the true, decisive battle between infidelity and Islam is in this land, i.e., in [Greater] Syria and its surroundings. Therefore, we must spare no effort and strive urgently to establish a foothold in this land.

You can argue the point that Iraq would not have become a terrorist hotbed without the overthrow of Saddam, and lefty politicians will argue, therefore, the Bush Administration created it.  They might be right except that Iraq was already a terrorist safe haven. 

When Saddam was still in power, he was in control in a way al Qaeda understood.  Saddam Hussein dealt with al Qaeda the same way he dealt with everybody else. 

Saddam killed Abu Nidal over al-Qa'eda row
By Con Coughlin
(Filed: 25/08/2002)

Abu Nidal, the Palestinian terrorist, was murdered on the orders of Saddam Hussein after refusing to train al-Qa'eda fighters based in Iraq, The Telegraph can reveal.

Establishment of a Taliban-like state in Iraq while Saddam was in power was simply out of the question -- not even a pipe dream.  That changed when his regime was knocked over, and suddenly the prospect of an al Qaeda controlled state in Iraq seemed within reach.  The fight for control began in earnest, and it continues. 

What Zarqawi and al Qaeda did not anticipate was the staying power of the U.S.  It was their expectation that the Great Satan would tire of the fight and retreat, leaving a power vacuum which they would easily fill through intimidation and murder.  Precedents encouraged them in their thinking -- the pullout of U.S. troops from Lebanon after the bombing of the Khobar Towers, the retreat from Somalia after casualties were incurred in the battle in Mogodishu.  John McCain pointed to the more important precedent in his statements opposing the Kerry and Levin amendments.

Withdrawing before Iraqis can bring stability to the country on their own would turn that land into a failed state in the heart of the Middle East. We have seen once before a failed state emerge after U.S. disengagement, and it cost us terribly. In pre-9/11 Afghanistan, terrorists found sanctuary to train and plan attacks with impunity. We know that there are today in Iraq terrorists who are planning attacks against Americans. We cannot make this fatal mistake twice.

It can be argued that the Bush Administration underestimated the impact of Saddam's overthrow.  But clearly the intention to take the fight to the terrorists has met Administration expectations.  Iraq is the central front in the war on terror.  Further along in his letter Zarqawi foresaw the eventual conclusion of that fight when he said,

If we fight them {and we must fight them}, we will confront one of two things. Either:

1 – We fight them, and this is difficult because of the gap that will emerge between us and the people of the land. How can we fight their cousins and their sons and under what pretext after the Americans, who hold the reins of power from their rear bases, pull back? The real sons of this land will decide the matter through experience. Democracy is coming, and there will be no excuse thereafter.

2 – We pack our bags and search for another land, as is the sad, recurrent story in the arenas of jihad, because our enemy is growing stronger and his intelligence data are increasing day by day...

I once thought Zarqawi was ready to pack his bags and move on, choosing option two in a tactical retreat.  I was wrong about that.  Zarqawi stuck with option one.  Senate Democrats might think there's some other front in which the war on terror can be fought more effectively, but Zarqawi obviously did not.  He fought to the death to win Iraq for al Qaeda.

In offering their amendments to the Defense Authorization Bill, Senate Democrats offered their hopes for a change in the way we fight the war on terror.  Democrats, John Kerry in particular, would prefer that the war on terror become a law enforcement action.  But how we fight the war on terror determines where we fight it.  If Democrats can convince enough Americans that Iraq is a distraction from the "real war on terror", they will succeed in shifting the central front here -- here in the U.S.  That's where that kind of a war has to be fought.

But a law enforcement action in the U.S. does nothing to disrupt terrorism at its source.  To allow state sponsorship of terrorism is to allow terrorists the time and resources to plan and execute ever more deadly attacks.  Turning the war on terror into a law enforcement action at this time would turn it into a war we will lose.  The Senate can be commended for refusing to allow it.