Is Bush al-Qaeda's 'Useful Idiot'?
By Robert Parry
August 26, 2005
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/082505.html
If Western intelligence agencies are right - that the U.S.-led invasion of
Iraq and the two-year-plus military occupation have been recruiting boons
for Islamic terrorism - why is it logical to commit American troops to an
indefinite deployment there? Won't that just create more terrorists?
Put differently, has George W. Bush's Iraq policy done more to help than
hurt al-Qaeda, from Bush's hasty decision to redirect U.S. military assets
from Afghanistan to Iraq while Osama bin-Laden was still at large, to the
loose talks about an American "crusade," to supplanting Iraq's secular
government with one favoring Islamic fundamentalism?
In the 1980s, when I was covering the wars in Central America,
neoconservative theorists liked to call U.S. peace activists "useful
idiots" because their opposition to the hard-line Reagan administration was
seen as unwittingly aiding and abetting communists and other leftist
enemies. In that vein, is Bush now al-Qaeda's "useful idiot"?
These questions are relevant today because Bush is again making clear his
determination to "stay the course" in Iraq. He is rejecting the advice of
some military strategists and a few political leaders that a wiser course
might be for the United States to begin a phased withdrawal from the
war-ravaged country.
In a speech in Idaho on Aug. 24, Bush rejected that idea, saying it would
play into the hands of Islamic terrorists who "want us to retreat."
"An immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq, or the broader Middle
East, as some have called for, would only embolden the terrorists and
create a staging ground to launch more attacks against America and free
nations," Bush said. "So long as I'm the president, we will stay, we will
fight, and we will win the war on terror."
Dubious Claims
Bush also repeated some of his dubious assertions about the cause of
Islamic terrorism. For instance, Bush said, "our enemies murder because
they despise our freedom and our way of life," though intelligence experts
have long concluded that the dominant goal of al-Qaeda and other Islamic
extremists is to drive Western forces and influence out of the Middle East.
It's not hatred of "our way of life" that motivates most Islamic
extremists, but rather a perception that the West is threatening "their way
of life."
While there have been violent strikes against the West, such as the Sept.
11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington, Islamic
fundamentalists generally see their struggle as defensive.
So, when Bush prescribes an offensive strategy - "to go after the
terrorists where they live . until the terrorists have nowhere to run and
nowhere to hide" - his projection of U.S. power into the Islamic world not
only portends a virtually endless war but has the detrimental effect of
reinforcing the arguments that Islamic extremists use to recruit
impressionable young people to terrorism.
For that reason, some observers see the current dynamic as a vicious cycle
- an escalating pattern of tit-for-tat violence with both sides nursing
grievances bathed in blood. More cynical analysts go further, seeing a
symbiotic relationship in which Bush and bin-Laden - whether wittingly or
not - serve each other's political needs.
At home, Bush and his right-wing allies have used the American fear of
Islamic terrorism to consolidate political control. Among Muslims,
bin-Laden and al-Qaeda have exploited their battle against the world's
superpower to transform themselves from a marginal - albeit dangerous -
organization into an international force attracting thousands of recruits
in the defense of Islam.
For their part, al-Qaeda's leaders get international standing as warriors
for the faith - rather than their deserved notoriety as thugs killing
innocents - while the Bush administration gets to reorganize the United
States along the authoritarian lines of a nation at war. [See
Consortiumnews.com's "Bush's Grimmer Vision."]
'Godfather' Scene
Soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush recognized that a
targeted assault on al-Qaeda in Afghanistan would be too remote and too
limited for his elevation to the pedestal of heroic "war president." Bush
quickly turned his gaze toward Iraq, according to accounts by former
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke and
author Bob Woodward.
So, even though Iraq's Saddam Hussein wasn't tied to Sept. 11, Bush and his
neoconservative advisers perceived the political advantage of expanding the
fight against al-Qaeda into a broader war against U.S. adversaries in the
Middle East.
Like a climatic scene from a "Godfather" movie, Bush and his neocon capos
seized on the Sept. 11 attacks as an excuse to settle the Bush "family
accounts," which included eliminating Hussein, whom Bush once called "the
guy who tried to kill my dad."
But Bush's revenge-driven invasion didn't achieve the finality that some
expected. Though Saddam Hussein was captured and his two sons were slain,
the invasion of Iraq wasn't the "cakewalk" among grateful Iraqis that some
on Bush's foreign-policy team had predicted.
Rather than accept U.S. occupation, thousands of Iraqis - especially from
the nation's Sunni minority - picked up guns and began making bombs to kill
Americans. Thousands of foreign jihadists also slipped into Iraq to battle
the Western invaders, often by becoming suicide bombers.
Soon, a full-fledged insurgency was underway with hundreds of American
soldiers dying along with thousands of Iraqis, both civilians and
combatants. Amid the chaos, American diplomats were caught up in the kind
of complex "nation-building" that candidate Bush had vowed to avoid when he
was seeking the presidency in 2000.
Yet, even as events in Iraq spun out of control, Bush and his political
advisers found the "war on terror" a useful device for restructuring the
U.S. government, redirecting tax money to friendly corporations, and
reframing the American concept of civil liberties to give Bush the
unbridled power to imprison anyone he deems an "enemy combatant."
Bush also could count on legions of right-wing supporters to denounce
domestic critics as "traitors," obsessed with "blaming America" and guilty
of violating the edict to "support the troops." In this poisonous climate,
most Democratic politicians and mainstream pundits shied away from any
sustained criticism of Bush's war policies.
Hart's Advice
Former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., observed this phenomenon in an Aug. 24
op-ed column for the Washington Post, entitled "Who Will Say 'No More'?"
Hart urged Democratic leaders to admit they were deceived by Bush into
supporting the Iraq War and ask forgiveness from the military families that
have suffered. Then, the Democrats should give speeches explaining why the
conflict is hurting American security, how the nation must move toward
energy independence, and "what we and our allies can do to dry up the
jihadists' swamp," Hart wrote.
"The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war," Hart
continued. "The real defeatists are those in power and their silent
supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating 'Stay the
course' even when the course, whatever it now is, is light years away from
the one originally undertaken.
"The truth is we're way off course. We've stumbled into a hornet's nest.
We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today
than before this war began. Who now has the courage to say this?"
[Washington Post, Aug. 24, 2005]
As Hart noted, many Democratic leaders either have chosen to finesse the
Iraq War by quietly supporting Bush's policies or they have tried to
outflank him from the Right by demanding that he send more troops and fight
to win.
Only a few senior Democrats, such as Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, have
ventured so far as to suggest a phased withdrawal by the end of next year.
A commonly heard Democratic mantra on Iraq is that "failure is not an
option." But no one in Washington has made a convincing case that failure
is not at least a strong possibility. Simply declaring that success must
occur doesn't mean it will. [For more on this wishful thinking, see
Consortiumnews.com's "Iraq War's Two Constants."]
Enduring Paradox
The enduring paradox of the Iraq War is that Bush and other U.S. leaders
insist that the presence of U.S. troops is necessary to bring political
stability to Iraq, yet it is the presence of those U.S. troops that has
become the driving force for both foreign jihadists and Iraqi insurgents to
continue inflicting havoc across Iraq.
There might have been a way out of the paradox if Sen. John Kerry had won
the White House in November 2004 and had enlisted some non-Western
surrogate forces to fill the void as U.S. and British troops left. But
Bush's second term precluded that possibility.
Since then, Bush has been able to sustain an anti-withdrawal consensus in
Washington by arguing that U.S. troops are needed to keep Iraq from turning
into a "failed state" - like Afghanistan - and thus a potential base for
Islamic terrorists to strike against the United States and its allies.
"We will not allow the terrorists to establish new places of refuge in
failed states from which they can recruit and train and plan new attacks on
our citizens," Bush said in his Idaho speech.
But that prediction about Iraq may be just another of Bush's worst-case
scenarios, not a likely danger. Another scenario could be that a U.S.
withdrawal might improve Iraq's chances for stability by removing the chief
rallying point for Islamic extremists.
Without the American presence to incite young Muslims to strap on suicide
belts, the foreign terrorist operations in Iraq might shrivel. Even the
Iraqi Sunnis, whose anti-American interests now overlap with those of the
foreign jihadists, might have little stomach for the civilian-butchering
jihadists if the Americans were gone. The Sunnis might well revert to
Hussein's approach of ruthlessly repressing Islamic extremists.
In other words, as odd as it might seem, an American withdrawal could
actually contribute to the precise result that is now the chief U.S. policy
goal, preventing Iraq from becoming a haven for terrorists.
That does not mean, of course, the future of Iraq will be peaceful. The
blood shed over the past two-plus years will almost certainly fuel new
rounds of revenge. A civil war among the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds
also remains a distinct possibility.
But the United States may have to recognize that - having opened the door
to this chaos - it is the wrong party to set matters right. Sometimes, the
best course of action is to step back and provide encouragement, but leave
well enough alone. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Iraq & the Logic of
Withdrawal."]
Ironically, the key to resolving the Iraqi paradox might be what many
families of American soldiers desperately long for already, the return of
their loved ones safe and sound.
The tragedy of Iraq, however, may be that George W. Bush will insist on
"staying the course," Democratic leaders won't dare contradict him - and
the killing will go on.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the
Associated Press and Newsweek. His new book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of
the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at
secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999
book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'
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