What we have seen so far is that bin Laden lashes out spasmodically at targets of opportunity. The United States has been the consistent target of the attacks (though not the only one, of course) but bin Laden’s "strategy" (it can hardly be dignified with the term) is based on a delusion that he has explained many times: when hurt, the United States always cuts and runs. In the Isma'il interview, bin Laden said,
We think that the United States is very much weaker than Russia. Based on the reports we received from our brothers who participated in jihad in Somalia, we learned that they saw the weakness, frailty, and cowardice of US troops. Only 80 US troops were killed. Nonetheless, they fled in the heart of darkness, frustrated, after they had caused great commotion about the new world order.
Bin Laden thought that terrorist violence by itself would cause America to continue to retreat, to withdraw from Saudi Arabi and the rest of the Persian Gulf countries, enabling the Muslim ummah to realize their long-suppressed dream of a true Islamic society (bin Laden having a delusion that ordinary Muslim men and women truly thirsted for a Talibanic society for their own countries). Hurt the Americans enough, he said - more than once, on the record, - and they will flee.
Al Qaeda's political objectives were, and remain, well defined: reestablish the Islamic caliphate of yore. Then extend the caliphate into the middle of Africa, South Asia and parts of Europe and Southeast Asia. After that - these are very long-rage objectives - extend the rule of Islam across the entire globe. It matters not at the moment whether these are realistic goals. Islamists think they are.
Today, for both Islamists and the US, Iraq is the main battlefield. Whomsever prevails there will gain the intiative for many years to come, perhaps so strongly that the other side will not be able to take it away.
There are two main al Qaeda objectives to its fighting in Iraq.
1. Prevent the establishment of a democratic government and society there.
2. Compel the United States to withdraw its forces, hence its influence, before a democratic government is soundly established.
Obviously, these are two closely-related objectives. What is the threat to Islamism by democracy? Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of Osama bin Laden's closest associates since the early 1990s, was killed by Saudi security forces in Riyadh in 2003. He wrote a book published by al Qaeda entitled, The Future of Iraq and The Arabian Peninsula After The Fall of Baghdad. In it Ayyeri wrote, "It is not the American war machine that should be of the utmost concern to Muslims. What threatens the future of Islam, in fact its very survival, is American democracy." Islamic absolutism, Ayyeri wrote, cannot exist inside a society where the people think they can pass their own laws and makes their own rules.
The memo says extremists are failing to enlist support inside the country, and have been unable to scare the Americans into leaving. It even laments Iraq's lack of mountains in which to take refuge. ... [The writer] claims to be impressed by the Americans' resolve. After significant losses, he writes, "America, however, has no intention of leaving, no matter how many wounded nor how bloody it becomes."
Today's sectarian violence in Iraq is no surprise. Even without al Qaeda there, millions of Shiites would have felt they had scores to settle. But in the same captured document, Zarqawi explained that sectarian violence would have to be fomented so that democratic sovereignty cannot take root.
"So the solution, and only God knows, is that we need to bring the Shia into the battle," the writer of the document said. "It is the only way to prolong the duration of the fight between the infidels and us. If we succeed in dragging them into a sectarian war, this will awaken the sleepy Sunnis who are fearful of destruction and death at the hands" of Shiites. ... "You noble brothers, leaders of the jihad [meaning other al Qaeda leaders - DS], we do not consider ourselves people who compete against you, nor would we ever aim to achieve glory for ourselves like you did," the writer says. "So if you agree with it, and are convinced of the idea of killing the perverse sects, we stand ready as an army for you to work under your guidance and yield to your command."
The greatest violence today in Iraq is between Iraqis, not the result of direct al Qaeda attacks. Inculcating sectarian violence has been enormously successful by al Qaeda and stands today as the greatest threat to a unified, democratic Iraq - so much so that serious talk is being given now to the idea of partitioning the country into near-autonomous provinces, demracated by ethnicity or tribal identity or Muslim denomination or some combination of all. Al Qaeda must be licking its chops at that prospect. It would be much more able to infiltrate and dominate weakened provinces seriatim than try to take on the whole country. I wondered a few days ago whether al Qaeda’s smart move would be to stop fighting after America's mid-term election next month. Baathists and sectarians now fighting each other realize, like al Qaeda, that their goals are less attainable as long as powerful US forces remain in the country. They are heartened, opined OpinionJournal, by American domestic political talk of timetables for withdrawals and Iraqi intractability.
The current American panic, by contrast, is precisely what the insurgents intend with their surge of October violence. The Baathists and Sadrists can read the U.S. political calendar, and they'd like nothing better than to feed the perception that the violence is intractable. They want our election to be perceived as a referendum on Iraq that will speed the pace of American withdrawal.
So I wondered whether al Qaeda might decide to sit things out after November, stop stirring the violence pot and hope that the Bush administration starts significant withdrawals well before the 2008 elections. After all, even the US senior commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, tacitly admitted Oct. 24 that the country is embroiled in a civil war: "We've seen the nature of the conflict evolving from what was an insurgency against us to a struggle for the division of political and economic power among the Iraqis." When contending armed groups are fighting over the control of the central government, that's pretty much the definition of civil war.
It may be, though, that al Qaeda's religious ideology of armed jihad means that it cannot lay low even if it might be advantageous. It cannot merely engineer the US withdrawal, it must be known to have done so. So it keeps bombing and shooting.
Except now it may have actually developed a strategy to fight America. This strategy is very simple and has excellent potential that is already being realized.
1. Target American news media, not for attack but for propaganda.
2. Through the media, buttress the idea in the minds of American politicians that Iraq is lost and there is no reasonable recourse but to begin withdrawing as soon as possible.
I would submit that al Qaeda is significantly accomplishing this strategy, so obviously so that I need not offer cites. And let it be remembered that now the calls for withdrawal do not come from only one party.
My colleague, John Krenson, explained what is at stake for America in Iraq. I'll commend his analysis and add that for the US to withdraw before victory would have catastrophic consequences for us. No other enemy - Syria, Iran or North Korea - would give us the slightest credibility. Neither would strategic competitors such as China or Russia. Inside the Middle East, America's reputation as a nation determined to defend its honor would be irretrievably sullied, this in a culture where honor, shame and perception are of primary importance. The perceived honor of al Qaeda would rise dramatically. The shame imputed to America would not reside solely with us. Cooperative Arab governments would also suffer diminished respect by their own people and the hostile regimes named just now. Resistance to Islamism across the Middle East by government such as Jordan's and Egypt's and their peoples would be badly harmed, perhaps even fatally. Such developments would only encourage Iranianand Syrian adventurism, spell violent trouble for Israel and endanger the ruling bodies of Arab governments friendly or neutral toward the United States. Precipitant withdrawal from Iraq would be a prescription for a much more violent world.
What has this to do with November's elections? Mark Steyn conducted a little mind experiment not long ago.But suppose the "Anyone But Bush" bumper-sticker set got their way; suppose he and Cheney and Rummy and all the minor supporting warmongers down to yours truly were suddenly vaporized in 20 seconds' time. What then? Nothing, that's what. The jihad's still there. Kim Jong Il's still there. The Iranian nukes are still there. The slyer Islamist subversion from south-east Asia to the Balkans to northern England goes on, day after day after day.
Would al Qaeda set down its AK-47s and TNT and take up watercolor? Or would they simply see the disappearance as a sign of Allah's favor and so redouble their efforts to bring us death and misery?
You know the answer.
There are legitimate criticisms of the way the Bush administration has waged the war in Iraq. I've made some myself. But Bush and Cheney are Rumsfeld are not the problem America faces. Al Qaeda is. The administration's critics claim, and some portions of the National Intelligence Estimate say, that the fighting in Iraq has increased al Qaeda recruiting. Probably so - even evildoers "rally 'round the flag."
If you think al Qaeda's recruitment and capability for violence is profiting from America's continued presence in Iraq, just wait until we prematurely withdraw. As Steyn continued, "And one morning we'll switch on the TV and the smoke and flames will be on this side of the Atlantic... ."
Endnote: Fareed Zakaria writes in Newsweek about to make a way forward. The heart of the issue:All sides in Iraq are preparing for the day the United States leaves. They are already engaged in a power struggle for control of the post-American Iraq. The Kurds have ensured that their autonomous region is governed essentially as a separate country with its own army. The largest Shia parties want to maintain their militias to bolster their own power base, independent of the state. And the Sunnis do not want to wind down the insurgency, for fear that they will be impoverished or killed in the new Iraq. Nobody believes that, after the Americans, this power struggle will be resolved with ballots. So they are all keeping their bullets. ... If the United States were to leave Iraq tomorrow, it is virtually certain that the bloodletting would spread like a virus. ...
As long as that is true - and it will be true for a long time to come - al Qaeda's main goal to prevent democracy in Iraq will be achieved. Zakaria's piece is long but well worth the read.
Related: Should Cheney and Rumsfeld be fired to set Iraq's course aright?