Counterterrorism Blog

This evening, President George Bush will present his own view of the ongoing Iraqi insurgency in a televised address to the nation--during which he will reportedly encourage the American public to be patient in expecting further progress and an eventual withdrawal of U.S. military forces.   This message comes on the heels of the stunningly obtuse assessment offered by Vice President Dick Cheney last week that the very same Iraqi insurgency is actually in its "last throes."  Though Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has tried to be more conservative in his own comments vis-a-vis the insurgents, Pentagon briefings on Iraq are also beginning to take on a fanciful character regrettably reminiscent of Soviet propaganda during the Afghan war of the 1980s.  The BBC even aired an interview this morning with an American military representative who attempted to draw a ridiculous comparison between the security situation in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and that of major Western cities like New York or London.  By professing such faulty logic, we are only successful in deluding ourselves--not the insurgents, nor the vast majority of Muslims in the Middle East.

If President Bush wants the American people to understand why a continued military presence is necessary in Iraq, he must level with them openly and honestly.  Unfortunately, the truth today is that Iraq is a catastrophe of immense proportions.  For months, we have desperately sought to avoid adjectives like "quagmire", fearing the consequences of such pejorative language.  But that is exactly what Iraq has become--a quagmire and a lose-lose scenario that is gradually overshadowing the larger international war on terrorism.  Though perhaps in 2003 there was no pressing threat necessitating an invasion of Iraq, in the meantime, we have unwittingly unleashed a Pandora's Box of ethnic and religious conflict in Iraq and we are left with few palatable options.  Nowadays, the U.S. military can no longer safely withdraw from Iraq without causing the near certain collapse of the nascent Iraqi democratic government and the transformation of Iraq into the next Afghanistan.  It should be noted that both native and foreign-born terrorists hiding in Iraq have openly boasted of their intentions to carry out attacks in Europe and North America if our forces are drained clean from the Sunni Triangle.  Indeed, whether or not President Bush admits as much during his expected address this evening, the reality is that we are stuck in Iraq and we aren't going anywhere soon.