‘Who cares what the terrorists want?’

White House officials have spent an inordinate amount of time lately trying to convince American voters that they know which party the terrorists like more, and the electorate should back candidates who’d make the terrorists unhappy. To do otherwise would be to “appease” the enemy.

With this in mind, Ari Melber asks a pertinent question today, “[W]ho cares what the terrorists want?”

It’s a tempting choice, and sounds easy. If our enemies want something, we should want the opposite, right? If terrorists want us to leave Iraq, we have to stay. Yet Bush’s argument is wrong on two levels.

First, even if all our enemies wanted a U.S. withdrawal, it’s irresponsible to define our foreign policy reactively, in their shadow. By talking this way, Bush actually risks strengthening terrorists, suggesting that U.S. foreign policy is crafted in response to their positions, rather than our independent interests and analysis. […]

As the influential hawk Robert Kagan wrote last month, “I would worry about an American foreign policy driven only by fear of how our actions might inspire anger, radicalism and violence in others.”

That’s a good point. To hear the Bush gang tell it, the key to success in Iraq is trying to figure out exactly what al Qaeda leaders want. We’ll shape our policy by doing the exact opposite. It is, to put it mildly, a flawed approach. Our policy should be based on evidence and wise decision making, not a constant game-theory contest with Osama bin Laden.

Of course, Melber’s second point is an argument I’ve raised here many times — if we followed Bush’s approach and did craft a policy based on the opposite of terrorists’ desires, we’d vote against the GOP.

[T]here’s strong evidence that al Qaeda actually supports Bush’s policy to stay the course in Iraq.

A recent private letter between senior al Qaeda leaders declared their “most important” goal was “prolonging the war” in Iraq. The letter, confiscated in the fatal June attack on the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and translated by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, argues that pinning the United States into an open-ended commitment in Iraq will strengthen jihadists around the world.

On that score, al Qaeda apparently agrees with the administration’s famous National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is a ” ’cause celebre’ for jihadists,” inspiring new terrorist enemies around the world.

On a related note, Marc Lynch noted some discussion from an Arabic internet forum, “whose author has little reason to believe that it will be picked up by the English language media – and so should not be dismissed as an attempt to manipulate American public opinion.” (via Kevin Drum)

“Al-Qaeda’s Scenario During the Coming Weeks” argues that the coming two weeks represent a pivotal moment in al-Qaeda’s long-term jihad strategy. Since 9/11 and the Afghan war, al-Qaeda has been pursuing a stage in its long-term strategy which the author calles ‘direct combat’. Keeping American in Iraq has been the key to its strategy. America has suffered great losses through this stage, both economic and its people, and many of its allies have already abandoned the fight. The next two weeks (giving a clue as to when it was written) will reveal whether al-Qaeda’s leadership believes that this stage of direct combat has served its purpose of weakening America sufficiently. If it does, according to the author, al-Qaeda will remain silent, allowing the Democrats to win the Congressional elections and initiating a new phase of the conflict. If it does not (as the author hopes), it will intervene through a bin Laden tape or an attack on an American ally in order to ensure a Republican victory which will keep the Americans trapped in Iraq longer in order to weaken it more before moving to the next stage.

The author’s premise is that al-Qaeda has consistently intervened in American domestic politics where necessary in order to ensure that America stays in Iraq. Whenever America seems like it might withdraw, he writes, Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri pops up to remind Americans that if they do then al-Qaeda will triumph in their wake – thus goading them to remain. This predictably silences those reasonable voices calling for withdrawal, who are even accused of national treason, and strengthens the voices of stupidity. The author offers several detailed examples, including the 2004 election in which bin Laden ensured that Bush would win and continue his policies in Iraq, and a Zawahiri video last year calling on Bush to flee Iraq and admit defeat which Bush used to silence his critics. Each time al-Qaeda’s leaders speak, he argues, Bush and his party are strengthened, and commit even more firmly to remaining in Iraq… while the mujahideen laugh from the depth of their souls. […]

Therefore, while the author does not know what al-Qaeda will do, he thinks that al-Qaeda should seek to delay the American withdrawal as long as possible by working to ensure that Bush and the Republican Party win the coming elections. How? A televised al-Qaeda video should do the trick, whether from Zahawiri or (more likely) Bin Laden – perhaps announcing the creation of an al-Qaeda state in Afghanistan or Iraq, perhaps issuing a direct threat against America. A strike against important oil facilities in the Gulf might also do it, or against an important US ally like Britain. Either should ensure a Republican victory, he writes, and secure al-Qaeda’s main strategic objective of keeping America implanted in the combat zone in Iraq.

Getting back to Melber, if Bush is right and we should care what the terrorists want, the choice in the elections seems increasingly clear.

it makes me feel proud that our president and his cadre of geniuses are being outsmarted by a guy dying in a cave.

America, catch the fever. (eyes rolling)

  • It all comes down to the game “I win, you Lose”. Boy George II is too stupid for most games, so Neil and Jeb must have spent their youth taunting him with “I win, you lose!” whenever a game of theirs fell apart.

    As proof of the fact that BG2 can not handle this game, look at his reaction Saddam Hussein taunted Bush 41 after his 1992 defeat. Saddam claimed to have won the Gulf War because he was in power and Bush 41 was not. You know this just ripped BG2 up inside.

    Another example. Look how torqued BG2 was when Hezbollah claimed victory after crawling out of their holes in southern Lebanon after the cease fire. BG2 screamed like a stuck pig at seeing them claim to have defeated an American-armed ally.

    So, we have BG2’s Iraq policy. When we leave, whenever that is, al Qaeda, the Baathists, and Sadr will all claim victory (Saddam too if he’s still alive). So BG2 is delaying a withdrawal from Iraq until after he leaves office. That way he thinks he can claim that it was not his fault that America lost the game of “I win, you Lose”.

    Which ignores the fact that it is entirely Cheney’s, Rummy’s and Chimpy’s fault that we are in Iraq in such an untentable position and it will certainly not be his successor’s fault that we will have to finally leave.

    And yes, we should not be shaping our policy to thwart or please terrorists. That’s how you lose to them.

  • It’s laughable to imagine that Herr Bush—the man who thought ObL “wasn’t all that important,” now wants us to worry about what the terrorists want….

  • To hear the Bush gang tell it, the key to success in Iraq is trying to figure out exactly what al Qaeda leaders want. We’ll shape our policy by doing the exact opposite.

    But, isn’t this exactly what the bush gang did with domestic policy when they overthrew our government in 2000? Didn’t they reflexively look at all Clinton’s policies and then do exactly the opposite? Seems like that’s their modus operandi. Once you figure that out, they’re easily manipulated.

  • “To hear the Bush gang tell it, the key to success in [The United States] is trying to figure out exactly what [Bill Clinton did]. We’ll shape our policy by doing the exact opposite.”

    And it has worked so good so far.

  • And in 2008 the chimp will screech: The terrorist want me out of office so I’m stayin’ put!

    Even with a tinfoil topper I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Osama boogieman Laden gets a big box of money from G.B. every time he releases another tape. Cave in Pakistan my ass. The guy’s probably kicking back in a 50 room mansion in the Mohave Desert. You wonder what became of Jeff Gannon/Guckert? Two words: Cabana Boy.

  • The Onion said it best in 2000. Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over.

    You might think that stupidity of one person could mess up a ball game or even a business, but it amazing that it could mess up a big part of he world. Organized mediocre mendacity.

  • i’m not really sure how Dumbya can keep saying “bein’ Pres-ee-dent is hard work!”

    oh to have it so easy, to live in a self-constructed reality where every aspect of life has only a single variable, and its values are binary. Because that is the only situation where the opposite of something deemed “wrong” can be unambiguously “right.” and even then there is a major logical flaw: what if what the terrorists want is, in fact, mistaken as to what is good for the terrorists? What if the terrorists are poor strategists so that what they want is actually bad for them – then, but reflexively doing the opposite, we might be doing something good for the terrorists! (your brain hurt yet? mine does. . .)

    maybe, just maybe, it makes more sense to do what is good for the ol US of A, based on all relevant factors, not just what the terrorists think. Hmmm. . . complex thought. . . what a concept. And, sadly, far beyond this administration.

  • I flipped on the tube after coming home tonight, and there was Kay Hutchinson repeating the tired old line about all the intelligence said Iraq had WMD. Intelligence didn’t get us into Iraq, stupidity did. Had Bush acted in an intelligent manner, he’d have seen the potential for disaster in taking the dictatorial lid off of an explosive situation. He’d have sent a decent sized force into Afghanistan — rather than holding back so he could invade Iraq — and gotten Bin Laden. Instead, he gave Bin Laden a seat on the republican campaign committee.

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