Success! Mission Accomplished! Our Leaders Bring Al-Qaeda Victory!!

[I]t is the Bush administration that has “validated” al-Qaeda’s 9/11 strategy over the past five years.

Captured al-Qaeda documents reveal that Osama bin Laden’s principal goal in the 9/11attacks was to lure the United States into a clumsy counterattack in the Middle East that would alienate Muslims, help al-Qaeda recruit more jihadists and bog down the American military in a no-win war.

Though bin Laden was mistaken in believing that Afghanistan would become the central front, he was right in pretty much every other part of his plan. At the time of 9/11, al-Qaeda was a fringe player in the Muslim world, with its leaders driven into exile and holed up in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Bin Laden understood that his movement had little hope if it couldn’t sharpen the animosities between the West and Islam – and force Muslims to pick sides between the U.S. “crusaders” and the “defenders of Islam.” He sought to position his terrorist movement as the chief beneficiary of that dividing line.

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Bush’s invasion of Iraq vitiated the international goodwill that surrounded the United States after the 9/11 attacks. It also eliminated one of bin Laden’s chief Arab rivals, the secular Saddam Hussein, while letting al-Qaeda exploit the chaos by attracting thousands of young jihadists to Iraq.

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A different reality, however, was taking shape across the Middle East. The Arab street was turning decisively against Bush, Cheney and the United States. The Bush-Cheney arrogance and aggressiveness made bin Laden seem, to some, almost a prophet.

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Al-Qaeda’s leaders recognized that their greatest strategic vulnerability would come from the United States withdrawing its forces from Iraq. Not only would that deny al-Qaeda its chief recruitment attraction but it could free up American troops for a renewed offensive against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

It was as if al-Qaeda had its own version of Bush’s line about fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don’t have to fight them in America, except al-Qaeda’s version was that it was best to keep U.S. troops tied down in Iraq so they couldn’t fight al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

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However, the larger question is whether the U.S. intelligence analysts are right about al-Qaeda’s desire for Bush and Cheney to continue their war policies in Iraq – or whether Bush and Cheney are right that al-Qaeda really wants U.S. forces out of Iraq.

At this point, the evidence – and the results of five years of the Bush-Cheney policies – would seem to support a conclusion that al-Qaeda is just delighted for the U.S. occupation of Iraq to continue indefinitely.

That disastrous war, more than anything, has validated al-Qaeda’s bloodthirsty 9/11 strategy.

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