1 Boring Old Man

"If you listen carefully for a Democrat plan for success, they don’t have one. Iraq is the central front in the war on terror, yet they don’t have a plan for victory."

President George W. Bush

"Iraq is the central front in the war on terror"

He keeps saying it, month after month. Truth is, Iraq is the central front for our war on Iraq, nothing more than that. There is ample evidence for the following:

• In the eight months before 911, there was more than ample warning that Osama Bin Laden [a Saudi] was training Terrorists in Afghanistan [ruled by the Taliban, a group of Moslem Fundamentalists from Pakistan] to attack America. There was evidence that the attack was imminent, but those warnings were ignored._[1]
• After 911, we demanded that the Taliban give up Bin Laden, a demand they, of course ignored, and finally invaded Afghanistan. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda escaped over the border to an unregulated area of Pakistan.
• Our new Administration had plans in place to invade Iraq from the start, before 911 – ideas hatched in the think tanks of the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century. The reasons rely on the notions of the Bush Doctrine [proposed by Paul Wolfowitz in George H. W, Bush’s term of office]: Preemption, Unilateral Action [no U.N. approval required], Military Strength, and Evangelical American Democracy. We were to become the sole watchdog superpower in the world following the end of the Cold War._[2]
• The manifest reasons for going to war in Iraq were that they had Weapons of Mass Destruction that were dangerous to the United States and that they were allied with Al Qaeda. There was no solid evidence that these things were true, and plenty of evidence that they were not [true]._[3]
• We invaded Iraq without U.N. approval, and quickly toppled Hussein’s regime there. It turned out that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction and no ties between Al Qaeda and the Hussein government.
• There was resistance to our occupation of Iraq. At first, it was seen as coming from the remnants of Hussein’s regime. Those people were hunted down. Then the resistance was seen as outside agitators – Moslem Fundamentalists from elsewhere, perhaps Al Qaeda. But it has now become apparent that the resistance movement is largely a Civil War between Sunni and Shia Militias – a Sectarian Civil War.

How, then, is Iraq the "central front in the war on terror?"

"they [Democrats] don’t have a plan for victory"

Victory seems to be defined as an American-like Democracy in Iraq with the dissolution of the Sectarian Militia groups and a cessation of the violence. The notion is that an Iraqi military serving the central government will suppress the violence when it is strong enough. Iraq is a country in which all people are Moslems, either Sunni or Shia. These are sects of Islam that have been at odds since shortly after Mohammed’s death, almost 1500 years ago [which is a very long time]. So, the idea was to depose a Sectarian leader, Hussein, who represented the minority sect in Iraq and kept order by force, and create a nonsectarian government that would have a nonsectarian police force [army] that would suppress the military arms of both sects – all of this in a country where all citizens are allied with one sect or the other. The problem with this naive idea is that it cannot happen. The question isn’t what is our plan to achieve victory. It’s that Bush’s concept of victory is an impossible dream that will not, and can not occur. That’s why "they [Democrats] don’t have a plan for victory." It’s a bit like Bush’s relationship to the U.N. He ignored the U.N. Inspections that found no Weapons of Mass Destruction and marched off to war, then wanted the U.N. to help.

 _[4]

^[1][2][3][4] areas where the Administration lied outright.