Iraq & Terrorism: The Fundamental Error

As you well know by now, I lay no claim to expertise in matters military or in international affairs, Bush. I bring nothing to this debate but what I learn from various news sources and a little studied common sense. And common sense tells me this: your fundamental error in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 11 September, 2001, was to elevate terrorism itself from the admittedly brutal tactic of a relative handful of fanatics to the status of a “global war.”

Whether this was a panic response or cynical opportunism on the part of your neocons I’ll leave others to decide. It could be either. Or, as I suspect, a bit of both. But this response, the rhetoric that accompanied it, and the ensuing policies have, in my common sense perception, brought us to the brink of failure where we now stand, disempowered, not quite—but nearly—friendless, deeply divided amongst ourselves, and terribly confused as to where to go from here.

At your press conference yesterday morning, I listened in disbelief as you mouthed the same vain, rosy platitudes about “victory” and “success,” about the “international war on terrorism” as the “defining issue” of the twenty-first century. I heard you talking about Iran, and the need for that nation to listen to you and acquiescence to American stipulations before talks could begin, without mentioning the possibility of listening to them. And frankly, Bush, it all sounded like utter nonsense to this one American who prides himself on possessing an ounce of common sense.

It is you, Bush, who have made what you are pleased to call the war on terrorism the defining issue of the twenty-first century. A wiser man, I believe, would have chosen a different response, one that did not empower and elevate these “extremists,” as you are wont to call them, to a nation of warriors worthy of a war with the most powerful military force in the history of the world—a war which they, these disparate gangs connected by little more organized than a common loathing of America, are actually winning! A wiser man, I believe, would have recognized the nature of these “enemies” and treated them accordingly, with rhetoric and tactics appropriate to their capabilities and their goals.

But now we have, thanks to your good self, a global war; and despite your protests to the contrary, we are not winning it. Now, too late, with a full-fledged and self-engendered war on your hands, you finally recognize the problem; and to solve it, you want to increase the number of the troops at your disposal. You have created this international war on terrorism, and hva committed us, willy-nilly, to fighting it. What a tragedy, to see so many lives sacrificed to what amounts, perhaps, to no more than a dreadful error in judgment, a rhetorical excess, and an obstinate refusal to recognize or admit mistakes.

More troops? To prove that America can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat? To justify the mistakes that have been made and demonstrate to the terrorists that we are stronger than they? As I see it, Bush, not even the addition of thirty thousand American troops in Baghdad—nor fifty, nor a hundred thousand—will do anything to prevent the next terrorist suicide team from wreaking havoc here in the United States. On the contrary, it might only serve to encourage them. Will it provide you with your “victory” over those “insurgents”? I tell you, Bush, I have my serious doubts.

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Bush, George W. Bush, Iraq, President, surge, terrorism