Impeach Bush and Cheney: Their Solution Is Now The Problem; Quagmire Anyone?

Read It and Weep:Even Bush's intelligence report says the war in Iraq is making us less safe at home.

The solution has back fired and it is now the problem…quagmire anyone?

The National Intelligence Estimate (PDF) that was released —entitled "The Terrorist Threat to the Homeland"—amounts to a devastating critique of the Bush administration's policies on Iraq, Iran, and the terrorist threat itself.

Its main point is that the threat—after having greatly receded over the past five years—is back in full force. Al-Qaida has "protected or regenerated key elements" of its ability to attack the United States. It has a "safe haven" in Pakistan. Its "top leadership" and "operational lieutenants" are intact. It is cooperating more with "regional terrorist groups."

As a result, the report concludes, "the U.S. Homeland will face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years" and is, even now, "in a heightened threat environment."

This is bad enough news for President Bush, who has tried to bank support for his policies on the claim that the terrorist threat has diminished.

Worse news still is the report's further observation—never stated explicitly but clear nonetheless—that the threat has re-emerged as a result of the war in Iraq.

The report—the unclassified version of a consensus product by the 16 agencies of the U.S. intelligence community—also notes that the threat will grow still larger if we appear to threaten Iran.

One major reason for al-Qaida's resurgence, according to the report, is its "association with" al-Qaida in Iraq. (Note, by the way, that these two organizations are said to be "associated" or "affiliated" with each other; contrary to what Bush has said in recent speeches, (Slate Magazine), they are not the same entity.)

This affiliation "helps al-Qaida to energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks."

Al-Qaida in Iraq—or AQI, as the report identifies it—is not merely al-Qaida's "most visible and capable affiliate." More significant, it is "the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland." (Italics added.)

Let's put together the syllogism: Al-Qaida is more inclined to attack the United States because of its affiliation with AQI; AQI is the only affiliate that wants to attack the United States; therefore, if there were no AQI, the danger of an attack would be far less severe, if it existed at all.

Let's add one more link to the logical chain (which the NIE leaves out but which is self-evident): If there were no U.S. occupation of Iraq, there would be no AQI. (Certainly the organization didn't exist until well into the occupation. It has gained a foothold in Iraq—energizing "the broader Sunni extremist community"—by playing off their anti-American sentiments.)

Many times, President Bush has said that we're fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here. It is an absurd argument in many ways.

But the NIE reveals that the opposite is the case—THAT BECAUSE WE'RE FIGHTING THEM IN IRAQ, WE ARE MORE LIKELY TO FACE THEM HERE.

Everyone who has offered me this rational for the continuation of the carnage in Iraq and relectance to remove Bush and Cheney from office needs to rethink the “Flock Rhetoric quickly.

Does this mean that we should stop fighting AQI or negotiate some separate peace? No, the organization's presence in Iraq—however exaggerated by some officials—is genuinely dangerous, and there is no negotiating with any al-Qaida affiliate in any event.

But it does mean we should do more to co-opt the Sunnis—even some of the Sunni extremists—that serve as AQI's base of support. (We have started to do just that, with some success, in Anbar province.)

And it also means—for yet one more reason, beyond the many others—that we should start to get out of Iraq. (The question, as always, remains how to do so without unleashing catastrophic chaos.

I am afraid that no matter what course of action one would impose on Iraq, even if we were to maintain a presence there for fifty or more years; it would not make a difference, because sooner or later, given time to think, prepare, arm an organize, the moment of a Genocidal outbreak will come because that is what one factions desires and will have.

And just look at the world wide impotence to stem the tide in Dafur.

One reasonable inference of the NIE is that we should seek a regional resolution of the crisis as a matter of great urgency to the security not only of the Middle East but also of the United States.) That notion while sounding all well and good is a generality filled with unforeseeable catastrophes of its’ own.

I am not going to belabor the matter at this point but to put on the table the possible emergence of a sectarian cooperative confederation of Arab states in the Middle East that could well succeed where nominally secular Coalitions of the past have failed in political contest and intrigue. That would be a problem of immense dimensions.

It's worth recalling that, back in the spring of 2003, as the war was getting under way, Paul Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defense (and one of the war's outspoken architects), told Vanity Fair that one reason to invade Iraq was to allow U.S. troops to leave Saudi Arabia.

The presence of "infidel" soldiers on holy soil had been "a huge recruiting device for al-Qaida," Wolfowitz said. (Osama Bin Laden had publicly cited their presence as a rationale for the attack on the World Trade Center.) Yet the troops couldn't safely leave Saudi Arabia as long as Saddam Hussein was still in Iraq.

Hence, Saddam had to be removed first. (Though Wolfowitz didn't say so, another element of the plan was to relocate the U.S. bases from Saudi Arabia to the new, presumably pro-Western Iraq.)

Now, in a horrible irony, the troops in Iraq have become no less "a huge recruiting device for al-Qaida." (Some of Wolfowitz's erstwhile comrades insist he never wanted an occupation; perhaps he didn't grasp that occupations often follow the forced toppling of a government, especially when the entire social structure collapses as a result.)

Some hawks and neocons want to deepen the involvement and attack Iran—either simply to destroy its bourgeoning nuclear program or (in a more fantasy-drenched scenario) to overthrow its unfriendly regime, too.

The NIE warns against this adventurism in only the most slightly veiled terms. While discussing other threats besides al-Qaida, the report states that Lebanon's Hezbollah—which, till now, has confined its attacks to targets outside the United States—"may be more likely to consider attacking the Homeland … if it perceives the United States as posing a direct threat to the group or Iran."

This amounts to a direct warning to the White House:

Don't attack Iran, the entire U.S. intelligence community is saying—and, if you do, you should expect to get hit back.

We have to understand that our invasive activities have given both validation and validity to extremist factions in the area. We have “friends” who abhor, fear the daily violence of the Arab world; but they understand it; they accept it and they cannot help but feel that when American soldiers are blown to bits of maimed for life that is somehow justice, and that we have asked for it, and that it is better us than them.

It is not even ambivalence on their part. We want to call them “Closet Terrorists”, a label that misleads, clouds our entire cultural understanding of these people. Those feelings are a part of their ingrained instinctual cultural psyche as much as a cats instinct to hunt is ever present, even if it is hunting down a fly as an indoor cat will do with great relish!

We have given legitimacy to fundamentalist extremism and fanaticism, our definitions, because in our minds what else do we know to call people who are Kamikazes willing to blow themselves to a bloody pulp smeared, sprayed, on the remains of buildings and the dead that have taken with them, in the name of an idea.

We just can’t understand that mind set, that devotion. And I am afraid that we fail to understand that nothing is as dangerous as an idea whose time has come. Well, behold an awful horrifying idea that we have built a theater and a world stage. in and upon which, to play out. You do not kill an idea!

The alternative is to kill everyone who embraces that idea. That is not going to happen.

And for all those willing to let their minds to wander to a “Necessary Nuclear” event to end all of this; you are crazy, because someone, some few will survive as smoldering embers that will reignite in years to come, and like the legendary Phoenix , specter, the idea will rise again.

It is always thus with conflicts that start with the words: “I believe”.