The recent liberal media hyperventilation about the state of affairs in Iraq and what the next move for America should be there has really only served to distract Americans, and really the rest of the world, from the nature of the Iraqi conflict and its place in the greater context of the general conflict with fundamentalist Islam.
The liberal media portrayal of the conflict in Iraq as a single, separate, and largely unrelated occurrence relative to that greater conflict leads many Americans to conclude that the conflict is a waste, sacrificing American lives and resources needlessly when those lives and resources could be better used elsewhere for other causes.
Of course, this media gloss is both incorrect and naïve simply because it refuses to incorporate the idea that the conflict in Iraq now represents the single most significant front in the Western effort to resist the unchecked, militant spread of fundamentalist Islam not just throughout the region and the Muslim world, but through the entire world.
In order understand the conflict in Iraq in the greater context of the conflict with fundamentalist Islam, several important factors must be accepted. These factors represent the true nature of the conflict that finally burst onto the public consciousness on 9-11, but has since faded as the fatigue of a long conflict has set in.
First, America must accept the fact that the so-called ‘War on Terror’ involves more than just dismantling al Qaeda and capturing Osama bin Laden. In fact, America must accept that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are really just the symptoms of a far larger problem, which is the rapid radicalization of large swaths of disenfranchised, predominantly young segments of the population of the Muslim world. This radicalization leads to the acceptance of the tenants of fundamentalist Islam, chief among which is war against anyone who is not fundamentalist Muslim.
Second, American must accept the fact that the conflict in Iraq, whatever its causes or justifications, ceased long ago to be about toppling the Baathist dictatorship there or finding weapons of mass destruction. The influx of foreign fighters, money, and materiel into Iraq from practically the moment the US first warned of possible military action should be enough to prove the fact that the conflict in Iraq was always larger than Iraq. Since then, consider that the current sectarian conflict in Iraq could not exist without foreign support- where do the Iraqis get the means to support such a large, well organized, and ongoing conflict? Obviously, from sources outside Iraq, thereby making the Iraq conflict at least a regional, if not global, conflict.
This second point leads to the third, namely that the conflict in Iraq is really the nexus of a far larger conflict for the control of the influence of the Muslim world. The conflict in Iraq has almost never been about Iraq as much as it has been about Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the Western influence of the Near East. Within that conflict lies the heart of the first point, which is whoever ultimately wins the conflict has the power to influence and control millions of radicalized Muslims either toward or away from fundamentalism and all the violence it brings.
So, while the liberal media, politicians, and the American people focus on the day to day, tactical realities of the particular conflict in Iraq, they ignore the larger and far more important facts that the conflict in Iraq represents. Further, as America inches closer to the failure in resolve that will result in America abandoning Iraq, it rushes headlong with the same failure toward handing the forces of fundamentalist Islam its first victory over the West.
While the tragedy of a premature American withdrawal from Iraq will condemn its people to likely decades more of tyranny and violence, that same withdrawal will condemn the world to an empowered threat from the forces of fundamentalist Islam. With America out of the way, the dueling forces of Shi’a and Sunni Islam will be able to vie for supremacy without interference.
When that conflict between the Shi’a and the Sunnis is resolved, no doubt at new conflict will emerge, likely landing America right back in Iraq as it is now forced to battle an enemy, now united and emboldened in its quest to subjugate the entire world to fundamentalist Islam.
Instead of following this tragic course, America must force itself to accept the facts of the conflict and dedicate itself to victory, simply because victory represents a crushing defeat to the forces arrayed in the wider conflict. A free, stable, democratic Iraq represents the worst kind of failure to the forces of fundamentalist Islam that seek to bring only tyranny to whomever they can bring under their sway.
Victory and defeat in this conflict lay on the razor’s edge now, and the deciding factor will be the resolve of the American people. The first step toward steadying that resolve is to look past the media to the facts, then accept those facts for what they are, and to focus on winning, because ultimately winning is the only acceptable option.
DLH
