The US and coalition presence in Iraq serves as a sort of flypaper or honeypot, attracting extremist Islamic militants from the region, but also as far as Europe and Northern Africa.
For anyone who has seen the statistics and media reports, the above sentence is almost indisputable. I will call that the “Flypaper fact”.
On top of this we have the “Flypaper theory”, which I will define as: By fighting terrorists in a country “over there”, we can avoid fighting them at home.
Separating out the fact and theory on this issue is important.
First two points on the “Flypaper fact”. Iraq, like Afghanistan in the 1980's, is a target of opportunity for the terrorists. It's not the only target, but it is the easiest one for them to enter and work within. The borders to Iraq are porous. Terrorists know they will find allies, weapons, training and financing once they are there. They know there will be a variety of hard and soft targets. They know it's the place they are most likely to find US military on patrol.
Secondly, due to its low entry cost, most (I'd guess upwards of 85%) of those terrorists entering Iraq are relatively untrained. They are Al Qaeda's cannon fodder. They are recruited, they enter Iraq, they are sent on suicide missions. A few of those untrained recruits (I'd guess 10%) will manage to leave Iraq as trained militants ready to take on future operations elsewhere. Most will die there as long as there is a strong security presence.
I believe that we do need to take on the terrorists “over there” so that we can win the long term war against terrorists. However, taking them on “over there” does not make us safer in the short term. Understanding the “flypaper fact” shows the two places where the “flypaper theory” breaks down.
First, assuming Iraq is a target of opportunity for many extremist jihadists, there are still groups of jihadists who will find targets of opportunity elsewhere. These are militants who are “homegrown” like those who bombed London or those who may be recruited in US prisons. For them, the target of opportunity is not Iraq, but rather the soft targets near where they live. They turn out to be Al Qaeda's cannon fodder here, rather than “over there.
Second, we face a problem in that most of the foreign fighters captured by the flypaper country are the lesser educated cannon fodder. The better educated middle and upper class recruits are the ones Al Qaeda and similar organizations identify for their “spectacular” attacks like 9/11. While these comprise a very small percentage of the terrorists, these are the ones the flypaper theory will fail to catch and who pose the greatest risk to a future attack here or in Europe.
As long as I'm grouping my thoughts into pairs, two final thoughts on this issue.
First, nobody should use the flypaper theory as a post-hoc justification for the war in Iraq. We did not go into Iraq to create a honeypot for terrorists and if anything it has made our long term job much more difficult. We have never and should never overthrow a government or occupy a country to create a battleground for terrorists. It's a side-effect of our military actions, not a justification. And with thousands of Iraqis and Americans killed and wounded, nobody should use rhetoric that views this as an opportunity. It should be viewed as a threat and a problem to be fixed as it is holding us back from creating a decent government in Iraq. Anyone who views this as an opportunity that should be encouraged and continued is sick.
Second, the “flypaper fact” is one we will need to consider if our military goes into other Muslim nations around the world, or if future religious conflicts begin to come to a boil (Nigeria and Thailand come to mind). There is no denying that groups of jihadist militants will use US presence or religious conflicts anywhere as a recruiting tool and a target for terror. All future military plans in the “war on terror” must take this into account as we move forward. Any politician, Democrat or Republican, who fails to plan for this scenario will have failed at his or her duty.
0 comments:
Post a Comment