Zawahiri Backs Bush

Bush and al-Qaeda sitting in the tree:

“This bill will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in a historic trap,” al-Zawahri said, according to a transcript released by the monitoring group SITE. The bill is evidence of American “failure and frustration,” he added.

“We ask Allah that they (U.S. troops) only get out of it after losing 200,000 to 300,000 killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in Washington and Europe an unforgettable lesson,” he said.

For the sake of intellectual honesty and consistency, let's note that one can conclude nothing whatsoever from the mere fact that Zawahiri is saying this. Mass murderers are also known to lie and even to make analytical errors. That Zawahiri says he wants us to stay is not, as such, a reason to leave any more than Zawahiri saying the reverse would be a reason to stay. Nevertheless, the reality is that Zawahiri's stated analysis makes sense. The US troop presence in Iraq is enormously costly to the United States in a whole bunch of ways, and it's a "good issue" for al-Qaeda; one that presents a fundamentally favorable context in which for al-Qaeda to attack Americans.

Comments

What is vero?

Posted by Freddie | May 7, 2007 9:29 AM

The WSJ front page says something like:
"Al Qaeda chief cites House bill for withdrawal as proof of US defeat."

Good thing they got the memo.

Posted by vermont | May 7, 2007 9:32 AM

The Iraq war is a Pyrrhic victory for the Arab world. The US military is tired, but Iraq is ruined for the next 20 or 30 years.

If Al Qaeda has many more victories like this, there will not be any healthy stable country left in the Middle East.

Posted by anon | May 7, 2007 10:18 AM

Editing the subject of this post has rendered my previous comment nonsensical.

Posted by Freddie | May 7, 2007 10:22 AM

If Al Qaeda has many more victories like this, there will not be any healthy stable country left in the Middle East.

...which has explicitly been the point of the whole exercise, at least according to Osama Bin Laden.

Posted by me2i81 | May 7, 2007 10:37 AM

Anarchy and fueled hatred only helps terrorist groups. This is why Al-Qaeda wanted us to over-react and do something like attack Iraq.

Posted by Reality Man | May 7, 2007 10:44 AM

If Al Qaeda has many more victories like this, there will not be any healthy stable country left in the Middle East.

Um, yeah? That kind of has been the point all along. bin Laden's been ranting and raving about US-backed secular dictatorships in the Middle East for years - it's why he moved to Afghanistan and funded al Qaeda with his family's money in the first place.

Bin Laden's vision for the region has been to topple the corrupt secular dictatorships that run the countries there and replace them with rule by Islamic courts (run by Sunni Wahabbiists, of course). He would have gotten to Iraq eventually if we hadn't done his work for him (probably after he tried to topple the Saudi Royal family, though).

Posted by NonyNony | May 7, 2007 10:50 AM

There's plenty of "documentary evidence" that Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore, Harry Reid, etc. considered Saddam Hussein a grave threat -- at least that's what they repeatedly said, in televised speeches designed to burnish their hawkish credentials. They either agreed with Bush initially on Iraq, or pretended to do so for political reasons. Either way, Bush couldn't have launched the Iraq war without them -- and couldn't have kept it going without their continued funding of it.

Those are facts. You can choose to ignore them if it suits you but that doesn't make them go away.

Posted by Fred | May 7, 2007 1:16 PM

I know that Al Qaeda has this fantasy of a new caliphate replacing all the secular Arab states.

What kind of Caliphate the extremists want? Is it a new Ottoman empire, with maybe Saudi Arabia at its' center?

I don't see that starting up in Iraq, since it is majority shia. An Iranian style theocracy might happen, with Islamic courts holding the final say on most policy and legal matters. But Al Qaeda isn't crazy about Shia either.

Posted by anon | May 7, 2007 1:30 PM

Those are facts. You can choose to ignore them if it suits you but that doesn't make them go away.

Those are indeed facts. They seem to be the last, or maybe only facts, the Bush Administration is willing to listen to. None of the above pledged undying loyalty to follow George W. Bush into the abyss. At least not that I can recall.

Posted by Pug | May 7, 2007 1:32 PM

*What kind of Caliphate do the extremists want?

Sorry for the bad grammar and spelling.

Anyway, a Shia theocracy in a ruined Iraq basically gets Al Qaeda what exactly?

Posted by anon | May 7, 2007 1:34 PM

Zawahiri's comment is a mirror image of Bush's 'bring 'em on'.

There is already a Sunni theocracy in Iraq.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq

Iraq was the core of the Caliphate, and Baghdad the capital, under the Abbasid dynasty.

Posted by David Tomlin | May 7, 2007 2:53 PM

Fred:

There's plenty of "documentary evidence" that Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore, Harry Reid, etc. considered Saddam Hussein a grave threat -- at least that's what they repeatedly said, in televised speeches designed to burnish their hawkish credentials. They either agreed with Bush initially on Iraq, or pretended to do so for political reasons.

True, though I must admit Reid was below my radar screen.

Either way, Bush couldn't have launched the Iraq war without them --

Of course he could have. All recent presidents, since Truman I think, have claimed that Congressional approval is a needless formality. If Bush had ordered the military to war on his own authority they would have obeyed, as they did when Truman sent them to Korea.

At this point I have to wonder why Gore is on the list. He wasn't in the Senate at the time, and spoke against going to war at that time.

http://tinylink.com/?n3PFkUcAPR

The Iraq war resolution didn't actually need the votes of those three senators. The vote was 77 to 23.

. . . and couldn't have kept it going without their continued funding of it.

I haven't checked, but I doubt the funding bills would have failed for lack of three votes.

Those are facts.

Some are and some aren't, as noted.

You can choose to ignore them if it suits you . . .

I'm sincerely puzzled over what this refers to. Do you mean MY or someone else? What, specifically, has someone said to indicate they are ignoring these points?

Posted by David Tomlin | May 7, 2007 3:19 PM

Iraq is Al-Qaeda's Vietnam. They can't win and they can't leave. Meanwhile, Iran and Saudi Arabia are spending all their terrrorism earmarked dollars in the Middle East killing their fellow believers.

Posted by danceswithgoats | May 7, 2007 4:31 PM