[Mb-civic] Why Iraq Has Made Us Less Safe ... By Daniel Benjamin Time Magazine

[Michael Butler]

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    Why Iraq Has Made Us Less Safe ...
    By Daniel Benjamin
    Time Magazine

    18 July 2005 Issue

    Sir Ivor Roberts, Britain's Ambassador to Italy, declared last September
that the "best recruiting sergeant for al-Qaeda" was none other than the US
President, George W. Bush. With the American election entering its final
furlongs, he added, "If anyone is ready to celebrate the eventual
re-election of Bush, it is al-Qaeda." The remarks, made at an off-the-record
conference, were leaked in the Italian press, and Sir Ivor, facing the
displeasure of his Foreign Office masters for committing the sin of candor,
disowned the comments. But now, as the soot settles in the London
Underground, the words hang again in the air.

    It is, of course, bad manners to point the finger at anyone but those
responsible for the killings in London. They shed the blood; they must
answer for it. But as the trail of bodies that began with the first bombing
of the World Trade Center in 1993 continues to lengthen, we need to ask why
the attacks keep coming. One key reason is that Osama bin Laden's
"achievements" in standing up to the American colossus on 9/11 have inspired
others to follow his lead. Another is that American actions - above all, the
invasion and occupation of Iraq - have galvanized still more Muslims and
convinced them of the truth of bin Laden's vision.

    The conflict between radical Islam and the West, like all ideological
struggles, is about competing stories. The audience is the global community
of Muslims. America portrays itself as a benign and tolerant force that,
with its Western partners, holds the keys to progress and prosperity.
Radical Islamists declare that the universe is governed by a war between
believers and World Infidelity, which comes as an intruder into the realm of
Islam wearing various masks: secularism, Zionism, capitalism, globalization.
World Infidelity, they argue, is determined to occupy Muslim lands, usurp
Muslims' wealth and destroy Islam.

    Invading Iraq, however noble the US believed its intentions, provided
the best possible confirmation of the jihadist claims and spurred many of
Europe's alienated Muslims to adopt the Islamist cause as their own. The
evidence is available in the elaborate underground railroad that has brought
hundreds of European Muslims to the fight in Iraq. And the notion that the
West would enhance its security by occupying Iraq has proved utterly
illusory. Coalition forces in Iraq face daily attacks from jihadists not
because Saddam Hussein had trained a cadre of terrorists - we know there was
no pre-existing relationship between Baghdad and al-Qaeda - but because the
US invasion brought the targets into the proximity of the killers.

    Those who bombed the Madrid commuter lines last year were obsessed with
Iraq. They delighted in the videotape that showed Iraqis rejoicing alongside
the bodies of seven Spanish intelligence agents who were killed outside
Baghdad in November 2003; they spoke of the need to punish Spain (their
adoptive country) for supporting America; they recruited others to fight in
the insurgency. They began work on their plot the day after hearing an
audiotaped bin Laden threaten "all the countries that participate in this
unjust war [in Iraq] - especially Britain, Spain, Australia, Poland, Japan
and Italy." It had been the first time Spain had been mentioned in an
al-Qaeda hit list.

    We may learn that the London bombers were, like the Madrid crew, a bunch
of self-starter terrorists with few or no ties to bin Laden. US and partner
intelligence services have done such a good job running to ground members of
the original group that there may be no connection with the remnants of
al-Qaeda's command on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. We may also learn
that the killers belong to a network being built by Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi,
who has emerged in Iraq as bin Laden's heir apparent.

    Or we may find that the bombings were engineered by returnees from Iraq.
Muslims from Britain, France, Germany and elsewhere - along with several
thousand from Arab countries - have traveled to Iraq to fight in what has
become a theater of inspiration for the jihadist drama of faith. A handful
are known to have trickled back to Europe already. Western intelligence
services fear that more are on the way and will pose a bigger danger than
the returnees from Afghanistan in the 1980s and '90s, the global jihad's
first generation of terrorists. The anxiety is justified; the fighters in
Iraq are, as the CIA has observed, getting better on-the-job training than
was available in al-Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan.

    Britain has been on al-Qaeda's target list since the group's earliest
days in the 1990s; the country's appointment with terror was ensured. But
now, because of the invasion of Iraq, it faces a longer and bloodier
confrontation with radical Islam, as does the US America has shown itself to
be good at hunting terrorists. Unfortunately, by occupying Iraq, it has
become even better at creating them.

    Benjamin is co-author of The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on
Terror and a Strategy for Getting It Right, to be published this fall.