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October 1, 2005
Winning
Strategypage has an important article on winning the Terror Wars. The article points out the number of Islamist/jihadi insurgencies defeated recently, and notes that another jihadi campaign is about to join those earlier defeats:
The war in Iraq and Afghanistan has taken the battle to the heart of those regions that supply the leaders, and foot soldiers, for Islamic terrorism. In Iraq, this revived a civil war that had been flaring up periodically for decades. This time, the Sunni Arab minority were not able to crush the Kurds and Shia Arabs who comprise 80 percent of the population. Aided by Islamic radicals who want to establish a religious dictatorship, the Sunni Arabs have been losing rather visibly. The towns and neighborhoods where the Sunni Arabs could operate openly have been shrinking over the last year. Over the last few months, the number of terror attacks has gone down as well.
Finally, though, and most importantly, the article cuts straight to the heart of why I believe invading and democratizing Iraq was necessary, and why it may be necessary to invade any or all of Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia as well over the next decade or so:
On a wider scale, the Islamic terrorism is a response to tyranny and self-delusion in the Arab world. Islamic terrorists fight the former, and embrace the latter. But both the acceptance of tyranny, and fondness for self-delusion, are still problems in the Moslem, especially the Arab, world. Until those two self-defeating habits are overcome, unrest in the Moslem world will continue. The invasion of Iraq kick started the process, removing the local tyrant, and forcing all Iraqis to confront the delusions that have led them to defeat after defeat over the last half century. The Islamic terrorists can be beaten down in the short term. That’s been done a lot of late. But unless the bad habits are changed, the terrorists will keep coming back. [Emphasis mine - JKM]
It is this argument that the "anti-war" folks tend to avoid, and that the anti-tyranny forces need to make more often and more forcefully in public fora.
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