Iraq is the Battlefield

By Jon Kyl "Ayman al Zawahiri and George W. Bush don't agree on much," the Wall Street Journal noted in a recent editorial. "But al Qaeda's No. 2 leader and the U.S. President are in accord on one thing: Iraq is the central battlefield." People of good faith will argue for a long time about the wisdom of invading Iraq in 2003. Given Saddam Hussein's history of aggression and support for international terrorism, I believe he had to be removed, and that it was better to do so before international sanctions had deteriorated to the point that he was able to substantially re-arm. But either way, now that we are deeply committed, it is critical that we see the mission through to completion - that is, the establishment of a stable, representative Iraqi government that provides for its own security and poses no threat to its neighbors. An extraordinary letter Zawahiri wrote to Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi - intercepted and recently released - makes abundantly clear that al Qaeda views Iraq as only an initial battle to be won. "The goal," describes the Journal, "is a fundamentalist Islamic regime that begins in Iraq, extends into the neighboring secular nations of the region, assaults Israel and moves on from there. Just because the U.S. might decide to pull out of Iraq hardly means that al Qaeda will stop trying to kill Americans." Fortunately, thanks to the dogged efforts of U.S. troops and our allies, Zawahiri is hardly operating from a position of strength. Thought to be in hiding in the mountains of Pakistan, he complains in the letter of relentless pursuit, laments the capture of high-level al Qaeda leaders, and asks Zarqawi to send him $100,000. Even so, Zawahiri's fanatical dedication to the destruction of the United States and the freedom and democracy we represent is shared by thousands of violent Islamist fundamentalists around the world. Many have slipped into Iraq to join the insurgency; others - along with millions of poor and disaffected around the world who are vulnerable to the attractions of extremism - are surely watching what happens there. In the face of this reality, those who would have us withdraw prematurely from Iraq face the burden of explaining how such a move would not play directly into the hands of America's mortal enemies, who seek not only our defeat but our annihilation. Even pressure for a strict timetable for withdrawal demoralizes the nascent Iraqi government and people, and encourages insurgents clinging to the notion that they can simply wait us out. Terrorists are only emboldened by their tactical victories; their strikes against the U.S. in Beirut, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, East Africa, and the U.S.S. Cole culminated in the attacks of September 11, 2001. The consequences of quitting Iraq short of victory would be cataclysmic. Set aside the fact that it would almost certainly fall into civil war, with terrible bloodletting and the creation of significant new terrorist havens, like Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban. As bad as our defeat in Vietnam was, no one seriously considered the Viet Cong a direct threat to the American homeland. The terrorists now fighting our troops in Iraq are different: They would like nothing better than to move their operations back to the United States itself. Again, this is not a matter of speculation - it's already happened. A terrorist victory in Iraq would embolden violent political extremists everywhere. The failure of democracy would extinguish hopes throughout the region and set back progress around the world. If the American public loses the stomach for this fight, it will validate the terrorists' strategy - most famously articulated by Osama bin Laden, who called us a "weak horse" - and encourage more attacks. "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you," Leon Trotsky famously observed on the eve of the Russian Revolution. Terrorists are going to fight us whether we fight them or not. Better to accommodate them. Senator Kyl serves on the Senate Finance and Judiciary committees and chairs the Senate Republican Policy Committee.