By now we've all heard that the Bush administration had Iraq in its sights before 9/11. President Clinton reports that he advised the incoming Dubya that Al Qaeda was his number one security threat, and that Bush was mute on the topic. Bush's head of counter-terrorism Richard Clarke, according to a recent Vanity Fair piece, was asked 9/12/01 if the Iraqis were involved in the attacks. When he submitted his response-- essentially, "no"-- the memo was returned to him with the notation, "Please update and re-submit." Sorry Dick, wrong answer.

Ever since 9/11, we've been at war. But with whom, exactly? If you've swallowed the idiotic rhetoric of the president, you'd think it was "the terrorists." But I believe words are important, and a major part of the reason we are mis-handling the Middle East so badly is that the president doesn't know who the enemy is. Terrorism is not a group of people, not a nation, not an ethnicity, not an ideology. It is a military tactic. Saying we are at war with the terrorists is like if FDR went on the radio 12/8/41 (the day after Pearl Harbor-- you know, "a day that will live in infamy") and declared war on "airplanes and those that would fly them." Instead of, say, Japan.

Let me make it abundantly clear. Suppose the Wahhabis (the radical Islamic sect with whom we are actually at war; Saudi Arabia is a Wahhabi state) announced that they would eschew terrorism because they decided it was wrong, and from now on they would use Saudi oil money to recruit, arm, train, and maintain a traditional military force in order to attack the United States conventionally. Would we be rejoicing in the streets that we've won the war on terror? Or would we still have something of a problem? If you opted for the latter, congratulations! You now understand foreign policy better than the president.

If you really want to read how the house of Saud and the house of Wahhabi are one in the same, and how Saudi Arabia is the nexus of funding and ideology of anti-western terrorism, read Stephen Schwartz's The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Saud From Tradition to Terror. Or at least grab it off the shelf at Barnes & Noble, buy a latte, and skim it.

Labels: The politics