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How democratization of the Moslem world could make jihadists more dangerous
Thomas Friedman thinks that we may be in the process of defeating the terrorists and jihadists in Iraq, but that this may actually put our country more at risk. Here is his logic. Following the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the jihadists and Ba’athists put all their available resources into defeating us there, and that is why there have been no terrorist attacks in America—or even, apparently, any attempted attacks—these last couple of years, despite President Bush’s refusal to institute effective domestic security measures against U.S. jihad supporters, and the country’s continuing, appalling vulnerability to terrorism. But if the jihadists come to feel that they have lost in Iraq, because of the establishment of an elected government there (a doubtful proposition as I’ve argued repeatedly, since the existence of a government by itself does nothing to defeat the insurgency), then they will turn their mass murdering attentions back toward America.
To put Friedman’s idea in terms of jihadist strategy as discussed by me last year at FrontPage Magazine, one of the three “Methods of Muhammad,” aimed at the ultimate goal of establishing a world-wide caliphate, is “to fight the Near Enemy prior to fighting the Far Enemy. The Near Enemy is anyone inside Islamic lands, whether it is an occupier or someone who has taken away territory that used to be Islamic.” But if the jihadists feel they can no longer wage jihad effectively against the Near Enemy, which in this case is the U.S. forces supporting the new Iraqi government, they will wage war against the Far Enemy, which in this case is the U.S. homeland. Email entry |