Lawrence Wright: Al Qaeda was dying. Iraq brought it back to life.

[BurtWorm]

Author of The Looming Tower. This essay comes courtesy of Abu Aardvark:



Underestimating al-Qaeda
Lawrence Wright

I think it's a terrible mistake to discount al-Qaeda's operational abilities, now and in the future.

If you read the accounts of al-Qaeda insiders, the war on terror was essentially over in December 2001, after U.S. and Coalition forces swept aside the Taliban and pummeled al-Qaeda. According to al-Qaeda's own inner circle, 80% of its members were captured or killed. Yes, the leaders escaped, but they were scattered, destitute, and unable to communicate with each other. The organization lived a kind of zombie existence, neither dead nor fully alive.

Iraq brought it back to life.

Al-Qaeda now has four major branches: Europe, Iraq, North Africa, and the old mother ship. Obviously, most of AQ's effort is in Iraq, but when the U.S. inevitably begins to withdraw from that country, AQ will be able to boast of an extraordinary victory over the last remaining superpower. The jihadis who went to Iraq will begin to return to their own countries, empowering the local cells, which have been proliferating in the Arab world and the west and which have only lacked a degree of high-level training to make them really lethal. These veterans, with their experience, their networks, and their resolve will become leaders of this new generation of jihadis. There is every reason to expect that they will be as cunning and dangerous as their predecessors, if not moreso.

Nor is the old AQ inoperable. Clearly, the leadership, bin Laden and Zawahiri, are able to direct their followers through their very active media organization, al-Sahab. The loss of their sanctuary in Afghanistan proved to be a temporary inconvenience; now AQ enjoys training facilities in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, the Sunni provinces of Iraq, in Mali, and probably still in Afghanistan and Somalia....

[Tin Man]

1. Absolutely. Bush has played right into Bin Laden's hand.

...and will continue to do so as long as we remain in Iraq.

[patrice]

2. Iraq? or the Invasion of Iraq? n/t

[BurtWorm]

4. The invasion, I'm certain.

In other words, the chaos that Bushism unleashed there was the perfect medium in which al Qaeda could be kept alive. That's how I interpret it, anyway.

[Hobarticus]

3. I've often wondered about this....

What could have been accomplished if we'd just stayed in Afghanistan? Sad to think....

[CJCRANE]

5. I knew something was up

when there was a report that the military had Mullah Omar in their sights but never got the order in time to take him out.

The when Osama conveniently skedaddled over the border that sealed it for me.

The neocons obviously need al-Qaeda to continue to justify continuing the GWOT.

[Jim Warren]

6. It could be argued this was the plan

A colleague of mine from the ME has quipped to me a common sentiment in the region is a thousand Osamas were born in March of 2003.

[TwilightZone]

7. I guess that makes it Operation Resuscitation

There is no question that the invasion of Iraq was a huge boost to the recruiting power of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. It gave them a rallying point.

Why can people not see that?