Iraq as the Front - A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Early this morning, Andrew Sullivan says, "To put it bluntly, I don't believe Iraq is a 'diversion' from the war on terror; I believe it's the central front."

He's agreeing with Tony Blair, but I think he and Blair are dead wrong about that. Iraq *was* a diversion, but *now*, it's the front. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. We went there, so the terrorists came. If we'd stayed focused on Afghanistan, that would be the front. It's like living in the Surreal World to hear people say Iraq is "the central front" as if it had to be, when none of the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 came from Iraq, Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with it, etc--this is all heavily trodden territory and Sullivan should know better than to revisit it.

Why can't The Right be honest about Iraq? Why don't they just say, "No Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, you're right. And Iraq wasn't really a threat to the United States, no. But, dang, we didn't like Saddam and we shoulda finished the job back in the early 90s, so 9/11 just greased the way to that end. And we sure as hell wanted to scare the shit out of folks by creating a democracy smack-dab in the middle of the Middle East. That'll keep 'em in line!" At least that would've been an honest answer. And we could've had an honest debate about whether that were possible and, you know, shouldn't we finish putting things back together in Afghanistan first? And couldn't *that country* be an example of the good the United States can do in the world?

Sullivan quotes Blair:

"They are not provoked by our actions; but by our existence. They [the terrorists] are in Iraq for the very reason we should be. They have chosen this battleground because they know success for us in Iraq is not success for America or Britain or even Iraq itself but for the values and way of life that democracy represents."

Rubbish. In fact, I think this statement by Blair borders on intellectual dishonesty. No, Tony, they're there because we drew them there. They'd be in Afghanistan if we'd limited the war to there. Blair's being disingenuous. "They've chosen this battleground because they know success for us . . . is success ... for the values and way of life that democracy represents." That's just a more eloquent way of repeating Bush's asinine matra, "They hate our freedom." More eloquent, but it's still simplistic. They didn't choose the battleground in Iraq. We did.

And it's a massive oversimplification for Sullivan to say that "it's extremely hard to support Kerry," as if he's going to throw in the towel on the war on terror, just because he disagrees with the war in Iraq--as many of us do--and much more strongly than Kerry does I might add. We (most of us) who were against going to Iraq understand that the work has to be finished there now. We're not simpletons and our thoughts can't be reduced that easily.

I wish Sullivan wouldn't oversimplify things like that. I'd hate for him to turn into another Chris Hitchens--a man/writer I had much admired, who's now been reduced to a twitching, stimulus/response killer app for the Bush administration.