Iraq's Costs

AMERICA’S GREATEST BLUNDER

The Costs of the Iraq Invasion

Iraq’s second national election since the U.S. invasion in 2003 has prompted renewed public debate about the costs and benefits of George W. Bush’s most historic decision*.  Ultimately, this discussion revolves around one central question: How did the invasion influence the 9/11 War?

Each of the three U.S. administrations since the millennium has identified Al Qaeda as the superpower’s greatest foreign adversary.  Following the revelation of America’s nemesis in 2001, the U.S. public endorsed the 9/11 War as a legitimate initiative to address the apocalyptic threat posed by Osama bin Laden’s syndicate.  Essentially, the United States has faced two key challenges, (1) concluding a war with the high command based along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and (2) destroying the movement's ideological appeal so that the global network can be dismantled. 

To date, the superpower has achieved neither objective.  In fact, America’s most vital millennial mission now appears practically impossible because the Iraq invasion outraged the Muslim world and galvanized Al Qaeda’s anti-American insurgency, according to the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate.  The removal of Saddam Hussein's regime and the creation of a democracy in Iraq do not justify helping Bin Laden’s syndicate to become “as strong as ever”.  Amidst the many fire consequences of the invasion, such as:

• The millions of displaced Iraqis,
• The hundreds of thousands of dead civilians,
• The expansion of Iranian influence in the Middle East,
• The depletion of American resources, and
• The creation of Al Qaeda’s most murderous affiliate, “Al Qaeda in Iraq”,

the fortification of Bin Laden’s ideological base represents the greatest disaster spawned from Bush’s excursion to the world’s premier oil real estate.

Official estimates aside, we can perhaps best gauge the influence of this invasion on Al Qaeda by examining the central battlefield of the 9/11 War, the ideological front.  A wealth of persuasive evidence suggests that the Bush Administration actually fulfilled Al Qaeda’s primary goal for the 9/11 attack by launching the U.S. invasion of Iraq.  After years of Bin Laden’s propaganda efforts dedicated to depicting the United States as a crusading empire, the historic blunder in Iraq precisely vindicated Al Qaeda’s rationale for war against America through an apparent display of U.S. imperialism.  In addition to depleting America’s military, treasury and reputation, this watershed event has stoked support for Al Qaeda’s global insurgency against “the modern Rome”. 

Most ominously, Bush’s decision ignited a protracted military conflict on a pivotal battleground of the Apocalypse War that Al Qaeda seeks to vivify.  The Iraq War exists as a testament to Al Qaeda’s success at imitating the millennialist myth about the Muslim Messiah of the Apocalypse who defeats the Great Satan empire.  Since the Bush Administration created this Mesopotamian launching pad, Bin Laden’s millennialist cult is positioned to realize its dream of inciting a nuclear war that fulfills ancient prophecy by killing two-thirds of the world’s population.  Instead of understanding that Al Qaeda aspires to start a war that will kill most Muslims, these future victims have been blinded by anti-American sentiment and duped into abetting Bin Laden’s villainous enterprise through either direct support or impotent opposition.  Only by acknowledging that Bin Laden willfully incited the disastrous invasion of Iraq can America begin to achieve the central objective of the 9/11 War, terminating popular support for Al Qaeda.

*  Further Reading on the Costs and Benefits of the Iraq Invasion

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/opinion/10friedman.html

http://www.newsweek.com/id/234281

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/15/iraq-war-triumphalism-ignores-a-key-matter-dead-civilians/