The Redhunter

A Strategic Victory

In another Washington Post story ouCIA Director Michael V. Hayden outlines the larger implications

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden now portrays the terrorist movement as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world, including in its presumed haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In a strikingly upbeat assessment, the CIA chief cited major gains against al-Qaeda's allies in the Middle East and an increasingly successful campaign to destabilize the group's core leadership.

While cautioning that al-Qaeda remains a serious threat, Hayden said Osama bin Laden is losing the battle for hearts and minds in the Islamic world and has largely forfeited his ability to exploit the Iraq war to recruit adherents. Two years ago, a CIA study concluded that the U.S.-led war had become a propaganda and marketing bonanza for al-Qaeda, generating cash donations and legions of volunteers.

All that has changed, Hayden said in an interview with The Washington Post this week that coincided with the start of his third year at the helm of the CIA.

"On balance, we are doing pretty well," he said, ticking down a list of accomplishments: "Near strategic defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Near strategic defeat for al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Significant setbacks for al-Qaeda globally -- and here I'm going to use the word 'ideologically' -- as a lot of the Islamic world pushes back on their form of Islam," he said.

The sense of shifting tides in the terrorism fight is shared by a number of terrorism experts, though some caution that it is too early to tell whether the gains are permanent. Some credit Hayden and other U.S. intelligence leaders for going on the offensive against al-Qaeda in the area along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where the tempo of Predator strikes has dramatically increased from previous years. But analysts say the United States has caught some breaks in the past year, benefiting from improved conditions in Iraq, as well as strategic blunders by al-Qaeda that have cut into its support base.

"benefited from improved conditions in Iraq" And how did that occur? Not, as Speaker Pelosi says, because of the good graces of Iraq, but because of the surge. It was the right thing to do and it worked.

The Domestic Political Implications

Obama is to wedded to the leftist mantra that we've lost in Iraq and that nothing can salvage the situation. Since the forced exit of the last hawkish Democrat, Senator Joe Lieberman, I don't think there are any members of his party left to whom Obama could turn to for support should he decide on a "plan for success." The entire Democrat party is too tied to the Movon.org and Daily Kos version of events.

The Republican Bush Administration may have screwed up the war in it's early stages, but Senator McCain can claim to have recognized this early on and called for changes. Obama opposed the war from the start, something he trumpets on the campaign trail. Now that the evidence of both military and political success are impossible to ignore, he is reduced to claiming that a trip to Iraq would be a "stunt". The truth, as everyone knows, is that Petraeus and his generals will present him with so much evidence of success that denial will make him look silly.

In short, if current trends continue, McCain will look better but Obama will have some 'splaining to do.

What it All Means

The Wall Street Journal summed it up nicely

Zawahiri himself last month repeated his claim that (Iraq) "is now the most important arena in which our Muslim nation is waging the battle against the forces of the Crusader-Zionist campaign." So it's all the more significant that on this crucial battleground, al Qaeda has been decimated by the surge of U.S. forces into Baghdad. The surge, in turn, gave confidence to the Sunni tribes that this was a fight they could win. For Zawahiri, losing the battles you say you need to win is not a way to collect new recruits.

General Hayden was careful to say the threat continues, and he warned specifically about those in Congress and the media who "[focus] less on the threat and more on the tactics the nation has chosen to deal with the threat." This refers to the political campaign to restrict wiretapping and aggressive interrogation, both of which the CIA director says have been crucial to gathering intelligence that has blocked further terrorist spectaculars that would have burnished al Qaeda's prestige.

One irony here is that Barack Obama is promising a rapid withdrawal from Iraq on grounds that we can't defeat al Qaeda unless we focus on Afghanistan. He opposed the Iraq surge on similar grounds. Yet it is the surge, and the destruction of al Qaeda in Iraq, that has helped to demoralize al Qaeda around the world. Nothing would more embolden Zawahiri now than a U.S. retreat from Iraq, which al Qaeda would see as the U.S. version of the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan.

Those who claim that Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror miss these last points entirely. Winning in Iraq helps defeat al Qaeda around the world, whereby a cut-and-run would embolden them around the world. This is why a victory in Iraq constitutes a strategic defeat for al Qaeda, and not just a tactical setback in one place. Likewise, it would be a strategic victory for us, and not just a tactical achievement in one place with no larger meaning.