What Terrorists?

They’re at it again. Reality-challenged conservatives are discussing our Iraq policy in terms of terrorists instead of insurgents. Ignoring consensus, conservative pundits spent weekend TV appearances insisting that the ongoing violence in Baghdad stems from foreign-born Al Qaeda fanatics instead of disaffected Iraqis.

This fiction serves the ultimate aim of keeping our forces in Iraq into the foreseeable future despite the fact that we are failing by almost every measure—security, stability, rebuilding and fence-mending.

The logic goes like this: If we set a timetable for withdrawal, the terrorists will simply wait until we're gone to take over the country and rejoice at their victory over the weak Americans.

But this logic rests on the flawed assumption that terrorists are responsible for the bulk of the violence in Iraq. The truth is, the vast majority of people doing the killing in Iraq are Iraqis. They're getting even for past grievances, projecting tribal power into the vacuum of actual power caused by an ineffective and quarreling coalition government, and lashing out at Americans they consider to be invaders.

The small Al Qaeda faction in Iraq actually owes its existence to our military presence. Once we leave, their rallying principle, the war against Western infidels, evaporates. They want us to stay so they can continue recruiting a new generation to replace the one destroyed in Afghanistan and to stoke the flames of theocratic hate and division. Our departure will turn the spotlight on them—also unwanted foreign invaders—and the people of Iraq will eventually kick them out, too.

So what does happen when we leave? Chaos and bloodshed, but not from Al Qaeda terrorists. From religio-ethnic tribal factions struggling for power. The magnitude of that violence will be a function of one thing—the ability of moderate Iraqis and their government to come together and reject widespread civil war.

Until we leave, we enable Iraqis to put off that ultimate reckoning. And meanwhile, Iraq slips further toward chaos and civil war anyway. So the sooner we leave, the greater the stability and energy remaining for Iraqis to face their future. The longer we stay, the more depleted and ravaged the country they must claim and revitalize on their own.

If we truly believe in freedom and responsibility, we should set a timetable for gradual withdrawal to force Iraqis to embrace both. Until then, Iraqis will not have true freedom, but will have our presence as an excuse to avoid the difficult and dangerous choices responsibility requires.

At this point, staying in Iraq only postpones the inevitable, at tremendous and tragic cost to us. But until conservatives admit that terrorists are not the problem in Iraq, we'll keep paying.

- JT Compton