It's interesting that the White House has offered a direct response to Edwards' challenge to the Global War on Terror Framing. I'm not going to get into the primary feint of the response, which is an attempt to conflate the Bush administration's record on preventing attacks by al-Qaeda with their linguistic approach, but it is worth examining the actual contention, that the lack of domestic terror attacks is "the result of a persistent, relentless, focused, and successful effort to break up terrorist cells, to arrest jihadists, and to deliver massive blows against terrorist networks and hideouts and nations that harbor them."
In Foreign Affairs this month, CIA veteran and terrorist expert Bruce Riedl has a chilling assessment of al Qaeda's improving status. "Thanks largely to Washington's eagerness to go into Iraq rather than concentrate on hunting down al Qaeda's leaders," writes Riedl, "the organization now has a solid base of operations in the badlands of Pakistan and an effective franchise in western Iraq. Its reach has spread throughout the Muslim world, where it has developed a large cadre of operatives, and in Europe, where it can claim the support of some disenfranchised Muslim locals and members of the Arab and Asian diasporas. Osama bin Laden has mounted a successful propaganda campaign to make himself and his movement the primary symbols of Islamic resistance worldwide. His ideas now attract more followers than ever."
And the key here is Iraq. As always, the key is Iraq. What notable in the White House's response to Edwards is that Iraq figures in only as a task, never as a victory. The positive developments are entirely contained to direct actions taken against al Qaeda. But it's worse than that. As Riedl explains, "In Iraq, Zarqawi adopted a two-pronged strategy to alienate U.S. allies and destabilize the country. He sought to isolate U.S. forces by driving out all other foreign forces with systematic terrorist attacks, most notably the bombings of the United Nations headquarters and the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad in the summer of 2003. More important, he focused on the fault line in Iraqi society—the divide between Sunnis and Shiites—with the goal of precipitating a civil war. He launched a series of attacks on the Shiite leadership, holy Shiite sites, and Shiite men and women on the street...Even by the ruthless standards of al Qaeda, Zarqawi excelled."
That success was predictable. Entering Iraq allowed al Qaeda to engage us asymmetrically, highlighting their strengths while degrading ours. Given that enduring chaos counts as a win for them while only sustained stability would enhance our position, it was an impossible task from the start. But the loss has consequences: In propaganda, and in prestige, and in terrorist recruitment, and in funding. The difference between the Global War on Terror and a war against al Qaeda is Iraq. The reason the GWOT framing has been so pernicious is that it enabled Iraq, which substantively and massively harmed the fight against al Qaeda. And, unintentional though it may be, the White House's glancing, understated treatment of their central initiative in the war on terror in the document recounting their successes rather proves the point.
