Not Bungled -- if empowering Iran was the intention

Submitted by GWK (United States), Apr 7, 2009 at 10:30

Kevin -- Your analysis is very credible. It merits consideration and stands as a premise that under certain circumstances preventive actions are preferable to appeasement. But your title suggests you intended to articulate another point.

On 9/11 (and in Kenya and Tanzania and Yemen and Saudi Arabia before then), the US was attacked by Al Qaida and Saudi and Yemeni operators funded primarily by Usama bin Laden. They all had been in the USA and knew how to use our system to our detriment. The USA empowered the muj's in Afghanistan long ago and they had to realize that it was time to defeat them. By bungling the operation at Tora Bora early in December 2001, we allowed UBL to escape and continue to sow seeds for islamist jihad. That threat clearly deserved to be defeated and it wasn't. Instead, the neocons under Bush Cheney dismissed the real motor behind global jihad, and diverted precious diplomatic goodwill and resources to undermine a functional balance of power between Iraq, Iran, SA, and Turkey, and the moderate and secular Muslims all around the world.

So the allusion used by many that someone in 2002 was the equivalent to Hitler misses the mark. Who? UBL? A'jad (who Bush helped push into power by inappropriate comments in 2002 about his imaginary "Axis of Evil")? Kim Song? Saudi Arabia? Bin Laden? Zawahiri? Who?

A good military leader knows his enemies and his allies and chews only what he knows he can digest. And over-reaching is the #1 reason larger powers lose wars to smaller powers.

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