So, the president has released a portion of an intelligence estimate that essentially proves what those of us opposed to the war have been saying since it began — i.e., that the war would be a magnet for new terrorists and that it would further enflame regional anger agains the United States.
The report is pretty explicit:
The Iraq conflict has become the .cause celebre. for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.
And yet the president still seems to believe that the war was an important front in the war against terror. His response, as Robert Scheer points out,
to the leaked conclusions of the shared assessments of both civilian and military intelligence agencies was the same old historically ignorant claptrap that leaves U.S. policies completely out of the equation.
As Dan Froomkin, who writes the White House Briefing column for The Washington Post, points out today: “President Bush’s all-important terror-fighting credentials are taking a bruising this week,” due in no small part to the report and to the Clinton TV appearance on Sunday.
This maybe true — and well-deserved — but I’m not convinced that the “bruising” is resonating with the public. I think it is likely, however, that the president’s fear tactics (see tomorrow’s Dispatches in the South Brunswick Post) will work — to the detriment of all.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Hank Kalet 