Amir Taheri writes today in the London Times,
and as usual, his column is a must read:
"Moments after yesterday’s
attacks my telephone was buzzing with requests for interviews with one recurring
question: but what do they want? That reminded me of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch
film-maker, who was shot by an Islamist assassin on his way to work in Amsterdam
last November. According to witnesses, Van Gogh begged for mercy and tried to
reason with his assailant. “Surely we can discuss this,” he kept
saying as the shots kept coming. “Let us talk it over.”
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Van Gogh, who had angered Islamists
with his documentary about the mistreatment of women in Islam, was reacting like
BBC reporters did yesterday, assuming that the man who was killing him may have
some reasonable demands which could be discussed in a calm, democratic
atmosphere."
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The goal of the Islamist movement is precisely
what it claims for itself, and it has only peripherally to do with Iraq,
Afghanistan or even Palestine. On the contrary, it has very much to do with you,
gentle reader:
"(T)his enemy does want something
specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make
round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill
you."
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Which I believe is important, as difficulties on
the battlefield lead to doubt at home, to remember. Taheri also points out that
while the Islamists are waging a strategic battle for domination, most of us in
the West are focusing on a tactical-level campaign: How to stop the next attack
or how to manage and minimize the consequences. The result of this failure to
see the forest for the trees is that some people continue to argue that Iraq is
a distraction from the GWOT. They either cannot believe or simply fail to grasp
what Bush, Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice have repeatedly told us: The campaign in
Iraq is explicitly designed as a strategic blow at the heart of Islamist terror
- a democratic, functioning Iraq presents the tortured masses of the Mideast
with a bourgeois alternative to Bin Laden's airy vaporings about the austere
glories of the coming caliphate. This administration knows that the people will
grasp for that alternative, if given half a chance. The only thing that stands
between them and the simple yearning for human freedom are those who, once
again, want to take full control of every aspect of their lives, and dictate
every single move they make. They'd rather kill Iraqis, than offer them a
choice. And they feel even more strongly about you:
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"How to achieve those objectives has
been the subject of much debate in Islamist circles throughout the world,
including in London, since 9/11. Bin Laden has consistently argued in favour of
further ghazavat (raids) inside the West. He firmly believes that the West is
too cowardly to fight back and, if terrorised in a big way, will do “what
it must do”. That view was strengthened last year when al-Qaeda changed
the Spanish Government with its deadly attack in Madrid. At the time bin Laden
used his “Madrid victory” to call on other European countries to
distance themselves from the United States or face similar
“punishment”.
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Bin Laden’s view has been
challenged by his supposed No 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who insists that the
Islamists should first win the war inside several vulnerable Muslim countries,
notably Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Until yesterday it seemed
that al-Zawahiri was winning the argument, especially by heating things up in
Afghanistan and Iraq. Yesterday, the bin Laden doctrine struck back in
London."
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But the fight goes on in Iraq too - a two-front
war then: There and here. I'm surprised it took this long.
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