In order to fight Islamic fundamentalism outside of the United States, we needed to gain a foothold in the region.

We did start in Afghanistan to hunt down Al Qaeda (and for reasons unknown, many americans still believe that the War on Terror is only a war against Al Qaeda). It is tough to use this as a base for operations in the Middle East as it is merely on the edge and we want a more centralized location.

So we had Afghanistan and Pakistan on our side at the moment. Remember the axis of evil? Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq border Iran. I think that we took Iraq first as a way to pressure Iran while gaining an important position at the crossroads of the Middle East and also attempting to secure Iraqs WMD programs. We also took out a brutal regime led by an imperial fascist (Mr. Hussein wanted to rule all of the Middle East).

I think that Iraq was supposed to be a “magnet” for the terrorists and this wouldnt catch as well in Afghanistan which is very mountainous. So we have all of these terrorists pouring in to fight us in Iraq. The think is that when people like John Kerry say it was a distraction from the War on Terror, they couldn’t be more wrong. It is actually the main theater right now. We chose where to battle and the jihadists followed. It is certainly a distraction for their “War on America” and take it that they would rather spend more resources defending what they consider Muslim soil against infidels than planning to attack our increasingly more secure homeland.

And one more thing: those who still think that not catching OBL amounts to us losing the War just to get it, they still think it is a police action.

Overall, I think that it is a pretty good strategy. I may have not explained it well enough, but I think that it is good.

Barnett’s essay deals with many of the issues in both your discussion, and the belmontclub.blogspot.com discussion I linked to above.

Thanks again for an excellent read.

Also check out an interesting discussion on the same topic at belmontclub.blogspot.com.

This is a far deeper topic than most Kerry-boppers are prepared to understand.