Years Later 10
More than 40 airplanes enroute to the U.S. were diverted to Nova Scotia on Sept. 11, 2001.
[ THE CONFLICTS THAT FOLLOWED ]
The Right Wars, the Wrong Outcome?
By Frank Gaffney I
SUPPORTED U.S. MILITARY INTERVEN- tions to roust our enemies from Afghanistan and Iraq in the after-
math of the 9/11 attacks. I continue to believe that those were the right policies — although I have disagreed with some of the impor- tant particulars of how they were executed. Sadly,
thanks
Frank Gaff ney is founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, a non- partisan educational corporation based in Washington, D.C. He hosts Secure Freedom Radio, and is publisher and co-author of Shariah: The Threat to America.
to
past mistakes and oth- ers still being made a decade on, I fear we risk squandering what we have achieved at great sacrifi ce in both blood and treasure. Whether history ultimately views those wars as necessary, prudent, and effective responses to the jihad
unleashed against us may well hinge on what happens next.
Will the Taliban return to power in Afghanistan? Will Iran come to dominate Iraq, thereby hugely advancing Tehran’s ambitions for regional hegemony?
Can Iraq still evolve into a dem- ocratic, stable and pro-Western oasis in an Arab world increasingly under the infl uence of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists? No one can answer these and similarly momentous questions.
68 9|11: A DECADE LATER / NEWSMAX / SEPTEMBER 2011
What is clear, however, is that the chances of good outcomes have been seriously diminished by a number of fateful choices that have been made in theater and in Washington. For example, immediately after U.S. troops liberated Baghdad, there was a failure to halt, let alone penalize, those involved in rioting and may- hem. This was a terrible mistake. The perception of U.S. impotence in the face of the ensuing disor- der unquestionably emboldened Baathists, Islamists, and Iranians to precipitate more of it.
Matters were, of course, made worse by the absence, in the days following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, of Iraqi military and police units, many of whose per- sonnel became part of the insurgen- cy when they ceased to be employed and paid to keep order. There is no question that a contributing fac- tor was the self-deactivation of such units that occurred in the face of overwhelming coalition power. But surely, with different direction from us, they could have been reorganized and assigned constructive roles even as the Baathist cohort in their senior ranks were purged.
Today, the trajectory is not encour- aging for an Iraq increasingly under Iran’s thumb. Assuming no reversal in the decision to terminate at year’s end the U.S.-Iraqi status of forces agreement that is the basis for a continued American presence there,
it is predictable that the mullahs in Tehran are best positioned to fi ll
the ensuing vacu- um of power — at our expense, as well as that of the Iraqi people. The prospects are not much better
in
Afghanistan. Despite the valiant efforts of our surge-enhanced forces there, the Taliban con- tinues to use its safe havens in neighboring Pakistan to intimidate Afghans,
run drug
cultivation operations in much of Afghanistan, and kill coalition forces and our allies there. Those who have cooperated with the United States live in fear of reprisals as arbitrary deadlines compel the phased with- drawal of American forces. To put it bluntly, in places like Iraq and Afghanistan especially, weakness invites bad behavior — on the part of our enemies and even on the part of our putative friends. When President Barack Obama announces a surge in one breath and sets a date for withdrawal in the next, it is inevitably perceived as evidence that America is not, to use Osama bin Laden’s phrase, “the strong horse.” While the liquidation of al-Qaida’s leader was gratifying, against the backdrop of what is happening on the ground in these two theaters, such perceptions bode ill for our interests and security.
PLANES/AP IMAGES / GAFFNEY/© D.C. HUGHES/LNI/ZUMA PRESS
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