They Hate Us Because...

Andrew McCarthy writes in the National Review Online:

Another day, another New York Times publication of classified information.

Another election cycle, another strategic intelligence-community leak transparently designed to affect the outcome.

Another coincidence of Iraq and al Qaeda terrorism, another simplistic Democratic claim of causation between Iraq and al Qaeda terrorism (but, naturally, never a concession of connection between Iraq and al Qaeda terrorism).

On Sunday, the Times disclosed a selectively leaked snippet from the new National Intelligence Estimate which evidently suggests that Bush administration policy — in particular, the war in Iraq — has increased Islamic radicalism. As night follows day, prominent Democrats were ready to pounce …

Whether we wish to acknowledge it or not, jihadism is attractive to tens of millions of people in what is called the Muslim world. Out of a total population of about 1.3 billion, that may not be a very high percentage (although I daresay it is higher than we like to think). But it is the ideology that attracts recruits. Grievances are just rhetoric. If the bin Ladens did not have Iraq, or the Palestinians, or Lebanon, or Pope Benedict, or cartoons, or flushed Korans, or Dutch movies, or the Crusades, they’d figure out something else to beat the drums over. Or they’d make something up — there being lots of license to improvise when one purports to be executing Allah’s will.

It is bad enough when the Muslim charlatans opportunistically use American policies they don’t like for militant propaganda purposes. It is reprehensible when American politicians do it.

Jihadists hate us because they hate us, not because of Iraq. If President Clinton’s Iraq policy was a problem, it was only because he didn’t follow through on it. By threatening to act forcefully but then letting Saddam Hussein and his terror-mongering fester, Clinton played right into al Qaeda’s conviction that America did not have the stomach for a fight and could be attacked with impunity — a conviction that was reinforced when terror attacks were in fact met with paltry, or no, response.

Bush, to the contrary, has chosen to fight al Qaeda where it is standing, figuring captured or dead terrorists can no longer harm Americans. Right now, al Qaeda is standing in Iraq, so that’s where we must fight it — whether or not you agree that we should be there in the first place. It matters nothing that jihadists will use that fight in their recruitment speeches. It matters everything, though, if we withdraw from the fight and they win.
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZDFhOGRlYjQxYjc1ZGZiOGU5MTgyODBiY2NiN2JhYWI=

The entire article is terrific. McCarthy makes the point that al Qaeda terrorists grew in number during the Clinton years - that bin Laden's fatwa to kill Americans whenever and wherever came along in 1998 when Clinton and Sadam were still in power.