What is Our Mission in Iraq?

Has America succeeded in its mission in Iraq and should that mission continue? The answers to these questions, which is the center of our national debate on Iraq, depends on what our mission in Iraq is.
If our mission is to create a model nation in Iraq, plant democracy in the Middle East or create a modern free Arab and Islamic society then we have failed and will continue to fail. If our mission in Iraq is to wage war upon Islamic terrorism and those who practice it, then our mission in Iraq has been a resounding success and will continue to succeed.
The nation building experiment in Iraq has failed and failed miserably, Iraqi democracy is a bad joke and the nation is spiraling into a hell of civil war, ethnic cleansing and terrorism. It is time to admit that nation building in Iraq has failed and to pull the plug on it while searching for a political solution for the Iraq crisis.
As a battle front in the war on Terror, Iraq has been a tremendous success we’ve drawn the terrorists out onto the battlefield, engaged them, defeated them and killed them. Part of the reason there hasn’t been a major terror attack on the US since Sept. 11, is that the forces, resources and money the Jihadists would have used in their attack on America have been expended on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Instead of trekking to America to launch terror attacks on Americans in the heartland, Jihad terrorists are flocking to Iraq to face American troops on the battlefield and getting killed by them. The money, the weapons and the men Bin Laden wanted to deploy against America and Europe are being wasted in Iraq.
So obviously America does have a legitimate mission in Iraq to fight and destroy the enemies who want to kill and enslave us. The enemy being Radical Islam as practiced by Al Qaeda and other fundamentalist (perhaps traditionalist) Islamic organizations. Al Qaeda and its allies are in Iraq and trying to take over the country.
The fighters in Iraq fall into two broad group, local individuals fighting for power and influence for their particular faction Sunni, Shiites, Kurds and various tribal groups and foreign fighters mostly devout Sunni fighters intent on waging Jihad. None of these people are patriots fighting for the Iraqi nation, they are Kurds, Sunnis or Shiites fighting for their tribe or ethnic group or devout Muslims fulfilling their religious obligations.
Note in traditional Islam there is no such thing as a nation, a Moslem’s only loyalty to is to Allah (God), the Prophet Mohammad (God’s messenger on Earth) and the true faith (Islam). The nation is the faith Islam not the country. Traditional Islam teaches that every man has a moral obligation to wage war on the nonbelievers (non-Moslems). Waging war means defending Islamic lands from non Moslems and conquering the lands of non Moslems for the faith.
The agenda of Jihad is not just to defend Islamic civilization against threats from the West real and imagined. Jihad isn’t going to stop because American troops leave the Middle East, the US withdraws support for Israel or Americans start showing politically correct tolerance for Islam. The Jihadists will continue their war until they or dead on the battlefield or the flag of Islam is flying over every city on Earth.*
That’s right, the Jihad terrorists want to conquer the world, this isn’t a comic book fantasy it’s a real doctrine based on history. Both Bin Laden and his buddy, Taliban boss Mullah Omar, have both used the title Caliph which means Emperor of Islam and commander of the faithful. Historically the Caliphs and their imitators the Turkish Sultans and Indian Moguls were leaders of empires whose goal was to subjugate the world for Islam.
A small minority of modern Moslems has concluded that in the wake of the Cold War the non Islamic countries, including the USA, are weak and ripe for Islamic conquest. Sept. 11, wasn’t intended to tell us to stay out of the Middle East and leave Islam alone, it was the opening shot in a war of Islamic conquest against America and the rest of the world. Note this includes any Islamic nation that doesn’t accept their version of Islam as the law of the land.
The sorry truth is that we’re going to have to fight these people sooner or later. It might as well be now when they are weak and disorganized, and it might as well be in Iraq. Do we want the war in Peoria or in Falujah? If we pull out of Iraq and leave the Middle East, the Jihad Army will follow us back to the United States and bring their war with them.
So how does this affect our mission in Iraq? Simple there are two wars over there, the battle between Iraqi factions for control of Iraq which is none of our business and the war with the forces of Jihad which is certainly our business. That means our troops in Iraq should concentrate on the war with Jihad and leave Iraqis alone as much as possible. Let the Iraqis sort out their own politics and run their own society.
This means we don’t need a large occupying army in Iraq, only a couple of bases and an elite force of heavy infantry and commandos backed up by our air power that will engage terrorist forces. One of the main goals of this force will be organize, train and arm a force of mercenaries, an Arab Legion of the United States which will fight and kill our enemies in the Middle East. That way Americans won’t have to get their hands dirty and American boys won’t have to die in what is essentially an Arab war. The Iraqi Army we’ve formed would be the nucleus of this force.
Yes America, we do have a mission in Iraq, it’s to fight our enemies not to pursue the fantasy of building democracy in the Middle East. Unfortunately the Bush administration and its apologists in the media have cast our mission in Iraq in terms of nation building and ignored the battle against terror, largely because there is little profit for Haliburton in a battle against Jihad. So it is time to concentrate on the real mission in Iraq and stop letting ideologically charged fantasy and special interest greed determine the mission.

*For a good view of Jihad see Robert Spencer’s excellent book “Onward Muslim Soldiers.”