I’m neither a neo-conservative nor a Wilsonian democrat but I’m inclined to say that the war on terror has been a success.
As it see it there are three answers you can give to whether we’ve won or not.
(1) Yes.
(2) No.
(3) Too Early to Tell.
Cautious as I am I’d be inclined to answer (3) but I think that’s selling our accomplishments short.
We’ve disrupted and degraded terrorist networks. This greatly improves our odds of stopping the big dramatic attacks that we all remember and mourn from 2001.
We’ve set Iraq on the path to rejoining the rest of the Arab world, no longer a pariah led by a brutal expansionist dictator. Iraq isn’t likely to be a real democracy but that’s hardly worrying given that no other Arab nation is a real democracy either. Are we going to undertake to remake the whole Middle East through invasion?
If not we ought to be very pleased with the situation in Iraq. As nationalist sentiments gel we have a good chance of having Iraq act as a barrier to Iranian aggression.
And in case we forget we’ve also seen positive change in Libya as a result of our anti-terror actions.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan we’ve overturned a government that was complicit in attacking us. While victory here is less striking than in Iraq it is no less certain.
Whatever the outcome in Afghanistan we’ve limited the reach and power of the terrorists who used Afghanistan as their base.
We’ve also largely won the public relations war. While Muslims generally still distrust and dislike us, they also have begun to distrust and dislike terrorists.
At the end of the day, it seems very clear that the terrorist goal of an Islamic Caliphate is now even more unlikely.
With all these accomplishments I don’t think it hasty to say that the War on Terrorism begun in late 2001 with all its flaws and all its tragedies is already a success.
November 29th, 2009 at 4:12 am
No. The War On Terror has created far more terrorists than there were before. We need to merely take out those who perpetrated 9/11 and then get off Muslim soil.
November 29th, 2009 at 6:18 am
There is little doubt that we won Iraq, we were winning in Afghanistan until Mr. Obama came to town and now at best, it is too early to tell.
November 29th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Bingo Joe,
It was a success when Bush was President, but now we are losing. We need a nominee who will get America back on a war footing. We need a nominee who is willing to go back on offense and stay to fight and fight to win no matter what the cost. The war on terror will last many decades and we need to commit ample troops and resources to winning. This is only the beginning, our nominee must focus on the threat posed by Iran while initiating surge strategies for continuing our rebuilding and democratization projects in Iraq and Afghanistan- winning hearts and minds while destroying the enemy.
November 29th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
#1 Josiah:
“No.”
Any argument in support of that?
The War On Terror has created far more terrorists than there were before.
It seems to me that it’s killed the terrorists most able to threaten us with devastating 9-11 type of attacks. This also ignores the fact that Muslim populations have finally begun to turn on terrorists.
We need to merely take out those who perpetrated 9/11 and then get off Muslim soil.
This task isn’t complete. Are you saying you’ve got no qualms about staying in Afghanistan until Bin Laden is killed?
November 29th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Apparently, Gary Johnson believes Iraq has been a failure. But he doesn’t say why.
November 29th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
“We’ve disrupted and degraded terrorist networks. This greatly improves our odds of stopping the big dramatic attacks that we all remember and mourn from 2001.”
That is a valid point, but……we destroyed most of that network in the first rounds of bombing in Afghanistand and massive round up of potential suspects around the world soon after 9/11. If the FBI did something that resembled a good job they would have made some arrests before it happened. Oh and Iraq is its own situation and would have had nothing to do with terrorism, until we invaded. But I guess we did a good job of finally killing most of the guys who wanted to kill us because of our killing them. I admit some actual terrorists did come to Iraq and they were quickly turned on by the Iraqi people, so thank them for that.
“As nationalist sentiments gel we have a good chance of having Iraq act as a barrier to Iranian aggression.”
So Saddam was not? All I have been seeing is the two wanting to work together on trade and regional issues. Here is a big question for you, what if the current or a future Iraq national government came out in favor of Iran having nukes?
“Meanwhile in Afghanistan we’ve overturned a government that was complicit in attacking us.”
Agreed.
This whole arguement your side of the party makes, is no different than Obama saying “saved or created” in terms of jobs. You can say we prevented a terrorist attack on American soil because of our 4685 soldier killing, $800 billion dollar war in Iraq but you look just as silly as they do.
November 29th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
#6 “You can say we prevented a terrorist attack on American soil because of our 4685 soldier killing, $800 billion dollar war in Iraq but you look just as silly as they do.”
Never said that ma’am. Iraq and Afghanistan haven’t been perfect conflicts but they’ve been mostly successful in achieving the legitimate reasons we went to war.
In large measure as we wind down these wars we’ll see that we’ve neutered the threat of Islamic militancy. We can largely shift focus from these sorts of expensive irregular conflicts.