Why Al Qaida Is Fighting For Iraq

For most people who support the war, there is an idea that Al Qaida is fighting in Iraq for simplistic reasons like, "we are there, so Al Qaida is fighting us where we are." This is actually a true statement, however, there is more to it then that. The left actually buys into this argument as well, but from their perspective, the converse is also true. The converse being, "if we weren't there, al Qaida would not be there." This is actually a false statement. I will explain shortly. On to the second reasoning from the right: "Al Qaida wishes to defeat the US and other Western powers to force them to retreat from the Middle East, humiliate us in battle and make it harder or less desirable to attack in the future." This is also true on it's face value.

Now I will explain why the right is not entirely correct and the left is entirely wrong. First, I will post two pictures that represent the modern Middle East, South East Asia and Africa. On these maps you will see red dots that I have placed, largely based on memory, that indicate places where Islamist organizations are either active or have perpetrated attacks (click on pictures for a larger view):





These areas can be verified at any time from the State Department's website that has an interactive map and pdf showing all of these terrorist attacks and organizations around the globe.



Here is a map of the Ottoman Empire, the Caliphate, at the hight of it's power during the Timurid and Safavid dynasties. The olive green outline denotes the boundaries of the empire. Please note the blue dot that is Baghdad:



Not only was Baghdad the near physical heart of the medieval caliphate, it was, during several dynastic rules, the literal heart of the caliphate being the seat of numerous Caliphas, or rulers, after the demise of Mohammed. Later Ottoman rulers made their seat of rule in Constantinople, but, Baghdad has long been considered the jewel of the empire.

Aside from Saddam being a rather nasty dictator that murdered hundreds of thousans, possessed and used WMD, had direct connection with terrorist organizations and flirted with others, violated the first Gulf War cease fire agreement on numerous occassions and was definitely violating every tenet of the sanctions, Iraq is strategically positioned among all of the worst offenders that support terrorism or export extremist ideologies. Those things alone do not necessitate the holding of Iraq. What is even more significant, in a world where the US has declared it's policy to include "pre-emptive" war, is the historical and symoblic significance of Baghdad, Iraq.

In Islamic history, he who holds Baghdad, holds the caliphate.

An Najaf is a city to the east of Baghdad. In this city is the shrine of Ali, the son in law of Mohammed and the person that the Shi'ite believe should have been the next rightful ruler of the Muslim empire. On his way to Baghdad to consolidate and validate his rule, he was chased into An Najaf with his entire family and his remaining loyal army. There they were starved and denied water until the opposing forces of Bakr killed Ali, his son, most of his men and then, finally, enslaved his family. Bakr being the second "rightly guided caliphate" recognized by the Sunni.

That was just the first of many battles for Baghdad. Nearly 900 years later, as Sal ah Din pushed more and more into the west and was attempting to take Vienna, a Shia uprising that threatened Baghdad and attempted to place their own Calipha on the throne, caused Sal ah Din to turn back and put the rebellion down, which kept Sal ah Din and his successors from attempting to conquer the west then and, basically, forever. One of the reasons that Zarqawi despises the Shia and believes that their current cooperation with the US in Iraq is just one more of many such betrayals. In his own words, they are dogs (unclean) and thus extremely worthy of death at the hands of the "true believers" and new warriors of God intent on establishing the caliphate.

Thus, when your enemy's number one goal is to "return you to the path of Islam" and worshipping Allah and his second stated goal (in his declaration of war 1998) is to re-establish the caliphate, you do not abandon the heart of the empire to the enemy. You hold it, put your boot on it and remake it into a condition that is inhospitable and untenable to the enemy. Namely, creating a free and democratic state that will, hopefully, not be interested in joining the caliphate, will protect Baghdad as it's capitol and will forever deny him the strategic and symbolic seat of a primary objective. Like sowing salt in the fields of Carthage.

There are many, even on the right, who believe that, after no WMD was found, the administration "changed" their reasoning for Iraq to be "spreading Democracy". This is simply not true. The president had said during many speeches after September 11 that the way to combat this archaic, repressive and violent ideology was with freedom. Most people think of this in a strictly ideological concept. In reality, it has a physical manifestation: free and democratic Iraq that will never again be the seat of the Caliphate.

There will be some that believe that it was not necessary to take out Saddam to insure that Baghdad was forever denied to the jihadists. However, that would necessitate ignorning Saddam's increasing appearances as "Sal ah Din", increasing attendance at mosque for a man who ruled via a secular party and modeled himself after Stalin, the supreme atheist, who gave money to families of suicide bombers, used money from the broken sanctions to filter to questionable charities and business fronts for terrorist organizations, harbored terrorists and made multiple attempts to ally himself with bin Laden. Add to that the weakened state post Gulf War I and sanctions and you have a cherry ready to be picked.

Irregardless, when your enemy's number two strategic goal is to re-establish the caliphate AND his number one complaint about the west is it's cultural infiltration, it's immoral "freedom" and turning away the young from "true Islam", if you know what will do the most physical and symoblic damage to his cause, you don't sit around and do nothing about it. You stick a dagger in the heart of his strategic goals, twist it good and seat it deep, making sure that he can never pull it out without bleeding to death.

And, right now, that is what OBL and Zarqawi are trying to do: pull the dagger out of the heart of the caliphate. Just as we cannot give up this strategic and symbollically valuable piece of realestate to the terrorists and other civil insurrection, they cannot but come there and fight for it because, if they withdraw, they will have conceded the fight and seriously damaged any future where they can meet their strategic goals (if not destroy their movement for many years to come).

Afghanistan destroyed their base and denied them territory to operate from. Setting up democracy there was the first stab at their ideology. Yes, Iraq will spread democracy; yes, if we leave it will leave Iraq to the terrorists and former regime; yes, Iraq has significant value in denying resources and territory to the enemy; yes, it is in the middle of every terrorist supporting nation of the ME; yes, al Qaida is there because we are there; yes, the more they send the more we kill; and, yes, we have spilled much blood there which makes the battle even that much more valuable, but we must stay in Baghdad and Iraq until democracy and security is established for the most important reason: because it will kill the caliphate.

For the record, I never expect the administration to own up to the strategy considering actually specifically saying so would quite possibly precipitate the larger war with "Islam" that we are trying to avoid. Some may say that it was a mistake or that the administration was not smart enough to figure this out, but that would mean that all of the strategists and military advisers were stupid, too and I just don't see that happening.

In short, this is the allies marching through the Champ d'Elyss in Paris after beating back the Nazis. This is the flag raising on Iwo Jima; Sherman's march to the sea; the burning of Atlanta; the taking of Tripoli the sacking of Rome; the salting of Carthage; and every other significant symoblic and strategic act meant to suck the heart out of the enemy's resistance.

That's why al Qaida fights us there and that is why we must stay.