An Al Qaeda takeover in Iraq?

"I think we are winning.  Okay?  I think we're definitely winning.  I think we've been winning for some time." - Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the Iraq War 04/26/05

"I just wonder if they will ever tell us the truth." - Harold Casey, Louisville, KY, October 2004.

Daniel Benjamin takes on Dick Cheney's warning that if the US leaves Iraq, an Al Qaeda takeover would be imminent: Jihadist Iraq Just Won't Happen by Daniel Benjamin Los Angeles Times 11/24/05. (Also at CommonDreams.org)
 
Benjamin regards the idea of a takeover by Al Qaeda or other jihadist group as just more war hype from the Bush-Cheney crew:

The insurgents might remain a formidable force by evading those who tried to hunt them down - as they have done with U.S. and Iraqi forces - but they could not conceivably prevail in the full-scale battles that the takeover of Iraq would entail. Only with the rapid influx of tens of thousands of fighters from outside Iraq could jihadists win control of the country. That scenario is farfetched.

Make no mistake: Much of western Iraq is and will remain a terrorist sanctuary. But neither U.S. forces nor Shiite-dominated Iraqi military units will be able to do much about that against an enemy that has excellent early warning and the capacity to slip away. It will be years before an Iraqi intelligence service can root these networks out.

The real threat is civil war. But here too it is not clear how much the U.S. can do to prevent it. If the Shiites and Kurds do not ameliorate the grievances of Iraqi Sunnis, civil war is probable. Keeping U.S. forces in Iraq in such circumstances would at best delay the inevitable.

He also addresses the testosterone argument for "staying the course", which is that our God is bigger than their God and we have to stay there and show them year after year after year:

By blundering in Iraq, the Bush administration has played right into two jihadist claims: First, that we are determined to occupy Muslim countries, steal their wealth and destroy their faith; and second, that we are a paper tiger that cannot accept casualties. By staying in Iraq, we confirm the former for many Muslims around the world and stoke recruitment and radicalization. By leaving, we confirm the latter, thereby encouraging jihadists.

Our departure from Iraq needs to be orderly and serve our own interests. How long it takes should be, unlike our occupation of the country, carefully planned. It should not be postponed by the threat of some imagined cataclysm.

War, the Republican Party way.  Nothing quite like it.

"Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." - George McGovern and Jim McGovern 06/06/05