Today, both Iran and Syria are engaged in a desperate terrorist campaign against coalition forces in Iraq. The only surprise here is that so many diplomats and deep thinkers are surprised, for neither country has been reluctant to announce its intentions. Just over a week ago, for example, the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad incautiously told an interviewer that just because Iraq was conquered did not mean that the coalition had won. He said that the enemies of Britain and the United States would have to be patient, just as they were in Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s, driving the United States and Israel out of the country by means of terrorist attacks. And Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, announced publicly that the presence of US forces in Iraq would be even worse than Saddam Hussein, arguably the man most hated by Iranians.
The joint strategy seems counter-intuitive to those who believe it is next to impossible for Sunnis and Shiites to co-operate, and that Iran could never co-operate with the regime of Saddam Hussein. But both Syria and Iran have good reason to contest the coalition victory. Assad and Khamenei have both heard Bush’s reference to the ‘Axis of Evil’, and they have studied the many White House statements over the past year and a half. They have concluded that once the coalition victory is consolidated, they are next on the list. They believe they will have to fight for survival sooner or later, both against America’s military and economic power, and against their own people, who they fear would be inspired by the spectacle of a free and independent Iraq to attempt a similar enterprise in their own countries.
They do not think they have any good soft option. The Americans are coming, and the Syrians and the Iranians are going to fight now, in Iraq. To be sure, they are not going to send their armies against us (quite aside from certain defeat, they no doubt fear massive defections), but rather a swarm of terrorists, from Hezbollah to Islamic Jihad, Hamas, al-Qa’eda, Ansar al-Islam, and the rest of the jihadist mafia. They have convinced themselves that this is a potentially winning strategy, both because of the Lebanon precedent and because of what they view as the increasing success of a similar campaign in Afghanistan.
Michael Ledeen has a point. Patton said similar things. The enemy never goes away. You can choose to fight him now when you are in position to defeat him or you can pretend the danger doesn't exist. The country loves victory but they love a return to normalcy. Will Bush continue this war into the countries that cause us danger?
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