The American Spectator

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Another Perspective

Every day the website RealClearPolitics.com summarizes the results of various public opinion polls in the current Congressional races. Unless all the tea leaf readers are off base, it looks like a Democratically-controlled House next January and perhaps even the Senate in their hands.

The Democrats have capitalized on public discontent with the war in Iraq. While the American public supports successful offensive efforts by our military, it can abide lack of clear success only so long. More of our soldiers are killed while Iraqi militias blow up thousands of their fellow citizens. Despite brave pronouncements, the Iraqi politicians are either unwilling or unable to stop the slaughter. Progress is at a standstill, or so it seems.

Irony will play a large part in the events of early 2007 if the Democrats gain Congressional control. With the public sour on our Iraq involvement, the Democrats will do all in their power (meaning, cutting off the money) to withdraw our troops a.s.a.p., thus making success impossible and defeat the world's reading of their actions.

Iraq will then slip into full-scale chaos; Syria and Iran will rejoice; al Qaeda will say "I told you so" (i.e., that when the going gets tough, the Americans don't have the stomach for it); and North Korea will continue to be the one-stop shopping mall for terrorist arms purchasers.

George Bush understands, as the Congressional Democrats do not, that the radical jihadists have twisted the Koran's meaning to reinforce their belief that the world will be perfect when all the infidels -- non-Muslims plus Muslims living in secular states -- are disposed of. Then, with the Caliphate once again established in Baghdad and its clerics ruling on all matters, the world be peaceful and all its inhabitants equal.

That is why the radical jihadists have no hesitation killing as many Muslims as it takes to achieve this perfect state. Mary Habeck, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, puts it succinctly: "They say that they are committed to the destruction of the entire secular world because they believe this is a necessary first step to create an Islamic utopia on earth."

The Congressional Democrats would do well to read up on the intellectual tablet-bearers of the jihadists, such as Ahmad ibn Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328l); Muhammed ibn Abd al Wahhab (1703-1792), father of Wahabbism; Muhammad Rashid Rida (1865-1935); Hasan al-Banna (1906-49). Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi (1903-79); and Sayyid Qutb (1903-66), the latter being the chief source of inspiration for al Qaeda's Number Two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri. If the Democrats were to understand how these purists drive the persecution complexes and conspiracy theories of today's radical jihadists, they would be better able to understand the nature of the war in which we are engaged and actually deal with it with clear heads.

From Crusades to cartoons, the radical jihadists see history as one long series of Muslim humiliations to be avenged. Disengagement from Iraq will not end the troubles with the jihadists; it will only intensify them.

Oh, and by the way, the Democrats once in control, will raise taxes on "the rich" -- anyone making about $50,000 a year and up; however, we may not be able to notice it, inasmuch as we will be up to our eyeballs in an epidemic of terror attacks here and around the globe.

topics:
Taxes, Islam, Military, Iraq, Iran, North Korea