Stardate 20030423.1422

(On Screen): Back in September, in response to a series of questions from Aziz Poonawalla, I wrote a very long article trying to explain why I thought we had to invade Iraq. It ended up being a wide ranging analysis of the real root cause of the war we're fighting: Arab failure.

Sometimes someone will see something on the web that they think is interesting and will copy it into an email message and send it to some friends. They will in turn forward it to other friends, and so on. As often as not when this happens, the original source of the material will get lost. I learned recently that this particular article I wrote has actually ended up on the email circuit. I have no idea how widely it's been disseminated, and there's probably no way of ever finding out.

A copy of it landed in the mailbox of someone named Muhammad Oueiny, who posted it on a web site he participated in under his own by-line. And several people who received it and liked it decided they wanted to know where it had come from and did some googling, and sent me mail about it. I must say it was surprising to learn about that, and though my authorship was apparently not acknowledged I still am flattered by it, and deeply gratified. If any single article I've written was to end up on the email circuit, that would have been the one I would have chosen, because it was one of my better attempts at trying to make the point that the war we're fighting is bigger than many give it credit for.

This isn't a war on terrorism. Terrorism is a symptom. And in the article I said that though we had fought against the Taliban, and had and continued to struggle against al Qaeda, and though I advocated invasion of Iraq, those were not the true enemies.

Both al Qaeda's terrorist attacks, and Saddam's attempts to incorporate other Arab nations into Iraq, spring from the same deep cause. But when I say that al Qaeda and Saddam are not the real enemy, it's because they both arise due to a deeper cause which is the true enemy. If we were to stamp out al Qaeda as a viable organization and reduce it to an occasional annoyance, and remove Saddam's WMDs no matter how, by conquest or inspections, someone else somewhere else would spring up and we would again be in peril. We cannot end this war by only treating the symptoms of al Qaeda and Saddam, though they must be dealt with as part of that process. This war is actually a war between the modern age and traditional Arab culture...

That post at the time caused a great deal of controversy, and inspired a lot of commentary, both critical and supportive. But the main point I was trying to make is that in order to actually win the war, as opposed to the battle in Afghanistan, or the battle in Iraq, what will be required is wholesale cultural and political reform in most of the major nations of the mid-East.

A lot of people ended up writing things I felt needed answers, so the next day I wrote another long article about the same subject, trying to expand some points and to clarify others, as well as laying out what I saw as the long term strategy for winning the war.

Aziz was one of those who deserved further response. Aziz wasn't really happy with my first post, because it didn't actually give him what he'd been asking for. At the time, he opposed an invasion of Iraq. (I believe he later changed his mind, before combat actually began and when the consequences of fighting could still have conceivably been catastrophic.) And unlike the dishonest antiwar bloggers, Aziz was actually attempting to engage in discussion of the issue on its merits. What he had wanted from me was a short list of reasons why I thought we needed to invade Iraq. So as part of that second article, I did my best to enumerate such a list. Here's what I came up with:

Aziz H. Poonawalla, who wrote the original letter which inspired my article, was not satisfied with the result. He had demanded a short list of bullet points, and I didn't provide one. He's not satisfied with my description of the bigger picture and the reason why I think an invasion of Iraq is required and again demands a set of bullet points. Unfortunately, I still can't really give him one, but I'll at least try.

First, we are moved to urgency by the fact that Iraq may be close to developing nuclear weapons. We cannot permit that to happen because of the unacceptably high likelihood that such weapons will eventually be used against us, or that they will support a threat against us. If Iraq has nukes, it won't be possible for us to apply sufficient influence within that part of the world to begin the process of reform we require to be safe.

Second, we need to conquer Iraq so that we can rebuild it and make it more prosperous so that all the other Arabs around it will see that it isn't just heathen Americans who can become successful, and that Arabs can do it too. We need to make Iraq a better place, with people who are happier, more free, and more prosperous while still being Arab and