With the surprise election of a Socialist government in the days following the March 11 attack on Madrid trains, terrorists were given what they said they wanted: a promise to pull Spanish troops from service in Iraq. Yet al Qaeda allowed not even the courtesy of a peaceful transition for the new government before restarting what the pro-Socialist vote hoped to forestall: more threats and more explosives.
Incoming Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero pledged to withdraw Spain’s 1,300 troops from Iraq by June 30. But even that wasn’t good enough or fast enough to placate al Qaeda. The most recent threat to Spain’s government, sent in a letter from an Ansar al Qaeda Europe group spokesman to Spain’s newspaper ABC, now demands immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Further, it demands all Spanish forces removed from Afghanistan as well. Failure to do so immediately, the letter claims, will result in a “hell” where “blood will flow in rivers.”
The letter, coupled with an unsuccessful bombing attempt on a Seville-bound rail line last week, was a stark reminder that terrorists won’t relent when placated; success only serves to embolden those bent on destruction. Promises of appeasement from the newly elected Socialist government in Madrid, particularly the premature withdrawal of forces from Iraq, did nothing to stop the bloodlust. Terrorists won’t go away, even if the Spanish government meets their increasing demands. Pulling troops from Iraq ahead of schedule, or an exit from Afghanistan, however, will not end the violence or the threats. New accommodations will bring only new demands, new violence and dangerous implications well beyond Spain’s borders.
For Iraqis, Afghans and the coalition to succeed — and for Spain and others to be secure — terrorists must fail. What the outgoing government in Madrid understands, and what the incoming government is learning, is that to bow to demands will result only in new demands. They now know this fight isn’t just about Iraq, it’s also about Spain and France and many other nations long assumed to be immune.
This is a zero-sum game. Every new advance for Iraqis is a setback for terror; eachnewschoolin Afghanistan is a new group of young minds immune to madrassas; and each new Iraqi soldier trained by the coalition is one less soldier for al Qaeda’s armies.
If newly freed nations continue to rebuild a shattered infrastructure, and if they unshackle the memory of Hussein- and Taliban-led thugocracies, terrorists are largely defanged. There is no room for radical ideology in the minds of young men and women set to work on the future of their own nation. And men tired by a day’s work at a newly created job have little time or use for rhetoric of hatred and hopelessness.
Yet maintaining this new barrier to terror requires resolve, not knee-jerk reactions and urgency for withdrawal, as was seen in the Spanish election and subsequent pronouncements of the Zapatero government. The consequences of retreat are enormous. Not only would terror fill the vacuum left by a retreating force, but the enormous rebound in critical infrastructure and health care, coupled with a constitution guaranteeing individual rights, will not materialize. The failure to rebuild and restore will only increase the velocity of the death spiral the terrorists desire.
There is much at stake in Iraq, and the grip of al Qaeda is slipping. More than 200,000 Iraqis have joined security forces; an interim constitution has been signed; water, electricity and other basic infrastructure are now greatly improved over prewar levels; sanctions have been lifted; and children no longer fear their parents being spirited away by Saddam’s thugs in the dead of night, never to return. Instead of Saddam filling mass graves, Iraqis are now unearthing them for forensic evidence against the regime. Rather than fearing Uday and Qusay’s henchmen, women are joining men in a government committed to preventing such violence and misogyny.
These advances, though, will evaporate the moment a bomb succeeds in sending Iraq’s allies home. The fight for Iraq’s future can’t be won from behind isolationist walls and will never be settled with a truce or settlement with those who want only destruction. Al Qaeda knows that peeling off coalition members who are now fighting — and rebuilding — in Iraq and Afghanistan leaves room for terrorists and their allies. Such success frees resources to attack nations elsewhere,bolsters fundraising and speeds recruitment efforts — further raising the stakes for free people around the world.
Thereisnomiddle ground in the fight, and one side will fail. Succumbing to the demands of al Qaeda guarantees which side that will be.
Robert Stewart is a former Army intelligence analyst.
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