The invasion in Iraq was always a gamble in that it gave al Qaeda a cause to fight the "crusaders" in the heart of the Middle East. Osama bin Laden has called the U.S. a "paper tiger" in the past, and predicted the U.S. would shy away from combat in Iraq once the fighting got tough. And the United States came perilously close to a forced withdraw from Iraq at the beginning of 2007, but changed its counterinsurgency strategy and encountered dramatic results.
The upside of the Iraq invasion was that an open confrontation with al Qaeda in Iraq forced the terror group to show its true self to the Muslim world. At its core, al Qaeda is a ruthless, inflexible, and highly ideological organization that preys on Muslims more than it preys on Westerners. In an effort to enforce ideological and organizational purity, al Qaeda resorted to terror tactics against its natural allies, the Sunnis.
My friend Evan Kohlmann, a counterterrorism expert who tracks jihadi communiqués on the Internet, has been highly critical of the U.S. invasion and subsequent strategy in the past, but has come to believe al Qaeda has failed in Iraq. In a quote from a Christian Science Monitor article titled "Al Qaeda reveals signs of weakness," Evan states:
"Iraq was Al Qaeda's greatest achievement and its greatest failure... At one time they were riding high from what was happening in Iraq, people were talking about [similar] movements popping up in Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and that time has come and gone."
"Al Qaeda has gone, in the minds of many Muslims, from being this kind of chivalrous organization run by Muslim knights seeking to defend the purity of the Muslim world and, instead, they've been revealed for what they are. They've done it to themselves."
Evan has become convinced of al Qaeda's failure after reading numerous denouncements and criticisms of al Qaeda from formerly allied insurgent groups. In an email communication with Evan several weeks ago, he stated:
Al Qaeda seems to have fallen victim to its own worst impulses in Iraq. Then again, when you resort to gleefully digging up the buried corpses of fellow jihadists in order to make off with their severed heads as war trophies, it might just be time for a serious re-frame...
I poked fun at [Vice President] Cheney for his "last throes" line back two years ago, but if he were to repeat that prediction now about al Qaeda, he might actually be right... The combined impact of "the surge" and "the putsch."
Osama bin Laden seems to agree. In his latest audiotape, not only did he criticize his leaders in Iraq for "negligence" and other misdeeds, he stated that for al Qaeda in Iraq "the darkness has become pitch black."
