This is not Vietnam

In light of the President's speech last night, a couple of things should be noted before the crescendo of voices rise any further in opposition to an increase in troops. Let's be clear: The invasion of Iraq was not part of the so-called War on Terrorism, but the current war in Iraq is. Furthermore, any attempt to paint the United States' current dilemma in Iraq with our struggle in Vietnam is to grossly underestimate the force of radical Islamic fundamentalism, to ignore the violent rantings of terrorists that have declared war on the West, and to misunderstand what we are fighting for and who we are fighting against.

These quotes cited from Real Clear Politics:

"Jihadis thus neither recognize national boundaries within the Islamic lands nor do they believe that the coming Islamic state, when it is created, should have permanent borders with the unbelievers. The recognition of such boundaries would end the expansion of Islam and stop offensive jihad, both of which are transgressions against the laws of God that command jihad to last until Judgment Day or until the entire earth is under the rule of Islamic law."

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The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, has said this: "Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan [America] is absolute... Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, Death to America will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America."

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Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has also declared his absolute hostility to America. Last October, he said, "whether a world without the United States and Zionism can be achieved... I say that this... goal is achievable." In 2006 he declared to America and other Western powers: "open your eyes and see the fate of pharaoh... if you do not abandon the path of falsehood... your doomed destiny will be annihilation." Later he warned, "The anger of Muslims may reach an explosion point soon. If such a day comes [America and the West] should know that the waves of the blast will not remain within the boundaries of our region." He also said this: "If you would like to have good relations with the Iranian nation in the future... bow down before the greatness of the Iranian nation and surrender. If you don't accept [to do this], the Iranian nation will... force you to surrender and bow down."

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These excerpts from a Hugh Hewitt interview with Lawrence Wright, a writer for The New Yorker, author of The Looming Tower, and a terrorism expert.

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"... I think that terrorism is a unique threat. And if you go back, for instance, to the pre-9/11 presidential campaign, Bush-Gore, they didn’t talk about terrorism at all. And it’s very difficult for any, either of the parties to really pose clear, sustainable plan for dealing with terrorism. It’s a long term, perhaps a generational problem.

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"I’ve written about al Qaeda’s master plan, its grand plan. And one of the things that al Qaeda would love to see happen is to have happen, is to have the U.S. and Iran in a real conflict, because it was accomplish things that al Qaeda can’t do for itself. Like al Qaeda would love to destroy the oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Iran can do that. Al Qaeda can’t. Al Qaeda would love to have Hezbollah activated against Israel and the U.S. Al Qaeda can’t do that, but Iran can. So that’s a part of their strategy, if they could accomplish it. So I think they’re more dangerous together than they are separately. And we’d be really wise not to try to follow their playbook, which is to draw us deeper into conflict with Iran and Syria. And they’re great readers of American political theory, and Paul Kennedy’s book, The Rise And Fall Of Great Powers…you know that book?

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"I just recently did a piece for the magazine called The Master Plan. And I’d been wondering what al Qaeda’s plans for itself were. And it turns out they’re very easy to obtain. Most of them are published on the web. And some of them are actually in English, although I had a lot of the work translated from Arabic. The plan is basically rather chilling, although it’s self-justifying, it is highly propagandistic in many ways, but sometimes, it’s a little chilling to see how it’s unfolded, and what they have in mind. Their 20 year plan is to…they wanted to entice America into conflict with the Muslim world, and that begins with 9/11, and the first stage ends with the fall of Baghdad. And their idea is that young jihadi recruits will stream into Iraq and get training. And then, they’ll go back to their own countries, and wage jihad against their rulers, and eventually pull down those governments, establish a caliphate. And in the year 2020, they will create an Islamic army that will wage a final apocalyptic battle with the unbelievers. That’s their plan.

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"The al Qaeda strategists, you know, intend this to be a battle to the finish. That doesn’t mean that everybody that’s drawn to al Qaeda has those kind of absurd, Utopian goals. There are people that go into it for very narrow reasons, and it could be combated by addressing some of the intense political problems in the region. But it’s gotten…it’s fascinating to me to see how al Qaeda has evolved over time, from being an organization that…mainly, bin Laden’s big goal was to get the American troops out of Saudi Arabia. You know, if you had sat him down in 2002, or early 2003, and said what’s your goal, get the Americans out of the holy land. And then, the Americans got out. In April of 2003, the troops which were there to enforce the no-fly rule against Saddam Hussein, the American administration said you know, Saddam is gone, we’re going to remove our troops. In May, the very next month, al Qaeda began its assaults on the foreigners housing compounds in Saudi Arabia. And it seemed a very clear statement that they weren’t going to be appeased, or mollified by any moves in the direction of what was their stated goal."

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This is not Vietnam.