Has the Iraq War Led to an Increase in Terrorism?

Jacques Chirac, who led European opposition to the March 2003 invasion, arrives in London on Thursday for annual summit talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, George W Bush's staunchest ally on Iraq, says the AFP:

On the eve of an official visit to London, French President Jacques Chirac said he is "not at all sure" that the world has become safer since the downfall of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

That's because you never bothered asking the Iraqi population, Monsieur le Président.

In a BBC television interview, … Chirac suggested that the situation in Iraq — where US forces are still locked in battle with insurgents — has helped to prompt an increase in terrorism.

That's because you do not equate terrorism with state policemen violating citizens' homes with impunity to take away its inhabitants to be tortured and killed, Monsieur le Président.

"To a certain extent Saddam Hussein's departure was a positive thing," said Chirac when asked if the world was now a safer place, as US President George W. Bush has repeatedly stated.

You say "to a certain extent" only because you never had to live in the psychopath's Iraq as a common citizen, Monsieur le Président.

"But it also provoked reactions, such as the mobilisation in a number of countries, of men and women of Islam, which has made the world more dangerous," he said.

If you say the mobilization in a number of countries, Monsieur le Président, it is because thanks to Uncle Sam, the mobilization of a number of countries, i.e., state- or government-sponsored terrorism — and governments' willingness to sponsor terrorism in general — has come to a virtual end.

"There's no doubt that there has been an increase in terrorism and one of the origins of that has been the situation in Iraq. I am not at all sure that one can say that the world is safer."

Oui et non, Monsieur le Président: there has been a decrease in state-sponsored terrorism (as stated above), but you are entirely correct in saying that the origins of that decrease is the situation in Iraq (and Afghanistan). You are also correct in pointing to an increase in individual-based terrorism inside of Iraq. But that is due in no small matter to the anger — nay, the fury — of those individual terrorists, and terrorist groups, over having lost their state-sponsored governments and the willingness of any government, in that region or elsewhere, to support their activities in the near future.

(Cheers to Gregory Schreiber)