Since terrorists detonated a series of bombs across London’s mass transit system last week, killing 52 people, there has been a tendency to wonder whether the war in Iraq is making the world more, not less dangerouswrites Armstrong Williams (as he indirectly answers Christophe Chaboud).
Nothing could be further form the truth. Long before the United States stepped foot in Iraq, al-Qaeda agents spent their days thinking about how to rip apart Western culture. They claimed innocent lives in Madrid, Bali, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kenya, Tanzania, Yemen, Turkey, Egypt, and yes, New York on September 11. The war in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestine conflict—these are flashpoints in the war; they are not the cause or effect. …What’s particularly disgusting and disgraceful is the way that Muslim leaders repudiate America and Europe, but cannot bring themselves to find fault in the Muslim dictatorships that are responsible for so much of their poverty and death. Instead, the spokesmen for Islamic extremism refer to their terror attacks as part of a holy war. …
Meanwhile, the problem gets worse, not better. Much of the Muslim world is impoverished. They lack many basic rights we associate with happiness. This won’t change if we pull out of Iraq. It won’t change if we alter our policy regarding Palestine. As long as Islamic tyrants continue to control the flow of information in the Muslim world, they will continue to condition the children to believe that the Western world is responsible for the ruin of their lives.
The only way this will change, is if we facilitate democracy throughout the region. The only way to marginalize the Jihadist ideas is to make sure the people have access to alternative viewpoints. We cannot defend against every terror attack. But if we break the stranglehold of ideas in the Muslim world, then maybe children will stop strapping bombs to their bodies and detonating themselves in our subways and on our streets.
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