Ralph Peters: Al Qa’ida Stock Dropping
According to Ralph Peters’ latest NY Post column, al Qa’ida’s stock is about to bottom out. Col. Peters doesn’t think it’ll recover, either. Here’s his harshest words, directed at the Democrats, though he doesn’t do it by name:
The partisan hacks who insisted that Iraq was a distraction from fighting al Qaeda have missed the situation’s irony: Things are getting worse in Afghanistan and Pakistan not because our attention was elsewhere, but because al Qaeda has been driven from the Arab world, with nowhere else to go. Al Qaeda isn’t fighting to revive the Caliphate these days. It’s fighting for its life.
I’ll remind everyone that Ralph Peters isn’t a pro-Bush shill. This is simply his honest opinion on the trouble al-Qa’ida is in. That he’s saying that al-Qa’ida is fighting for its life is pretty dramatic. Col. Peters isn’t given to making such statements very often.
Where do Osama & Co. stand today? They’re not welcome in a single Arab country. The Saudi royals not only cut off their funding, but cracked down hard within the kingdom. A few countries, such as Yemen, tolerate radicals out in the boonies but they won’t let al Qaeda in. Osama’s reps couldn’t even get extended-stay rooms in Somalia, beyond the borders of the Arab world.
And the Arab in the (dirty) street is chastened. Instead of delivering a triumph, al Qaeda brought disaster, killing far more Arabs through violence and strife than Israel has killed in all its wars. Nobody in the Arab world’s buying al Qaeda shares at yesterday’s premium, and only a last few suckers are buying at all.
The contrast between Osama 2001 and Osama 2008 is stark. They’re now outcasts throughout the Arab world. (Pakistan is al-Qa’ida’s stronghold but it isn’t considered an Arab country from what I’ve found in my research, though Arabs and Persians both ruled the nation at different times.)
What must be most galling for Democrats is what Col. Peters says about President Bush:
Democrats make a great fuss over the Bush administration’s failure to capture Osama (although they themselves have no idea how to do so). But it now looks like the judgment of history, after the political rancor has settled into the graves of today’s demagogues, will be that the administration of George W. Bush defeated al Qaeda.
There’s plenty of work still to be done. Al Qaeda will behave viciously in its death throes. Other terrorist groups await their turn to appall the world.
But the second-greatest irony of our time is that, fumbling all the way, the Bush administration did what it set out to do after 9/11: It exacted vengeance on those who attacked us and toppled their towers, al Qaeda’s fantastic dreams of global jihad.
So what’s the greatest irony? The president’s oft-mocked declaration of “Mission Accomplished” wasn’t wrong, after all, just premature.
Technorati Tags: al-Qaeda, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Arab Street, Military, Defeatocrats, President Bush, Terrorism
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog