A frequent refrain heard on MSNBC and similar precincts is that the real war that we should be fighting is in Afghanistan, not in Iraq. The Democrat plan is to pull troops out of Iraq and redeploy them to Afghanistan. Charles Krauthammer finds the reasoning adduced in support of this policy exceptionally shoddy:
Thought experiment: Bring in a completely neutral observer -- a Martian -- and point out to him that the United States is involved in two hot wars against radical Islamic insurgents. One is in Afghanistan, a geographically marginal backwater with no resources, no industrial and no technological infrastructure. The other is in Iraq, one of the three principal Arab states, with untold oil wealth, an educated population, an advanced military and technological infrastructure which, though suffering decay in the later Saddam years, could easily be revived if it falls into the right (i.e. wrong) hands.
Add to that the fact that its strategic location would give its rulers inordinate influence over the entire Persian Gulf region, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf states. Then ask your Martian: Which is the more important battle? He would not even understand why you are asking the question.
Al-Qaeda has provided the answer many times. Osama bin Laden, the one whose presence in Afghanistan presumably makes it the central front in the war on terror, has been explicit that "the most serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War that is raging in Iraq." Al-Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has declared that Iraq "is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era."
And it's not just what al-Qaeda says, it's what al-Qaeda does. Where are they funneling the worldwide recruits for jihad? Where do all the deranged suicidists who want to die for Allah gravitate? It's no longer Afghanistan, but Iraq. That's because they recognize the greater prize.
The Democratic insistence on the primacy of Afghanistan makes no strategic sense.
Indeed, that may well be the reason why Democrats call for troops to be redeployed there. It helps them avoid appearing weak on the war on terror since they can boast that they're ready to fight where terrorists live, and it also prevents us from succeeding in Iraq and thereby compounding our status as a global hegemon. I suspect that this is the main reason the left wants us out of Iraq. Victory there would simply add to American influence and power which the left sees as a source of great evil in the world and which therefore must be prevented.
So much of what they say and do is explicable only when this attitude or mindset is understood.
I suspect that once troops were redeployed to Afghanistan from Iraq it wouldn't be long until pressure would mount to send them somewhere else where they would be even more marginalized, like Darfur, or brought home altogether.
RLC