"The Madrid logic" or Mogadishu logic?

Amir Taheri:

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Most Americans are unfamiliar with Iraq's complex political, ethnic, religious and cultural realities. So, when television presents a charred vehicle left by a suicide bomber and experts pronouncing Iraq a failure, many decide that it is a lost cause - and the sooner the Americans extricate themselves, the better.

This is precisely why the Saddamite desperados and the jihadists keep fighting a war in Iraq that they cannot win.

Their strategy is based on a simple assumption: Americans will be so shocked and disheartened by the daily carnage that they'll force their government to "cut and run" - or, if it refuses, replace it with one that will.

In Jihadist circles, that strategy is known as "the Madrid Logic" (mantaq al-Madrid), after the deadly terrorist operation in the Spanish capital that succeeded in changing that country's government and its foreign policy.

This logic works because the Western democracies' political elites, and beyond them the electorate, seldom take the time to even ask the key questions, let alone find proper answers.

Start with three questions:

* Why did the United States and its allies intervene in Iraq?

* Was it worthwhile, especially with reference to the national interests of the U.S. and allies?

* Has it achieved its goals?

For those who claim that the United States went to Iraq out of hubris, or to steal Iraq's oil or to please Israel, the intervention was self-evidently worthless, and a failure. But the majority of Americans should judge liberation not with reference to conspiracy theories, but on the basis of their leaders' stated objectives.

These were:

* To topple Saddam Hussein's regime, which had provoked two major regional wars and defied the will of the United Nations over two decades, and to dismantle its machinery of war and repression.

* To restore power to the people of Iraq and help them set up a new political system of their choice.

* To build new Iraq as a model for all Arab countries still under archaic despotic regimes.

All three goals have been achieved, albeit in varying degrees of success:

* Saddam is in prison, with his machinery of war and repression shattered.

* Power has been restored to the people of Iraq, who have written their own Constitution, held a series of free elections and formed a coalition government of their choice.

* Despite its obvious difficulties, new Iraq has inspired democratic aspirations across the Middle East, and forced some of the despotic regimes into making concessions to their peoples.

Does all that justify intervention? Some might think not. Others, however, will assert that helping free a nation of 25 million from one of the worst regimes in recent history was a noble deed.

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Those who want to lose in Iraq have run a very dishonest campaign against the war and the Bush administration. Their bad faith claims that "Bush lied" about WMD is just one example of that dishonesty. Now they are willing to retreat from reality after only a relatively few casualties. All they will have proved that Mogadishu was the real show of America's lack of will it just took more casualties this time.

The Mogadishu analogy is actually closer than the Madrid analogy, since the enemy has not been able to attack inside the US and if he did it would probably strengthen US resolve. However, in Mogadishu, we were trying to help people who were the victims of the enemy as we are now doing in Iraq and because the enemy resists this help the Democrats want to retreat from the battle. But, the retreat from Mogadishu was one of the things cited by bin Laden in his logic for the 9-11 attacks. If the Democrats force another retreat, bin Laden will surely think it is a greater victory.