Refuting "A Sucker's Game"

Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, says (emphasis added), "We are playing a sucker's game in Iraq, because we are fighting in a single country even though we are engaged in a regional war."

His pessimistic statement enthuses detractors of U.S. objectives in Iraq, but he is as obviously wrong as his quoted conclusion is ill-condidered. Regardless of your support for U.S. operations in Iraq:

- Ledeen himself makes the point that we are fighting Iran-trained, Iraqi terrorists in Iraq. These are Shiites who left Iraq twenty years ago to side with Iran in its war with Iraq. He says, "If you read carefully, you'll see that the so-called militia training is really terrorism: 'They (the Iranians) trained them (the young Iraqis)...to go out on patrol, to get people out of their houses, execute them and leave them on the street...' ...Let's stop talking about "militia training," okay? This is terrorist training. "

- Is the U.S. fighting the GWOT in only one foreign country? An unconfirmed CIA airstrike has been conducted at a compound in Damadola, Pakistan (a troublesome al-Qaeda and Taliban stronghold) against al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

- Does anyone recall our feet on the ground in Afghanistan and in the Phillipines (U.S. assistance) . You will not hear much about special forces operations elsewhere, just like you will not know where submarines are patrolling. Do you need to be told why there is a need for secrecy in such matters? If so, your inexperience in real-world threats and military matters betrays your inability to understand and appreciate your relative complacency.

- The attack on Zawahiri in his foreign refuge signals immense, international cooperation in the preferred, covert war against global terrorism in which we are now engaged. Eighteen people are believed to have been killed in the strike. Eleven of them were alleged foreignors. Three bodies were quickly transported cross-border by locals. An eye-witness report also suggests 5 were high ranking al-qaeda leaders. Significant terrorist organizations will now be decapitated, there leaders will no longer be safe, even in foreign, Muslim refuges. What are the nationalities of the strike teams? Not all U.S. for certain. Whether or not the recent attack was based upon false information, it demonstrates amply a dramatic willingness to cross borders in pursuit of high-value terror targets.

Obviously, we are not really fighting in a single country, nor are we engaged in a regional war. We are engaged, as the president has claimed all along, a global war.

Hat tip WILLYSHAKE