The sublime Christopher Hitchens writes in Slate today on the status of the war on Al Qaeda, and finds the terrorists losing and sees desperation in the Osama Bin Laden tape.
Why are formerly triumphalist jihadists using the language of "truce" at all? Not very long ago, God was claimed to be on their side and victory certain.
[...]
Now, Afghanistan is lost to Bin Laden and Pakistan has had, at least officially, to modify its behavior considerably. The A.Q. Khan network has been shut down. The Saudi ruling class identifies its state interest with a repudiation of al-Qaida, inside and outside its own borders. And the one remaining regime that openly preached holy war and helped train jihadist forces like the "Fedayeen Saddam"—the pseudo-secular terror state in Iraq—has been irretrievably smashed. Wherever Bin Laden is now, it cannot be where he wanted or hoped to be four and a half years ago.
Given the utter discredit and isolation of its forces in Iraq, who would still say that the fighting there is a "distraction" from the hunt for al-Qaida? They have taken tremendous casualties, obviously in the hope that their atrocious tactics would swiftly dissipate coalition morale and coerce Iraqi support. And it seems as if they haven't learned from their mistake.
Rather than lost I would say "being lost." There is still time for the anti-war forces in this country and around the world to undermine public confidence and troop morale to the point that a loss by the coalition is at least possible. Bin Laden understands that he can't hope to win a war of arms. He hopes to win a media and propaganda war and/or a war of attrition from continued terrorism.
But it won't happen in the next three years on GWB's watch. He will not be accepting offers of truce, and will not be pulling back militarily from any location until the situation is stable and improving. That's one important lesson you can take from what's happened so far in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can also take the lesson that Bush is a man of his word. "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists." Presidents Musharraf and Ghadafi decided to be with us; many on the American left have not, as evidenced by Joel Stein's recent LA Times piece that got so much attention.
Is the war over? In a word, no, despite Hitchens' presumptive column. Is it heading in the proper direction? Yes, if you read between the lines of the Bin Laden tape.
