Playing Into the Enemy's Hands

Opponents of the war in Iraq (and before that, the war in Afghanistan before Afghanistan became the "good" war) like to say we are playing into our enemy's hands by waging war. It is all part of their diabolically clever plan to tire us out by whomping them. Or something like that anyway.

Well, al Qaeda's Zawahiri is condemning Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood for participating in elections.

The Brotherhood's spokesman, in turn, said the jihadis are playing into our hands by their tactics:

"Those opposing the participation in power of moderate Islamist movements are the Americans, authoritarian Arab regimes, radical secularists... and Ayman Zawahiri. Isn't that a strange alliance?" he told AFP.

"It is in Al-Qaeda's interest to claim that our gains are useless because our movement does not believe in violence, but Zawahiri's stance serves neither Islam's interests nor the nation's," Aryan added.

"What results have his resort to violence yielded? We urge them to revise their strategy," said Aryan, whose movement founded in 1928 has spawned many extremist movements but has long renounced violence itself.

I find this fascinating. By fighting the enemy in their lair, we really are forcing the enemy to alienate their supporters. Supporting jihad was great when you read about the latest martyrdom operation in the paper. But when you hear the blasts and know the victims, jihad isn't quite as glorious. That is what al Qaeda's resort to violence has yielded.