The founder of al-Qaida in Mesopotamia was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who we can now gratefully describe as "the late." The first thing to notice about him is that he was in Iraq before we were. The second thing to notice is that he fled to Iraq only because he, and many others like him, had been driven out of Afghanistan. Thus, by the logic of those who say that Afghanistan is the "real" war, he would have been better left as he was. Without the overthrow of the Taliban, he and his collaborators would not have moved to take advantage of the next failed/rogue state. I hope you can spot the simple error of reasoning that is involved in this belief. It also involves the defeatist suggestion—which was very salient in the opposition to the intervention in Afghanistan—that it's pointless to try to crush such people because "others will spring up in their place." Those who take this view should have the courage to stand by it and not invent a straw-man argument.
If only we'd observed that Ramadan Truce (remember when our Left said that Moslems don't fight during Ramadan? Hah!) and let the UN indict bin Laden, all would be right with the world.
I'd like to add that in addition to there being an al Qaeda presence in Iraq prior to our invasion (remember, we hit that camp during the invasion), there were plenty of jihadis in Iraq beginning in the 1990s. You know, back when we had a sensitive lip-biting foreign policy. Saddam brought in thousands of jihadis. They were called Saddam's Fedayeen. Saddam, being no fool, wanted jihadis he controlled directly rather than allies. Why let al Qaeda in where they paint a big target on Baghdad when Saddam could have his own jihadi fanatics?
Of course, when Saddam's regime fell, the pipeline of jihadis that went through Syria kept pumping fanatics into Iraq. But the difference was they were no longer Saddam's jihadis. The Baathists thought they controlled them for a while, but they never did.
The record is clear. Jihadis were flocking to Iraq long before we invaded.
These people on the left who eagerly look for any reason to ignore the guilt of our jihadi enemies are clearly distracted. They picked a bad year to stop sniffing glue, or something.
