Cause and Effect

I know that 10 years after 9/11, that the anti-war people are taking this opportunity to continue the debate on whether to invade Iraq. That regime change was already the official policy of the United States government is beside the point, I suppose. Also beside the point is that we broke the back of al Qaeda, which decided to challenge us in Iraq after the fall of Saddam, by fighting there.

But I would like to note one thing, since so many of the anti-war side claim that the invasion of Iraq and the liberation of her people from their despot, and our defense of Iraq's new government, would alienate Moslems around the world and just "create more terrorists." That used to be popular in nuanced circles to claim--fighting back against the terrorists would just make more terrorists.

That one thing is, why is the Arab Spring protest movement demanding democracy and not the "authentic" Islamism that we supposedly strengthened by fighting in Iraq?

Yes, yes, I know that for the anti-war side it is blasphemous to suggest that the Arab Spring was enabled by our defense of democracy in Iraq. And truth be told, at this point so early we can't really say that the liberation of Iraq led to the Arab Spring. It seems logical, but it is too soon to say it with any degree of certainty.

Although analysis that says the Arab Spring has stemmed from food price inflation speaks only to the trigger. Couldn't the protesters have demanded Sharia rather than democracy to set the food problem straight? The creation of a fledgling democracy in Iraq and the Arab spring could all just be a coincidence of timing, however. I'll admit that.

But we definitely can say that the anti-war view that cowboy Bush, with his anti-Moslem crusade that has alienated the Moslem world, didn't actually "play into" Osama bin Laden's hands and radicalize the Moslem world against us. If we had done that, pro-al Qaeda regimes would have sprang up in places other than the Code Pink and International ANSWER's front offices.

So the longing for democracy so clear in the Arab world today (even if the protesters don't know quite what democracy is or how to achieve it) may not have flowed from Operation Iraqi Freedom. But Operation Iraqi Freedom sure didn't create more jihadis.

UPDATE: Related news. Maybe it wasn't Bush's fault after all? Hmm?