Sightings of the black al-Qaeda flag flying atop the courthouse of Benghazi only days after the declared “liberation” of Libya on October 23 have raised concerns about the role being played by the Islamic terror organization in post-Qaddafi Libya.
This is disturbing only if the jihadis can seize power in all or part of Libya. We can't help who will join a fight against an enemy. Did we refuse to fight Nazi Germany just because the Soviet Union also fought Germany? Even though the Soviets gained an Eastern Europe empire and smothered the independence of Poland, whose fate triggered the European theater in the first place, doesn't mean that it was wrong to have Moscow's help to defeat Hitler.
Not that I'm happy about having Islamists there. By all means we have to engage with the Libyans to marginalize (if not capture and kill) the pro-al Qaeda types on the loose. But this might make the problem more manageable:
As shown by the captured al-Qaeda personnel records known as the “Sinjar Records,” in per capita terms the eastern Libyan heartland of the anti-Qaddafi rebellion sent more foreign recruits to fight with al-Qaeda in Iraq than any other region in the Middle East or the world. (See here.)
Remember that during the Iraq War, Strategypage (I think) noted that a number of Arab countries were fine with letting their angry young jihadis go to Iraq where they could be safely killed by American troops. It was a great deal for the Arab governments. They got rid of their jihadis--permanently--and avoided jihadi ire for doing the deed themselves or having to imprison them.
It is quite possible that Libya has a lot fewer bad jihadis around now to threaten our interests because we killed them in Iraq over the last decade and made them good jihadis. That would be an interesting benefit of the Iraq War, no? But I doubt that George W. Bush will get a thank you note from President Obama for inheriting that fact.
