It has now become clear that Saddam did not have the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to provide to terrorists, even if he had wanted to. It has become equally clear that Saddam never had any close ties to al Qaida. He did provide payments to families of Palestinian suicide bombers, which is support for terrorism in Israel. This is certainly despicable, but I doubt that most people think a couple of dozen contributions totaling at most a couple hundred thousand dollars is reason enough to launch a $200 billion war. If so, we should be invading several other countries, including Saudi Arabia, which probably contributes more money to terrorists than any other country. We haven’t heard Bush suggest that, have we?

This means that, after he abandons the WMD and al Qaida claims, which have been proven false, Bush has two primary arguments: (1) we are killing the terrorists in Iraq instead of here in the U.S., and (2) once democracy is established in Iraq, it will provide a point of stability in the region and a model for democracy for other countries in the Middle East to follow.

It is true that we have killed at least hundreds, and perhaps even a few thousand, Muslim militants and other insurgents in Iraq. But I think we need to separate the insurgents in Iraq into three groups:
1) Islamic terrorists motivated primarily by religious zeal and hatred for non-Muslims;
2) Insurgents motivated by loss of power (as is the case of former Baathists from Saddam’s regime); and
3) Insurgents who merely want the U.S. out of Iraq because they don’t want to be occupied (which is understandable, if at this point probably counter-productive).

Since the second and third groups of terrorists did not exist before the Iraqi War, it’s not possible to argue that the war is helping reduce their numbers, since their numbers were effectively zero before the war.

In addition, it is clear that the war in Iraq is motivating many thousands of young Muslims to join terrorist organizations. This means that the war in Iraq is increasing the number of Islamic terrorists, not decreasing their numbers. In addition, the war in Iraq is helping train these terrorists. And while American soldiers are also getting experience in Iraq, this experience is not of the type that could be transferred to defending the U.S., unless you want soldiers fighting in American streets and ransacking the homes of American citizens here at home.

This leaves the last remaining Bush argument for the success of the Iraqi War, which is that a free and democratic Iraq will help stabilize the region and provide a model for democracy and freedom to other countries in the Middle East.

The jury is still out on this, since freedom and democracy have not been established yet in Iraq. I sincerely hope that it will be, and I do think there is a significant chance that, in the long run, at a cost of many thousands more lost lives and many billions of dollars, a free and democratic Iraq might be established.

However, the idea that a free and democratic predominantly Muslim nation in the Middle East will cause a “domino effect” of democratization in the Middle east ignores a simple fact. There already is a relatively free and democratic predominantly Muslim nation in the Middle East. Its name is Turkey and it is a U.S. ally and a member of NATO. Why hasn’t Turkey’s example caught on? Pakistan also recently had a democracy until Musharraf staged a bloodless coup a few years ago. That example did not catch on in the Middle East, either. Why will Iraq be different?

If on the other hand, despite thousands of lost American and Iraqi lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money spent in Iraq, a free, stable and democratic Iraq is not established, then Iraq could serve as an example that democracy does not work. There are many in the Middle East, including most of the current governments of countries in the region, as well as Arab and Muslim xenophobes, who want such a negative example to justify the status quo and their continued isolationism. 

How likely you think this disastrous  scenario is depends on who you listen to.  Bush and the interim government in Iraq, both of whom have an obvious political stake in being optimistic on the outcome of the Iraq War, indicate that things are going well in Iraq. Every other credible expert and even most of the senior Bush administration officials in the CIA, the military and the State Department are much more pessimistic. Bush and his spokesmen dismiss these dissenting voices as pessimists and naysayers, much as they dismissed the warnings about intelligence warnings about Iraq's WMD, the likelihood of a sustained insurgency and other experts' warnings that have since come true. Click HERE for an example of this disconnect from conservative journalist Robert Novak.

So, in summary:
1) The Iraq War is increasing, not decreasing, the number of terrorists.
2) The Iraqi War is helping to train these terrorists.
3) Iraq would not be the first example of a democracy in a predominantly Muslim country; at best it would serve as a follow-up example to complement Turkey or Indonesia.
4) It is unclear whether Iraq will in the end serve as a positive or negative example for democracy in the Middle East.

So, do you think the Iraq War is helping the war on terror?