Back in 2005, when things seemed to be going well for al Qaeda in Iraq, the terror group had ambitions.In a letter to al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda's #2 al-Zawahiri, revealed the Grand Plan
The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq.
The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate- over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq...
The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq.
The fourth stage: ...the clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity.
Zawahiri felt that they were on the verge of victory.
The Americans will exit soon, God willing...Things may develop faster than we imagine. The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam-and how they ran and left their agents-is noteworthy. Because of that, we must be ready starting now, before events overtake us
But in the end, al Qaida was thwarted in their strategies, and now we are at the point where we have won.
We have defeated the enemy on their battlefield. And the evidence of this are now abundant. Michael Yon, an Independent war reporter declares (via Instapundit)
"THE WAR IS OVER AND WE WON:"Michael Yon just phoned from Baghdad, and reports that things are much better than he had expected, and he had expected things to be good. "There's nothing going on. I'm with the 10th Mountain Division, and about half of the guys I'm with haven't fired their weapons on this tour and they've been here eight months. And the place we're at, South Baghdad, used to be one of the worst places in Iraq. And now there's nothing going on. I've been walking my feet off and haven't seen anything. I've been asking Iraqis, 'do you think the violence will kick up again,' but even the Iraqi journalists are sounding optimistic now and they're usually dour." There's a little bit of violence here and there, but nothing that's a threat to the general situation. Plus, not only the Iraqi Army, but even the National Police are well thought of by the populace. Training from U.S. toops has paid off, he says, in building a rapport.
MORE: Yon emails this correction: "Actually, NONE of them have fired their weapons in combat during this tour, and about half of them are combat veterans from Afghanistan and/or Iraq." Sorry, I had misunderstood that bit.
You may argue about the wisdom of invading Iraq, but you can not argue that we have done alot of good.
Saddam Hussein and his murderous thugocrisy is gone from the Earth.
Millions of people now have a chance for economic and political freedom.
And a dangerous enemy of the US and the West (not to mention the World) was defeated in a long and arduous battle.
The very fact that Afghanistan has become more dangerous is precisely because al Qaeda has abandoned the battlefield of Iraq and have regrouped in Pakistan.
It is now time, before it gets lost down the memory hole, to make note that Bush started this war and Bush won this war.
On November 22nd, let's celebrate Victory in Iraq.
