Tuesday, July 18, 2006
The enemy of their enemy
Jonah Goldberg asks the usual question that we hawks have asked since 2002 whenever jihadis and secular fascists conspire against the good guys:
Oh, can we please hear some explanations from all those folks on the left who insisted that Jihadis and secular Arab nationalists can't work together? "Al-Qaeda and Saddam could never cooperate, ya idjit," they said. Why? "Because al-Qaeda is fundamentalist and Saddam is secular. Don't you know anything?"
I'm paraphrasing of course.
Well, now by popular consensus, Jihadi nutbag Iran is working with secular nutbag Syria to use their stygian love child, Jihadi nutbag Hezbollah, to wreak havoc across the region. Indeed, Syria can supposedly tell Hezbollah to stand down tomorrow. Why on earth would fundamentalist whackos take orders from Baathists like Assad? That's not supposed to be possible.
It is only prudent to conspire with the enemy of your enemy. The jihadis have been doing it all along, as have the Ba'athists, and so have we. Isn't that why we work with the House of Saudi and Pervez Musharraf? Only silly people and professors believe that Ba'athists wouldn't do it, or that we shouldn't do it. The leftists who believed that Saddam would not have worked with al Qaeda, or vice versa, were either disingenuous or ignorant. Hawks who believe that now is the right time to turn on the Saudis could use a couple of whacks with a clue bat. We have a war to win, and if that means we help Stalin beat Hitler, then by golly that's what we should do. Nor should we blind ourselves to the possibility that Stalin would also treat with Hitler. That this remains to be argued five years into the struggle of our generation speaks volumes for the historical ignorance of the Western chattering classes.
6 Comments:
By 
Fat Man, at
Tue Jul 18, 08:52:00 PM:
The study of history is the soverign remedy for foolish punditry. I have, of late, been studying the 30 Years War. We should remember that Cardinal Richelieu (a Prince of the Roman Church) allied Catholic France with the Protestant Sweeden to attack the Catholic Hapsburgs.
By Purple Avenger, at
Tue Jul 18, 09:23:00 PM:
Interests always trump ideology when forming alliances.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Jul 18, 10:52:00 PM:
Interestingly, however, there is an entire (major) school of IR thought that doesn't think so... called Liberalism.
They're not having such an easy time nowadays.
By 
, at
Wed Jul 19, 02:23:00 AM:
Don't be to hard on the liberals. The same can be said of our own intelligence services.
Some of which were so wrapped up in the differences between the proponents of Islam that there was no way the proponents could work together.
All the while forgetting any history, and religeous writings, to the contrary.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Wed Jul 19, 09:47:00 AM:
Still trying to tie Saddam to 9-11.
You'll get there somday.
By Dawnfire82, at
Wed Jul 19, 07:34:00 PM:
How adorably patronizing.
Saddam was, factually, tied to multiple avenues of terrorism including secular Palestinians, religious Palestinians, anti-Iranians, and anti-Americans, including Al Qaeda. (elements thereof... to consider Al Qaeda an organized group in the same sense as Hamas or Hezb Allah or Abu Sayyaf is not quite right)
As for 9/11, the closest links (excepting the Czechs, who swear otherwise) are still not solid links.
