Dome Decree

With the bombing of the golden domed mosque in Iraq, even more people are losing their resolve and declaring Iraq a failure. The sad thing is that it is a harbinger of success. We're winning and the only way we're going to lose is if we let the images confuse us from the facts.

Several analysts have noted that the act of blowing up the mosque (and thereby trying to incite civil war) is from a tactical standpoint an incredibly risky maneuver, on par with the "Hail Mary" pass at the end of a football game (if I may mix religions for a second.) A civil war might mean the USA won't get the democracy from Iraq they might want, but if one fails to ignite it would give the populace even more incentive to coalesce around an Iraqi identity. Moreover, it could further turn the people away from the Wahabist / Islamofascist interest and toward the USA.

24 March 2006:
I wrote the above immediately after the bombing but never finished it in a timely manner. But I came across the draft today and decided to finish it now. Civil war isn't happening. Considering how much the media would love to report a true Civil War, the things they are reporting happening don't rise to that level. The fact that the US and UK forces haven't had to mobilize to retake the country says to me that the country, while still as chaotic as has marked the end of the war, is not fighting itself.

And while I am on that subject, let me remind everyone talking about us losing the Iraq War: we won the Iraq War long ago. What's going on right now is the fight for the peace. Saddam Hussein is no longer in power and if we wanted to control any particular region of the country we could. What we are going through is the dead end nastiness that people seem to forget goes on even after you win. No one would dispute that the Union won the U.S. Civil War (that is to say the War of Northern Aggression; I live in the south now), and yet some Booth fellow still managed to shoot Lincoln.

Assuming they embrace republican democracy, peace will come to Iraq eventually, and the dome destruction could be the first sign that our boys and girls will be coming home.

See You In The Funny Pages

As a religious man, I can appreciate how you might find a cartoon about your religion unfunny, even inflammatory and blasphemous. But as a man with reason and sense, if I truly felt moved enough to do something about it, I would direct my wrath at the perpetrator, not people unrelated to the source of my offense.

Which is why I have a problem with the Cartoon Riots. Muslims who do not like the Danish cartoons have every right to be offended, but no right, none, to destroy the Danish embassy in Lebanon, no right to destroy property and assault people during their protest marches. None.

Adding to my disgust with the situation is the fact that Danish imams have chosen to exacerbate the situation by adding cartoons not from the Danish paper. This is orchestrated and is using the cover of religious outrage for another purpose.

I have been skulling over what the purpose might be and I have an idea: Al Qaeda and Islamofascism are losing. It's getting harder and harder to recruit gullible young Muslims into blowing themselves up. So what better to re-stoke your fervor than an insult to your religion? Get 'em riled up, get 'em blowing up.

But as with just about everything, there are unintended consequences. Europe is wakening to the menace many have called Eurabia for years. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority will find themselves even more isolated from the world. And disparate nations like France, Russia, and the US may finally combine to confront Iran.

Whether or not my theory as to why this was done is right, it is clear that the Muslim world understands the American part of the western world even less than we understand them. To turn a common phrase, they should be careful what they protest about; they might just get it.