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Iraq links to al-Qaida could be useful to U.S.

Fred Foldvary Berkeley
Wednesday October 16, 2002

 

If the U.S. government has discovered links between al-Qaida and Iraq, that could be beneficial rather than harmful to protecting the U.S. from attack. It is in the interest of the Iraqi regime to use its power and influence to prevent further attacks on the U.S. by al-Qaida, since a terrorist attack on the U.S. would provide a splendid excuse to invade Iraq. It would be a brilliant strategy by the chiefs of the U.S. government to threaten war with Iraq with the aim of getting Iraq to become an unwitting ally against al-Qaida. It is possible that the U.S. has not been attacked because the Iraqis have helped to rein in the terrorists, in which case the best strategy is to keep threatening war without actually invading. If the US does invade Iraq without any terrorist provocation, it will have foolishly lost the use of leveraging Iraq as an unwitting ally in the prevention of another attack by al-Qaida. 

 

Fred Foldvary 

Berkeley