Bush's Legacy

Bush and the Congressional Republicans are trumpeting the turn in events as a result of Zarqawi’s death and the naming of the final two cabinet ministers in Iraq. Coupled with Rove escaping prosecution and approval polls moving from 31% to 38%; they believe they are now on an upswing that will define the remaining 2 ½ years of the Bush presidency. It looks as if once again, they are doing their best to deceive themselves and as many gullible Americans as they can.

More sobering and more realistic are recent comments by Dexter Filkins, the NY Times reporter in Baghdad, who related on PBS the daily deteriorating situation in the city, where frequent insurgent killings are matched by sectarian deaths as Shiites and Sunnis attack each other.

Even more disturbing is a recent column in the Washington Post by Anthony Shadid, who has covered Iraq continually dating prior to our invasion in 2003 and in addition to his reporting for the Post is the author of the acclaimed book “Night Draws Near” about ordinary Iraqis and their reaction to Saddam’s downfall and the arrival of the United States. This column, with excerpts below, deals directly with Bush’s legacy. It is one of deeply formed hate of the United States by people who are now our enemies. While they were not strong supporters of the US before Iraq, our misguided actions there have served as a catalyst for problems that we will be facing long after Bush is gone.

Abu Haritha still carries traces of the battles he fought in Iraq, 500 miles away.
On his hand is a black ring, a gift from a fellow insurgent after he was wounded in the torso in Fallujah by shrapnel. Every once in a while, he watches videos lauding attacks carried out on his former battlefield and celebrates the exploits of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed last week in Iraq. At times, he regales colleagues with stories of American fear.

But for Abu Haritha, that battle is over. As he sits in this northern city, Lebanon's second-largest, he waits for what he believes will be a more expansive war beyond Iraq, a struggle he casts in the most cataclysmic of terms. In the morning, he jogs; he lifts weights for hours at night. In between, with his cell phone ringing with the Muslim call to prayer, he proselytizes in streets that are growing ever more militant, sprinkled with the black banners that proclaim jihad and occasional slogans celebrating the resistance in Iraq. "It's an open battle, in any place, at any time," he said, his voice calm. "History has to record that there was resistance."

The war in Iraq has generated some of the most startling images in the Middle East today: a dictator's fall, elections in defiance of insurgent threats and carnage on a scale rarely witnessed. Less visibly, though, the war is building a profound legacy across the Arab world: fear and suspicion over Iraq's repercussions, a generation that casts the Bush administration's policy as an unquestioned war on Islam, and a subterranean reserve of men who, like Abu Haritha, declare that the fight against the United States in Iraq is a model for the future.

Abu Haritha's home, Tripoli, is one of the most visible manifestations of the war, a rough-and-tumble city being transformed by growing radicalism and religious fervor that may long outlast the death of Zarqawi and the U.S. presence in Iraq, now in its fourth year. Here, and elsewhere, that militancy may prove to be the inheritance of both the war and the Bush administration's professed aim of bringing democratic reform to the region.
As those currents gather force, Abu Haritha waits with a certain ease, confident of what is to come. "Iraq is a badge of honor for every Arab and Muslim to fight the American vampire," he said. "The Americans may enter Syria, they may enter another country, and we should prepare ourselves for them," Abu Haritha said at a cafe in a crowded alley. "We have to face them so that history won't record they entered our land without confrontation."

At a cafe in the old city of Tripoli last week, Bilal Shaaban, the leader of the Islamic Unity Movement, a Sunni group, reclined on a sofa. Overhead was a television showing al-Jazeera's coverage of Zarqawi's death. Outside the cafe was a city reflecting the very real currents of militancy, generated by the Iraq war, that are reshaping political and social life. Shaaban ticked off what he called the successes of Islamic activists like him in Egypt, the Palestinian territories and now Somalia. "In every place, why does the Islamic current reach its goals?" he asked. "Because it expresses the people's sentiments against the Americans. It's a reaction to American policy. They are planting the seed of hatred that is going to last generations."

Men like Shaaban, of the Islamic Unity Movement, praise the insurgency in Iraq but deny any hand in subversion. At the same time, the growing reach of their groups in the poor neighborhoods of Tripoli -- through newspapers, radio stations, mosques and social welfare, the bread and butter of Islamic groups -- has gone far in transforming a predominantly Sunni city that was traditionally home to a vibrant mix of Arab nationalism and leftist and Islamic politics.

Even longtime residents are struck by the shift in social mores over the past few years: the proliferation of women's veils and men's beards, the flourishing of religion classes and the number of youths joining groups such as Shaaban's. On balconies, interspersed among flags for residents' favorite World Cup soccer teams, are black banners with religious inscriptions usually associated with holy war. In squares of Tripoli, particularly its most religious neighborhoods such as Abu Samra, civic art is often a stark representation of God's name. Along one street, graffiti reads: "Liberation is coming."

"We thank the Americans," said Ibrahim Salih, a founder of the Committee to Support the Iraqi Resistance, which he described as a group that disseminates information.
Near his house, along a cinder-block wall, is more graffiti. "Glory and eternity for the martyrs of Fallujah," it reads. "No one can repress us anymore," said Salih, 52, who was educated in France. "We are a power here in Tripoli."

Grievances against the United States are nothing new in a city like Tripoli. For a generation, activists across the spectrum have bitterly criticized U.S. policy. What has shifted in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the U.S. invasion of Iraq is the perception of that policy. The critique is no longer about perceived double standards -- of excessive support for Israel, of backing Arab dictatorships. Today, it is more generalized, universal and uncompromising. Popular sentiment here and elsewhere holds that U.S. policy amounts to a war on Islam, and in the language of Abu Haritha and others, the conflict is framed as one between the faithful and infidels, justice and injustice.

"The targeting of Iraq can be considered the first step in targeting the entire Middle East to impose a new order in the region," said Fathi Yakan, a founder of the Islamic Association and head of an umbrella group known as the Islamic Action Forces.
In a waiting room decorated with religious banners is a magazine that celebrates the defiance of the Palestinian group Hamas against attempts to isolate it. "We starve, but we don't kneel," says one passage. At the entrance is a poster marking the anniversary of Israel's assassination in 2004 of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a co-founder of Hamas. "Together we resist," it reads. On a street outside, a poster announces a forum titled, "The global campaign to resist aggression on the Muslim nation."

Fighters like Abu Haritha and activists like Shaaban and Yakan speak in almost mythical tones about what they call the resistance in Iraq. In nearly every conversation, they make the assertion that the United States has, at this point, lost the war. "We already consider it a success. It has already led to the failure of the American project in Iraq," Yakan said with a shrug that suggested the obvious. "I think the Americans realize that, and they are looking for an exit to wash their hands of it."

But these men's reading of the war has grown more complicated, as even the most radical voices try to make sense of the spectacular carnage there, the killing of civilians and the prospect of civil strife. Some supporters of the insurgency say they fear the conflict will unleash a civil war, the country's partition and the spillover of tension between Sunni and Shiite Muslims to the rest of the Arab world. That fear is particularly pronounced in Lebanon, where Shiites make up the single largest community.

"The smoke from the fire in Iraq is drifting over Lebanon," Shaaban said darkly.
Some see an American hand in Iraq's entropy; in their analysis, the United States and Israel are fanning the flames of sectarianism as a way to further divide the Arab world and create a region even more balkanized than today's. Others see a more deep-seated hostility in U.S. actions, a scorched-earth campaign to hasten an apocalyptic battle or, in Salih's words, the "politics of chaos."