I’m writing from the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington D.C., where one interesting theme this year is giving credit to Arab Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, for taking steps toward moderation. What a remarkably therapeutic effect the genuine threat of force (a nuclear Iran) seems to have on bullies!

Yesterday, while trying to find a briefing on that threat, I literally ran into terrorism expert Peter Bergen, author of “The Osama bin Laden I Know: an Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader,” who asked me if I was looking for his talk, called “Tentacles of Terror: The Global Reach of the Terrorist Network,” so how could I say no? Besides, last year’s conference was a 3-day “obsess about Iran-fest,” and variety is the spice of life.

Al Qaeda has had—and continues to have—a huge effect on the war in Iraq, and indeed to the extent that the violence resembles a civil war or is one, al Qaeda “sparked” it, according to Bergen. His statistics supporting this were striking: of 101 suicide bombers in Iraq from March 2003 to February 2006, only 7 were from Iraq. The rest were all foreign fighters, mostly connected with al Qaeda.

Additionally, according to a U.S. Marine assessment of the situation in Anbar, al Qaeda is effectively “running” the entire province.

Most striking to me were the figures about the suicide bombers. In other words, the vast majority of the lunatics who are actually willing to die to undermine the Iraq policy are not Iraqis, they are al Qaeda.

After the talk I asked, “Why do you think so few people worldwide, many Americans included, grasp that our troops are fighting al Qaeda in Iraq, and instead buy into the narrative that the essence of this conflict is that Iraqis don’t want democracy, when clearly there is a huge element of manipulation by outside forces?”

Bergen said he did not know why so few people grasp this reality. He cited Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s letter to al Qaeda leaders calling for suicide attacks and car bombings to promote civil war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq, which President Bush has cited.

The other speaker, Daniel Benjamin, a senior foreign policy studies fellow at The Brookings Institute, beautifully illustrated my point in a display of what I can only describe as spectacular denseness (willful or not I wasn’t sure,) saying something like, “I’m not sure I understand the question. Are you asking why do people not believe that the invasion of Iraq was a good thing?”

I clarified, “Why do you think, when people hear reports of another suicide bombing in Iraq, they think, ‘Oh, those Sunnis and Shia are killing each other?’ instead of ‘That’s al Qaeda?’ Why do many fail to understand that in this so-called civil war, there is clearly a huge element of manipulation by outside forces?”

(OK, maybe I was a tad less articulate in reality, but that’s basically what I asked).

Benjamin responded with the conventional narrative: people are upset because the U.S. invaded with an “appalling” lack of planning, etc., adding, “Lots of people in the Muslim world are angry at the U.S. for not being able to get control of the situation. They say, ‘You can put a man on the moon but you can’t get control of the violence?’ It’s a legitimate question.”

Aside from the fact that this “legitimate question” analogizes two utterly dissimilar things (man on moon versus addressing an incredibly complex wartime political situation), what is really remarkable is the doublethink here: people, including American liberals, at once condemn the U.S. for not being able to control the violence in Iraq, yet consistently oppose sending more troops, oppose adopting more aggressive rules of engagement, resist moral clarity and refuse to acknowledge the complexities here: in short, refuse to support the President in any way that would empower him to get control of the violence.

More from the conference later.

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