One of the most fundamental principles of any war is that, to win, you must divide your enemies and unite your friends. This principle is know by various names, including “divide and conquer” and “strength in numbers.”
How well has the Bush Administration applied this principle? Throughout the Middle East, radical Muslims are more united than they have been in decades, while Western allies are more divided. In Iraq, for example, Bush’s idiotic invasion has undermined Sunni power, thus enabling radical Shiites in Iraq to unite with radical Shiites in Iran, paving the way for anti-Western control of the region. Meanwhile, Bush’s invasion has alienated virtually all of America’s traditional allies: virtually none has given any support — not militarial, not financial, not material, not political nor even rhetorical. The result: there is unity among America’s enemies and deep division among America’s friends. Even worse, the momentum is moving strongly against America: the unity among its enemies is accelerating and the divisions among its friends is widening.
Likewise, in the Levant, the Bush Administration’s knee-jerk support for Israel’s appalling response to Hezbollah has helped unite Muslim radicals against both Israel and the U.S. Muslims throughout the region — and many even outside the region — see the Israelis, and their American ally, as cruel and unhuman, and they are rallying behind Hezbollah for revealing this cruelty. Indeed, even the Bush-backed president of Iraq has conspicuously failed to condemn Hezbollah, a clear sign that even moderate Muslims in the region are siding with the radicals. Meanwhile, Bush’s blind support for Israel has attracted no support from its own allies, except of course from Britain. Again, the result: unity among America’s enemies and division among America’s friends.
Indeed, even here in America, Bush’s misguided policies have deeply divided the nation, creating “red states” and “blue states” instead of one unified country.
Bottom line: we cannot know where Bush’s so-called “war on terrorism” will be in five, ten or fifty years, but we do know that, right now, Bush is failing disastrously to divide America’s enemies and unite its friends. In the six years of Bush’s moronic mismanagement, radical Muslims who were previously separated into isolated pockets in disparate countries are now more united than at any time in recent history. The notion of a radical Islamic state stretching from Africa to Asia — something that would have been laughable just ten years ago — is not laughable anymore. Meanwhile, Bush’s unending string of foreign policy failures has alienated America’s allies (except for Britain), divided the American people, exhausted the American military, depleted the American treasury, and stretched American resources to the point that its influence around the world is but a shadow of what it was when Bush took office. All these years that Bush has been strutting around and telling America that he is “winning the war on terrorism,” he has actually been uniting America’s enemies and dividing America’s friends: he is, unquestionably, losing this war.
