If and when Al Qaeda loses in Iraq (and I think it has already lost, the media just refuses to admit the fact Iraq will not now be toppled by a bunch of blood thirsty foreigners which the Iraqis fear more than follow) the question is what next? Well, more like where next? To survive Al Qaeda needs a base of operations, a state to teach and train and pass their warped ideology onto the next generation.

The Washington Post, in the now classic warped view of journalism, identifies one place that could be the new focus of attention in Al Qaeda’s Jihad. The Post reports on a kind of expansion of the war in Lebanon, like Al Qaeda and radical Islam never existed outside Afghanistan before 9-11.

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 cellphone 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.

Well the Jihad could be expanding, or it could be retreating to try its hand on something more manageable. A supposedly weaker nation. What is truly interesting is the shock by the reporters that Bush’s goals in Iraq have come true (not may come true):

The war in Iraq has generated some of the most startling images in the Middle East today: [1] a dictator’s fall, [2] 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: [3] fear and suspicion over Iraq’s repercussions, a generation that casts the Bush administration’s policy as an [4] unquestioned war on Islam, and [5] 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.

Emphasis mine, as well as the numbering. The Washington Post, in this one paragraph, admits in a grudging way that the Bush doctorine in the Middle East is succeeding.

Look at number [1]: the fall of Saddam Hussein. The supposedly modern Saladin. What Hussein represented was the future of Islam, which was corrupt and evil to the core. He tortured people into submission, killing for example and expediency. Is great princes raped women at will, pulling them off the street at a mere whimsy. Where the naive and blinded western liberals note Saddam was no Islamic zealot, they ignore the evil brutality common to Saddam, Zarqawi and Bin Laden. What the US has done is topple all those who have represented a future that is based on brutality and oppression and death.

Take number [2]: Elections in defiance of threats and bloody retribution. The Post reflects the pathetic world view of most liberals that Arabs and the people of the ME are incapable of choosing peaceful democracy over Stalinist controls. That is why they continue to call for retreat because this must be a lost cause. I think it disturbs them to think the people of the ME are more like them than they care to admit, because admitting that would mean admitting they ignored the plight of people and ended up wishing for that plight to continue in response to George Bush. But Bush was right. When faced with the two choices, the resounding majority in Iraq chose to join the modern world in democracy.

Which leads us to [3]: ‘fear and suspicion over Iraq’s repercussions’. Well, there is only ‘fear’ from the Islamo-fascists in Lebanon. Overall that country is very much supportive of democracy and recently voted out the Syrian-backed strongmen. That tells you right there this piece is one sided, from the Jihadists point of view. There is no fear of democracy in Lebanon, but there is a desperate fear of it in Al Qaeda.

Number 4 is the classic liberal blinders. After a decade and a half of islamic radicals calling for Jihad (and declaring war on the West) the media still acts surprised when there are people in the Muslim world who see Islam at war with the West. I mean – duh! There is a view of the West and Islam at arms with each other, that is the view propigated by the radicals to create support for their cause. Bush has been attacking these radicals to emphasize what a war like that means – a lot of dead islamic radicals.

Which leads us to item 5: The post has found dead-enders, people who will not give up the fight against the West. But now these people are subterranean! They are underground. These men must be underground in Lebanon because the Lebonese might jail them for life if it was clear they wanted to import the failed Iraqi insurgency to Lebanon.

This paragraph is quite enlightening in that it illustrates the depth of liberal partisan blindness and the depth of Bush’s success in the ME. We have forced the Islamic radicals from being a normal part of Muslim society into hiding. We have shown the people that the day of the Muslim strong man is over, and that their numbers alone are sufficient to throw off the old ways and delve into democracy. We have done what we have said, and the media finds that ‘startling’!

Addendum: Just check out this passage and realize how much denial of reality has to be going into the statement, and the Post for reporting it as if it has some weight in matters:

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.”

The media and the far leftward fringes are the only ones other than the Jihadists themselves clinging to the quaint notion that there is no democratic government in Iraq, that the vast majority of Iraqis live in peace with each other, that there is no civil war, just blood thirsty nutcases from around the ME, and that the security situation is getting better as we decapitate and route these nutcases.  And the one big fear of a religious civil war is not from the US, but from lunatics like Zarqawi:

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.

Well, it was Zarqawi who called for the massacre of Shiites, not the US or the Iraqi government or the Israelis.

The left and Jihadists can declare Iraq a success all day long. But it is our allies who manage the country and fight by our sides attacking the radicals. We can repeat this as much as they Jihadists want and where they want. From where I sit the Iraq model is the future of the ME and radical Islam.