"Why Iraq has made us less safe"
By DANIEL BENJAMIN
Monday, July 11, 2005; Posted: 4:10 p.m. EDT (20:10 GMT)
"The conflict between radical Islam and the West, like all ideological struggles, is about competing stories. The audience is the global community of Muslims.
"America portrays itself as a benign and tolerant force that, with its Western partners, holds the keys to progress and prosperity. Radical Islamists declare that the universe is governed by a war between believers and World Infidelity, which comes as an intruder into the realm of Islam wearing various masks: secularism, Zionism, capitalism, globalization.
"World Infidelity, they argue, is determined to occupy Muslim lands, usurp Muslims' wealth and destroy Islam.
"Invading Iraq, however noble the U.S. believed its intentions, provided the best possible confirmation of the jihadist claims and spurred many of Europe's alienated Muslims to adopt the Islamist cause as their own.
"The evidence is available in the elaborate underground railroad that has brought hundreds of European Muslims to the fight in Iraq. And the notion that the West would enhance its security by occupying Iraq has proved utterly illusory."
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