Anti-Climacus

WELL: A couple of issues with this Kevin Yaroch post on the Ansar al-Islam issue:

1. I remember being told prior to the Iraq war, whenever I mentioned Ansar al-Islam to my (much more liberal and very anti-war) friends, I was told that there were no terrorists operating inside Iraq, if there were, they certainly weren't causing any problems, and above all, they certainly were not in any way affiliated with al Qaeda. I'm not accusing Kevin of holding this position, but if you look at the policy dispositions of people on this issue, it was mostly the pro-war ones who were taking it seriously.

2. I wonder if the fact A aI was operating in Kurdish territory might have complicated the process of going in and doing something (don't want to mess with the sovereignty of a relatively democratic government unless you get the go-ahead).

3. The following seems like it has a big 'if' attached to it, and the force of the argument might not work if you're not prepared to make this concession: "The Bush Administration never allowed that attack to take place. This may have been done for political reasons."

4. Even if you accept a version of 3. which is less intentional in nature, I'm not sure you can make the leap straight to Bush not having a solid record against terrorism.

5. Am I to believe that President Gore (or a future President Kerry) would've gone into Iraq to eliminate the obviously very bad al Qaeda-influenced group, even if they had to do so over the objections of France, Germany and Russia?