Proposition: Al Qaeda wanted to get the West to stop fking with the Middle East. (”Terrorism is geopolitical, [not ideological].”)
Reality: No 9/11 likely means no Iraq War.
Three possibilities:
1. They were too stupid to realize invasion would be the response.
2. They were too drunk on ideology to realize invasion would be the response.
3. The proposition is false. That wasn’t their actual goal.
That’s not reality. 9/11 was ridiculously and falsely linked to Iraq by the lying liars then in the WH. But they wanted to do it anyway. Just because Bush claimed to be isolationist in his 2000 campaign, doesn’t mean he was telling the truth.
Really. You think they could summon up the political will to do it when Bush was just *barely* elected President in the first place? 9/11 is what gave them the power to engage in that level of mid-east meddling.
It’s correct that Iraq was not really involved in 9/11. The problem is it’s in the same general area of the world, among other things, enabling the Bush Administration to falsely tie them in the public’s perception.
But Saddam wasn’t really pursuing WMDs, all that was left was stuff leftover from a long time ago that was missed in an earlier sweep. So how do you gin up support for an expensive war against some random middle eastern dictator that isn’t even really arranging terrorism against you?
Step one - get your shoddy approval rating spiked into the stratosphere by a massive middle eastern terrorist attack, massively boosting your low political capital, allowing you to even attempt to make this threat narrative without looking like a paranoid lunatic in the first place.