The White House has long claimed that our presence in Iraq attracts terrorists who might otherwise attack American interests. This assertion has always seemed dubious, but in a new Mother Jones exclusive study, Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank put the “flypaper” theory firmly to rest. They’ve crunched the numbers and found that the Iraq War has, in fact, led to a significant increase in jihadist terrorism across the globe. Call it the “Iraq Effect.” If you include Iraq and Afghanistan, terror attacks have increased 609% since the U.S. took Baghdad; take away Iraq and Afghanistan and the increase drops, but it’s still a hefty 35%. Rather than eliminating terrorists, Bergen and Cruickshank explain, the war has energized terror groups and become a “catalyst for the increasing globalization of the jihadist cause.” It’s a sobering assessment of an overlooked consequence of the Iraq debacle.
The full study will be posted tonight at 10 PM Eastern/7 PM Pacific, when Bergen and Cruickshank will be appearing on Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN to discuss the Iraq Effect. Bergen will appear on C-Span’s Washington Journal tomorrow morning at 9:15 AM Eastern/6:15 AM Pacific.
And stay tuned as we roll out more of our “Iraq 101” package tonight. It’s loaded with info on everything you wanted to know about the war but were afraid to ask.
