The Jihadists are fighting their regional war in Iraq (WP)

In my interview with Radio Free Iraq I said that the Jihadists are coming to Iraq to fight what they believe would threaten their ideological ambitions in their home countries. They feel if the Iraqi political process succeed, it will have an impact on the region as a whole and would encourage democracy and pluralism in the areas the Jihadists wants to plunge under their own type of regimes. Hence, an Iraqi success would become an Arab and international success for pluralism and eventually encourage revolution in other places. This is why the Terror attacks are going up. The Jihadi forces are fighting a historical battle (which they may either win or lose) in Iraq. The National Intelligence estimate saw that side of it but the debate in America sees the political consequences of that analysis.

However it is a good thing that such an estimate would compell diplomats, military, intellectuals, academics and Government people to further discuss the threat and analyze the Jihadi strategies. The real battle within the US is between those lobbies who want to obstruct the debate about Jihadism and those who want to investigate its role. The oil lobby has for long dodged the discussion about the role of the Jihadists in the War on Terror and in Iraq as well. The NIE report is a good basis for such a discussion . Listen to the interview in Arabic