A question answered?

Three years ago, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote a memo to his colleagues in the Pentagon posing a critical question in the “long war’’ against terrorism: Is Washington’s strategy successfully killing or capturing terrorists faster than new enemies are being created?

This is from the New York Times' David Sanger's piece Study Doesn’t Share Bush’s Optimism on Terror Fight. Sanger points out that the portions of the NIE released yesterday (see below) seem to answer that question and the answer is NO.

Portions of the report appear to bolster President Bush’s argument that the only way to defeat the terrorists is to keep unrelenting military pressure on them. But nowhere in the assessment is any evidence to support Mr. Bush’s confident-sounding assertion this month in Atlanta that “America is winning the war on terror.’’

And what about Democracy Building and Iraq? As for Iraq the report plainly states that it has become 'the "cause celebre" for jihadists' and

It also suggests that while democratization and “exposing the religious and political straitjacket that is implied by the jihadists’ propaganda’’ might dim the appeal of the terrorist groups, those factors are now outweighed by the dangerous brew of fear of Western domination, the battle for Iraq’s future and the slow pace of real economic or political progress.

Yet the intelligence report bears none of Mr. Bush’s long-range optimism. Rather it dwells on Mr. Rumsfeld’s darker question, which he put cheekily as, “Is our current situation such that ‘the harder we work, the behinder we get?’ ”

Tuesday’s declassified report asked a more subtle version of that question. It notes that while democratization might “begin to slow the spread’’ of extremism, the “destabilizing transitions’’ caused by political change “will create new opportunities for jihadists to exploit.’’

While George W. Bush may have released the report thinking it verified his delusional optimism any thinking person will see the opposite. George W. Bush is losing in Iraq, losing in Afghanistan and yes, losing the so called war on terror. But is the administration getting what it really wants? As Paul Craig Roberts suggested a few day ago:

Neocons seek maximum chaos and instability in the Middle East in order to justify long-term US occupation of the region.

If that's what they want their effort is proving to be a great success.