It looks obvious

Justifying his position, opposing a withdrawal from Iraq, the President often argue that fighting the terrorist in Iraq prevents them from attacking us here in the US.  A much more simplistic argument than arguing, and being wrong, that building democracy in Iraq can trigger a major change in the Middle-East, which in turn will improve the US national security.

In order for the argument, that the American present in Iraq is preventing the terrorist from attacking in the US, to be true some conditions has to exist. Such condition can include - importance for the specific territory as a base for operations, logistical and financial support etc; It might be a physical barrier (like the security zone Israel created in Lebanon between 1982 and 2000) or it preventing the terrorist from being able to initiate attack. But none of these condition exist when discussing the importance or Iraq. In addition, between the first attack on the WTC - in 1993 - and the second attack on September 2001. In this period Muslim’s terror organizations, mainly Al-Qaeda, carried several attack against American targets - none of them in the US.

But we missed one condition - motivation,  which makes the President’s argument to be not completely wrong, and Ironically this is much worse.  Al Qaeda focus in Iraq, not because our presence there prevents them from attacking in the US (I’m sure that other measure that are being taken making terrorist attack in the US harder), but because it is more beneficial.

The US presence in Iraq providing quality targets to the terrorist and it provide them with an opportunity to win a strategic victory.  The attempt to change the Middle-East into a democracy, by forcing Iraq to change, seems appealing on paper. But the fragility of such attempt, and developing no alternatives, created a major opportunity to weaken the American influence and to gain support for anti-western ideologies. Therefore it is more important to these organizations to defeat the American efforts in Iraq, as it will carry very high return.

But what will happen when the US will stop delaying the inevitable and withdrawal from Iraq? would the region fall into the hands of Osama Bin Laden and alike? I doubt. Very much like the Domino Theory , the Middle-East will not fall piece by piece into the hand of the fundamentalist. However, the US will find that it has much less ability to protect its interests and that other forces emerge to balance it. It might be some European countries - like France and Russia, and very likely we will see more of china.

And again, short sighted policy aimed to achieve a win all victory is found to be far less effective than more patient approaches. Or better, what would happened would this administration will adopt a policy of abstinence that they like so much.