Bill Kristol’s fantasy forest

Bill Kristol had an interesting piece in yesterday’s Washington Post Outlook section. In it, the Weekly Standard editor and omnipresent pundit claims that Bush’s presidency will ultimately be successful and his actions in Iraq vindicated. A look at the “broad forest,” Kristol insists, presents a much more positive picture than the typical emphasis on the “often unlovely trees.” And in Kristol’s forest, the growing U.S. economy, the fact that there has not been another major terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and Kristol’s belief that things are looking up in Iraq is enough to put Bush in the pantheon of great presidents.

At one point, Kristol writes:

What about terrorism? Apart from Iraq, there has been less of it, here and abroad, than many experts predicted on Sept. 12, 2001. So Bush and Vice President Cheney probably are doing some important things right.

Now, Kristol leaves himself plenty of wiggle room there with the phrase “than many experts predicted” a day after September 11, when no one was quite sure whether the world would explode into a ball of fire. But the implication that there has been less terrorism abroad is simply not true.

In fact, since 9/11, terror attacks and fatalities have been on the rise around the world—not just in the Middle East, but nearly everywhere. Just look at the graphic to the right, which is adapted from FP‘s 9/11+5, a look at the state of terror around the world five years after 9/11 by two terrorism experts at RAND. Even without counting the Middle East, the number of attacks elsewhere in the world has soared for the years 2002-2005 over the period 1998-2001.

Or we can just look at certain years and compare. Consider that in 2001, there were 1,732 incidents of terrorism around the world; outside of the Middle East, there were 1,223. In 2006, the total number of attacks nearly quadrupled to an astonishing 6,653 incidents. Yes, many of them were in Iraq. But leave out the Middle East again, and the total number of attacks around the world still shoots to 2,113.

Or take the human toll: About 11,000 injuries and fatalities from terrorism in 2001 (and that includes 9/11). Last year? 33,034 injuries and fatalities, and not just in Iraq. Nearly 2,000 dead in South Asia in 2006. More than 100 dead in Africa. That hardly sounds like “less” terrorism to me.

Stranger still is Kristol’s speculation that, had Saddam been left in power, “his connections with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups would be intact or revived and even strengthened.” Connections with al Qaeda? Just this April, the Washington Post (yes, the same paper running the Kristol piece) ran an A1 article about a declassified DoD report from before the war stating that Saddam was not working with al Qaeda. What about Zarqawi, you ask? He went to Iraq in 2002, but only joined bin Laden’s al Qaeda network after the U.S. invasion.

It’s fine and fair to debate Bush’s legacy, and he’s surely done a few good things over the past six years. And Bill Kristol is certainly entitled to his own opinion; if he think Bush has been boffo, then more power to him. But Kristol is certainly not entitled to his own facts.