Is the US playing into the enemy’s hands?

Paul Rogers takes a gander at what seems to be the emerging US policy in the Mideast. He identifies three guiding principles - "working with the elites of selected states, rigorous support for Israel and its hardline treatment of the Palestinians, and the use of US military force when required" - and contends that the policy may work, "at least for the time being."

More ominously, though, he also suggests that such a policy "is precisely what paramilitary groups such as al-Qaida actually want" and concludes:

From the point of view of al-Qaida, it is a near-perfect scenario, calculated impressively to give it far greater financial and personal support across much of the region. Anti-American and anti-elite sentiments will grow, leading to the strengthening of al-Qaida and the development of similar groups.

...What appears to be a potentially successful strategy for maintaining control of a strategically crucial part of the world is actually a strategy more likely to end in a loss of control and greater risks to US interests, both abroad and at home.

Interesting that Rogers takes up this point that we might be "playing into their hands," reiterating what Steve Shalom and Michael Albert suggested back in September:

There is a second possible explanation for why those who planned the September 11 attacks did so. Why commit a grotesquely provocative act against a power so large, so armed, and so dangerous as the United States? Perhaps provoking the United States was precisely the intent. By provoking a massive military assault on one or more Islamic nations, the perpetrators may hope to set off a cycle of terror and counter-terror, precipitating a holy war between the Islamic world and the West, a war that they can lead and that they may hope will result in the overthrow of all insufficiently Islamic regimes and the unraveling of the United States, just as the Afghan war contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union. Needless to say, this scenario is insane on every count one can assess.