The Flaw in the Flypaper Theory

Steve Clemons has a really interesting post up from the weekend on continuing Shia-Sunni violence in Iraq. This part caught my eye:

Secondly, I recently had a conversation about Saudi Arabia's political stability with a senior Saudi Defense Attache based in a foreign government -- and would rather not identify the person. The Saudi General told me that one of his greatest concerns about Saudi Arabia's future was not that the Iraq War or other regional conflicts would boil over, but rather that the conflicts would be quelled, that the problems in Iraq would more or less stabilize and the fire in the heart of the insurgency would diminish.

The General's concern in that scenario is that the many Saudis that have left the country to fight in these "wars" would come home. That, he said, would create serious internal tensions and possibly create instabilities that would be "difficult to control". This was an astonishing admission from a top General but it seemed candid and honest to me.

I asked then whether it was important for Saudi Arabia's stability for it to have the ability to export these young-ish, male jihadists. The General's one word response: "Absolutely."

I don't necessarily buy the entirety of that General's assessment, considering that it's widely believed that a very low percentage of the fighters in Iraq are from places like Saudi Arabia any more. But it does bring up a very interesting thought concerning the "flypaper" theory that so many neocons used as an excuse for justifying our troops' presence in the heart of the Arab world. This man clearly believes that this phenomenon is happening, but he also believes that even if America succeeds in Iraq, it does nothing to solve the greater problems of instability and terrorism in the region. If that's true, then what the hell good is the "flypaper" theory? So we attract all the crazies from the region to one place, but unless we actually catch them all - which is impossible without running roughshod over the country - all it does is give a temporary reprieve to the monarchs and tyrants that would otherwise have to deal with them.

The reality of the "flypaper" theory is that you can catch a lot of flies with it, but unless you can actually do something to stop new flies from being born, you can't remove the flypaper.