Conservative Advocate: Keep your eye on the ball in Iraq
Post-invasion developments in Iraq have now progressed to a point where it is possible to see the broad outlines of the situation — and it’s not a very pretty picture.
American (and, to a much lesser extent, “coalition”) troops occupy that entire country, and President Bush was exactly right when he proclaimed, on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, the end of “major combat operations.” (His enemies in the media, such as CNN, routinely omit the key word “major,” making it appear that the president was simply wrong, since attacks on small American units and individual soldiers still occur almost daily.)
But, of course, hostilities have hardly ended. It appears that remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime, supplemented by volunteer “jihadists” from other countries in the Arab world, are behind the skirmishes and individual killings of American soldiers. Since such things don’t happen by coincidence, we must conclude that there is a strategy being followed here. It is a strategy of desperation, but it is a strategy nonetheless: The instigators of these attacks — quite possibly including Saddam Hussein himself — assume that the American people just don’t have the guts to battle against shadowy attackers who can manage to kill one or more American soldiers a day. They hope that, sooner or later, we will simply wilt and abandon Iraq altogether .
That, in its broadest terms, is the shape of the battle that is still going on in Iraq. Keeping our eye on that battle is complicated, however, by the number and ingenuity of the critics who are trying to divert our attention.
The Democratic Party, for example, is necessarily preoccupied with softening President Bush up, in preparation for his campaign for re-election in 2004. They, therefore, charge him with using all sorts of deceptions to trick America into going to war against Iraq; they complain bitterly about his alleged failure to plan for the postwar reconstruction of the country; they demand that unnecessarily high numbers of additional American troops be sent there, and that groveling concessions be made to the United Nations and such nations as France and Germany to win their help.
The essential thing to remember, however, is that all such “issues” are secondary to the one raised at the beginning of this column: Will the United States stay the course in Iraq until it is truly free, in both political and economic terms?
The answer to that question is crucial because it may well, in turn, determine the outcome of the global battle in which we are now engaged.
It cannot be stressed too often that we are, and have been since Sept. 11, 2001, at war with the militant wing of Islam. It is not a conventional war, in 20th century terms, but it is very definitely a war nevertheless. It was not of our choosing; it was forced upon us.
President Bush, recognizing the challenge, responded to it energetically, and has won spectacular victories over America’s sworn enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq. If these two countries, and especially Iraq, which is blessed with vast reserves of oil, can be made prosperous and free, their example will transfix, and ultimately transform, the rest of the Arab world. If they sink back into chaos and tyranny, the United States will spend a huge part of the 21st century battling the fanatical faith they and their fellow militant Islamists espouse.
William Rusher is a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.