Columnist Robert Novak created a stir earlier this week when he reported that the Bush administration is preparing to cut and run on Iraq.
Inside the Bush administration policymaking apparatus, there is strong feeling that U.S. troops must leave Iraq next year. This determination is not predicated on success in implanting Iraqi democracy and internal stability. Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or not, here we go.This prospective policy is based on Iraq's national elections in late January, but not predicated on ending the insurgency or reaching a national political settlement. Getting out of Iraq would end the neoconservative dream of building democracy in the Arab world. The United States would be content having saved the world from Saddam Hussein's quest for weapons of mass destruction.
Ali in Iraq was not impressed by Novak's punditry.
What does Mr. Novak know about Iraq and the decision makers in the USA? If his information about how decision makers in America are thinking, is similar to his information about Iraq, then I guess we are safe and there’s no need to worry.NO Mr. Novak, you are WRONG and I’m being very nice here. This is not an adventure and this is not a neo-conservative dream. This is OUR dream. The dream of millions of oppressed Iraqis who saw what dictatorship can do and who were dying to witness a moment of freedom, to live a peaceful life, a life that carries hope and make dreams not that impossible, a life similar to yours, or is it too much to hope for? We had this dream before anyone heard about neo -conservatives.
I don’t believe what you say about the American administration Mr. Novak, but even if you were right, you can give up on your dream. We won’t give up on ours, and may God help us.
President Bush, speaking to the U.N. General Assembly today, didn't sound like he's planning to run away.
The work ahead is demanding. But these difficulties will not shake our conviction that the future of Afghanistan and Iraq is a future of liberty. The proper response to difficulty is not to retreat, it is to prevail.The advance of freedom always carries a cost, paid by the bravest among us. America mourns the losses to our nation, and to many others. And today, I assure every friend of Afghanistan and Iraq, and every enemy of liberty: We will stand with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq until their hopes of freedom and security are fulfilled.
Historian Victor Davis Hanson explains in eloquent detail why "strategic withdrawal" from Iraq would be a terrible idea and reminds us of the price that would then be paid.
Because such ideas are sometimes offered by the strategic establishment, and are couched in terms of our self-interest, many Americans may find them appealing — especially since the daily televised fare from Iraq is little more than fist-shaking militants full of ingratitude, if not hatred, toward the United States, mixed with RPGs and suicide bombings.Yet leaving unilaterally from Iraq would be a tragic mistake. We have already done something like that before — many times. What rippled out afterwards was not pretty. American helicopters flying off the embassy roof in Saigon in 1975 gave us the climate for the Soviets in Afghanistan, Communists in Central America, and embassy hostage-taking in Tehran. Ignoring murders in Lebanon, New York, East Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, or lobbing an occasional cruise missile as tit-for-tat payback when terrorists harvested one too many expendable Americans abroad, ensured us September 11. In our loony world, losing credible deterrence (and we would) is an invitation for disaster — as bin Laden himself illustrated when he logically thought that the toppling of the World Trade Center would be followed by another Black Hawk Down American pullback.
Leaving Afghanistan to its own misery after the Soviet retreat, not going to Baghdad in 1991, turning boats around from Haiti, or quietly ducking out of Mogadishu all were less messy in the short term, but in the long term left even greater chaos. The ultimate wages were the Taliban, 350,000 sorties for over a decade above Iraq, the current mess in the Caribbean, and terrorist havens and worse in Africa. We forget how often in history a perceived stumble or the half-measure only emboldens enemies to try what they otherwise would not.
It is true that parts of Iraq are unsafe and that terrorists are flowing into the country; but there is no doubt that the removal of Saddam Hussein is bringing matters to a head. Islamic fascists are now fighting openly and losing battles, and are increasingly desperate as they realize the democratization process slowly grinds ahead leaving them and what they have to offer by the wayside. Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and others must send aid to the terrorists and stealthy warriors into Iraq, for the battle is not just for Baghdad but for their futures as well. The world's attention is turning to Syria's occupation of Lebanon and Iran's nukes, a new scrutiny predicated on American initiatives and persistence, and easily evaporated by a withdrawal from Iraq.
So by taking the fight to the heart of darkness in Saddam's realm, we have opened the climactic phase of the war, and thereupon can either win or lose far more than Iraq.
The challenge, as it has been since the beginning of this death struggle with Islamic nihilism, is how to prevail, assuming we have the will. That debate will intensify in the coming days, thanks to looming elections in both the U.S. and Iraq, and to the violent responses from our enemies. But there is no alternative to victory.