by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cM<\/span>ess,\u201d \u201cfiasco,\u201d \u201cdisaster,\u201d \u201cblunder,\u201d and \u201ccatastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n Fill in the blanks with almost any stock noun of gloom these days when speaking about Iraq.<\/p>\n For finger-in-the-wind politicians, writing off Iraq is mere throat-clearing before moving on to any discussion of immigration reform or taxes. For ahead-of-the-curve pundits, starting out with \u201cThe failure in Iraq\u201d is like opening their browser before daily pontificating. No need of explanation or empiricism, one just gets things out of the way at the very beginning with our new postmodern ritual.<\/p>\n Usually the more vehemently one used to clamor for the idea of removing Saddam Hussein \u2014 such as a Sen. Harry Reid or an Andrew Sullivan \u2014 the more now they are likely to use superlatives in damning the enterprise.<\/p>\n That there are 160, 000 Americans \u2014 at the moment in an enormous offensive against al Qaeda \u2014 fighting to save Iraqi democracy means little, as evocation of pullouts, withdrawals, and timetables is mixed in with the language of defeat, despair, and finger-pointing.<\/p>\n That the war has morphed once again into one largely against al Qaeda and Islamic terrorists is lost on critics. All the old bogeymen \u2014 Ashcroft, Bremmer, Feith, Libby, Pearl, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz \u2014 are gone. But the media and opposition searches for new ones to blame for a policy they largely once endorsed. Witness the new slurring of the Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Pace as incompetent and Gen. Petraeus \u2014 our most innovative commander in a generation \u2014 as less than candid and not in touch with operations under his command.<\/p>\n But then few have offered any consistent policy of what we are to do after Iraq. Once again generalities \u2014 best mouthed by John Edwards \u2014 about multilateralism, restoring American popularity abroad, working with allies \u2014 are thrown out, as if the world will be safer and more harmonious once we return to some mythical Democratic past. By default that could only mean something akin to the foreign policy of our last two such presidents, Messrs. Carter and Clinton.<\/p>\n Have we gone mad in our amnesia about that awful past? The epithet \u201cthe Great Satan\u201d was coined out of hatred for the diplomatic efforts of Jimmy Carter. Do we want Andrew Young back praising the humanitarianism of Khomeini?<\/p>\n Bin Laden started out his 1996 promise to slaughter Americans with the warning to a sober and judicious Secretary of Defense Perry \u201cI say to you William\u2026\u201d \u2014 in furor over the basing of American troops in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n Al Gore weighed in on the aftermath of the Gulf War by damning the senior Bush \u2014 but for doing too little, allowing Saddam to stay in power, and proceed to acquire nuclear technology and weapons of mass destruction.<\/p>\n Just as journalists, generals, and politicians rush to get into print another tell-all, I-know-the-answers book about the \u201cdisaster\u201d in Iraq, so too in the 1990s the mini-Middle East publishing industry used to be devoted to equally furious attacks on realism, neo-isolation, and cynicism of Republicans and conservatives for an array of sins \u2014 sacrificing the Kurds and Shiites, not supporting Democratic reformers abroad, leaving Saddam in power, failing to prod Gulf sheikdoms to liberalize, cynically prodding on the Iran-Iraq war, etc.<\/p>\n What is lost, then, in the present pre-election hysteria and the repositioning on Iraq, is that there were\u00a0never<\/i>\u00a0any good American choices in the Middle East. The present ones in Iraq and Afghanistan came about only from 9\/11 and a general consensus that the failures of the past had led to that mass murder \u2014 and thus a new course of action was needed to replace both the liberal appeasement and conservative realism that had worked in the interest of bin Ladenism.<\/p>\n L<\/b>egitimate debate is necessary about the mistakes in Iraq, as it is about the blunders of every war. But before writing off Iraq as lost, unnecessary, or a result of some such conspiracy, we had better ask ourselves whether a return to the sermonizing of Carterism or Clintonian diplomacy by focus group and straw polls \u2014 or even cynical horse-trading of Jim Baker \u2014 is what we really want.<\/p>\n So here are questions to ponder as reactionaries yearn for a pre-Bush past. Imagine: one of the various foiled terrorist plots \u2014 a Fort Dix slaughter, a JFK airport attack, or the suicide teams ABC news claims are headed our way from Afghanistan \u2014 succeeds after 2008. Thousands of Americans die.<\/p>\n What does President Clinton or Obama do? Draft a tough federal indictment? Ask for a U.N. resolution condemning such violence? Count on a unified response with NATO, battle-seasoned after its heroic offensives in Afghanistan? Hope for help from the E.U. rapid-response force? Bomb the source where the jihadists trained (Gaza? Pakistan? Syria? Iran?) \u2014 but only from 30,000 feet, and, as in 1998, without U.N. or congressional approval? Work with the Saudis and Egyptians and Mr. Abbas to curb such atypical zealots? Have John Edwards trot the globe to use his courtroom flair to win over allies?<\/p>\n Or imagine that Iran announces that it is going to set off a bomb in its desert. Do we resurrect the EU3? Ask Hans Blix to return as nuclear inspector with Mr. El-Baradei and others to assure us the test was genuine? Send Jimmy Carter to Teheran (or better, find an aged Ramsey Clark to return as a special envoy as in 1979?). Or maybe beseech the new U.N. head, Mr. Ki-Moon who just enlightened us that global warming (read the U.S.) \u2014 not Islamic jihadism and age-old sub-Saharan thuggery \u2014 caused Darfur?<\/p>\n Or imagine the very real possibility of an Islamic takeover of Pakistan, in which a theocratic nuclear jihadist government becomes a Sunni version of Iran and begins to send tens of thousands of jihadists into Afghanistan. What to do? Put our eye back on the ball? Bomb whom and what?<\/p>\n The point is twofold. Our present policy, however poorly managed in postbellum Iraq, arose as a reaction both to the do-nothingism of past administrations, which, by general consensus, had emboldened al Qaeda to up its ante on 9\/11, and the decades of amoral realism that propped up thugs and dictators who ruined their societies but blamed the ensuing mess on Americans and Jews.<\/p>\n After 9\/11, we did not, as alleged, invade countries serially, but removed only two fascistic governments, the worst in the Middle East \u2014 both with a record of supporting enemies of the United States, and both of whom we had bombed or sent missiles against in the very recent past.<\/p>\n We did not leave after such punitive measures because we felt that the last time we did that, whether in Afghanistan in the 1980s, or Iraq in 1991, or Lebanon, or Somalia, things only got worse \u2014 and after 9\/11 they might well get much worse. And unlike the bombing of 1998 in the Balkans, both operations in Afghanistan and Iraq were sanctioned by the U.S. Congress, discussed at the U.N., and widely supported by the American people.<\/p>\n Removing the Taliban and Saddam, and promoting constitutional governments in their places, were not the only options after 9\/11, but they were good choices \u2014 if the desire was to address comprehensively a quarter-century of terrorism that was insidiously escalating both in frequency and vehemence.<\/p>\n If both governments can be stabilized even at this late date, the landscape in the Middle East from Lebanon to the West Bank will be much improved; if not, much worse. For those who wish to give up the struggle in Iraq, go home, and stay clear of the Middle East, a final question: What would Mr. Assad in Syria, al Qaeda in Iraq, President Ahmadinejad in Iran, or Hamas and Hezbollah wish us to do \u2014 and why?<\/p>\n And what in turn would Mr. Karzai, Mr. Maliki, the women educators of Iraq, the Lebanese democrats, the Syrian exiles, and the Iranian dissidents prefer? And which group should we in turn enlist as friends and which accept are our enemies?<\/p>\n It would be nice to go back to our pre-9\/11 past, just as in a bloody 1944 the calm of 1937 looked to many of the starry-eyed far preferable, just as in the midst of the nuclear stand-off of 1962 we lamented the loss of the old \u201cfriendly\u201d Russia and China of 1945.<\/p>\n But while our ancestors engaged in the same despair, the same blame-gaming that we so enjoy, they at least were not stupid enough to lose those far more deadly and dangerous wars. We can win like they did as well, but only if we face the future with confidence, and not pine for the return of a mythical past that never was.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a92007 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online \u201cMess,\u201d \u201cfiasco,\u201d \u201cdisaster,\u201d \u201cblunder,\u201d and \u201ccatastrophe.\u201d Fill in the blanks with almost any stock noun of gloom these days when speaking about Iraq.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[757],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Wc","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1348,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-tale-of-two-surges\/","url_meta":{"origin":3608,"position":0},"title":"A Tale of Two Surges","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services From 2007 to 2009, a surge of 20,000 troops under the generalship of David Petraeus saved a mostly lost war in Iraq. Petraeus\u2019s counterinsurgency doctrine helped win over the population, as the surge in troops gave greater security to Iraq\u2019s government and military.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iraq"","block_context":{"text":"Iraq","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iraq\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5699,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/iraq-a-convenient-scapegoat\/","url_meta":{"origin":3608,"position":1},"title":"Iraq a Convenient Scapegoat","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Bring up Iraq \u2014 and expect to end up in an argument. Conservatives are no different from liberals in rehashing the unpopular war, which has become a sort of whipping boy for all our subsequent problems. The Wall Street Journal\u00a0columnist Peggy Noonan recently\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iraq"","block_context":{"text":"Iraq","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iraq\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2066,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-flip-flopping-wars\/","url_meta":{"origin":3608,"position":2},"title":"Our Flip-Flopping Wars","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services We don't hear all that much about Iraq these days, do we? The war at one point almost tore apart this country. Public anger sent George W. Bush's approval ratings plummeting. And the outrage over our losses helped elect vocal anti-Iraq-war candidate Barack\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2009"","block_context":{"text":"December 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/december-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2238,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-war-in-afghanistan\/","url_meta":{"origin":3608,"position":3},"title":"The War in Afghanistan","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Two-Front Wars \u2014 Theirs and Ours Something is not quite right about the conventional wisdom about the Afghanistan war. For nearly eight years, yearly casualties in Afghanistan sometimes were less than a month's losses in the dire days in Iraq (e.g., 98 Americans killed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2009"","block_context":{"text":"October 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/october-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3658,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/beyond-iraq\/","url_meta":{"origin":3608,"position":4},"title":"Beyond Iraq","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The threat from radical Islamic terrorists will not vanish when President Bush leaves office, or if funds for the Iraq war are cut off in 2008. A frequent charge is that we are bringing terrorists to Iraq. That is true in the sense\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "April 2007"","block_context":{"text":"April 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/april-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3209,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/soft-neocons\/","url_meta":{"origin":3608,"position":5},"title":"Soft Neocons","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"With Iraq improving, will Neocon ideas return? by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services More than seven months ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., claimed that Iraq was \"lost.\" But that was hardly the case. 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