by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n T<\/span>he present fighting is part of a fourth war for\u00a0Iraq\u00a0: Gulf War I, the twelve years of no-fly zones, the three-week war in 2003, and now the three-year-old insurrection that followed the removal of Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n But this last and most desperate struggle, unlike the others, is being waged on several fronts.<\/p>\n First, of course, is the fighting itself to preserve the elected democracy of\u00a0Iraq\u00a0. Twenty-five-hundred Americans have died for that idea \u2014 the chance of freedom for 26 million Iraqis, and the more long-term notion that the Arab Middle East\u2019s first democracy will end the false dichotomy of Islamic theocracy or dictatorship. That non-choice was the embryo for the events of September 11.<\/p>\n Although it is not the sort of conventional war that Westerners excel at \u2014 the enemy has no uniforms, state organization, or real army \u2014 our military has performed brilliantly. Past mistakes made were largely political, such as not quickly turning over control to an interim Iraqi government in summer 2003 while allowing the Iraqis\u00a0sole<\/i>\u00a0public exposure.<\/p>\n But these were tactical and procedural, not moral, errors. They have only delayed, but not aborted, the emergence of a stable democratic Iraqi government. For all the propaganda of\u00a0al Jazeera<\/i>, the wounded pride of the Arab Street, or the vitriol of the Western Left, years from now the truth will remain that our soldiers did not come to plunder or colonize, but were willing to die for others\u2019 freedom when few others would. Neither Michael Moore nor Noam Chomsky can change that, because it is not opinion, but truth \u2014 something that the Greeks rightly defined as \u201cnot forgetting\u201d or \u201csomething that cannot be forgotten \u201d (al\u00eatheia<\/i>).<\/p>\n Note also that after the hysteria over body armor and unarmored humvees, the Democratic opposition offers\u00a0no<\/i>\u00a0real concrete alternatives to the present policy .<\/p>\n Why not? Because there are none.<\/p>\n The choices are really only two: either leave right away and quit the war on terror, or train the Iraqis and draw down carefully as planned all along. The Democrats will clamor for the former. But when put in the public spotlight, they will hold off from Vietnam-style funding cut-offs to claim credit for the success of the latter.<\/p>\n T<\/span>here is a second war, one being waged over public opinion. It is critical, considering that we are in a non-conventional struggle of attrition that requires the American people to support a far-away war where movement and front lines are irrelevant. And it is sadly being lost \u2014 at least if polls are correct that only around 40 percent of the citizenry still supports the idea of finishing the war in\u00a0Iraq\u00a0.<\/p>\n Regrettably, there has not been successful and constant explication of why we are in\u00a0Iraq\u00a0. Yet, because George Bush is in his second term, and is not Clintonian in obsession with polls and being liked, he can still guarantee the military two more years to stabilize the country. Then the hope is that the Iraqis will be able to secure their democracy in the future with a small number of American advisors and civilian aides, which might allow\u00a0Iraq\u00a0an opportunity something akin to that offered to the postwar Balkans.<\/p>\n There is a third war: that for the larger future of the\u00a0Middle East\u00a0. Pessimists point to the Gulf, Egyptian, and North African autocracies. And they see there only failure in the American efforts at democratization.<\/p>\n But the point is not to see Rotary Clubs and school boards sprouting up in the failed states of the\u00a0Middle East\u00a0. Instead, we can be happy enough with the beginning of the end of the old \u201cstability\u201d that nurtured terrorism. The public is nursed on news of car bombs, and the tired canard that supporting democracy always ensures perpetual Islamism. But if we remain calm and rational, then we can already see signs of real change in the unease and agitation of the Middle East, from\u00a0Libya\u00a0to\u00a0Lebanon\u00a0. All this was unleashed by the removal of Saddam Hussein and the American effort to stay on to foster something different despite base slurs, escalating oil prices, and the politicization of the war in a soon to be third wartime national election.<\/p>\n Nascent democracy is the reason that Afghans and Iraqis, alone in the\u00a0Middle East\u00a0, get up each morning and risk their lives to hunt down Islamic terrorists. For all the mess on the\u00a0West Bank\u00a0, it was only the free elections that brought in Hamas which offered the Palestinians the opportunity of self-expression. And now they alone suffer the responsibility to live with the economic and military consequences of their disastrous decision. Perhaps they may wish to reconsider next election.<\/p>\n Arafat\u2019s pernicious fa\u00e7ade of a \u201clegitimate\u201d government that \u201csincerely\u201d tried to rein in \u201crogue\u201d elements is now shattered in both Europe and\u00a0America\u00a0. After the Palestinians willingly voted a terrorist government into power, the Hamas politicians are simply fulfilling campaign pledges and doing what terrorists always do: rocketing civilians, murdering, and kidnapping. And now, since there is no more shady, so-called \u201cHamas,\u201d but only the Hamas-led legitimate government of\u00a0Palestine\u00a0, there may be soon a conventional struggle at last, between two sovereign and legitimate states. Such are the wages of moral clarity that accrue from democracy.<\/p>\n F<\/span>inally, we are witnessing a larger existential war, in which\u00a0Iraq\u00a0is the central, but not the only, theater. Put simply: will the spreading affluence and liberality of Westernization undermine the 8th<\/sup>-century mentality of the Islamists more quickly than their terrorists, armed with Western weapons, prey on the ennui of a postmodern Europe and\u00a0America\u00a0\u2014 with our large gullible populations that either don\u2019t believe we are in a real war, or think that we should not be?<\/p>\n Americans know exactly the creed of the Islamists and what they have in store for us nonbelievers. Yet if we are not infidels, can we at least be fideles? That is, can we any longer articulate what we believe in, and whether it is worth defending?<\/p>\n The problem is not that the majority of Americans have voiced doubts about the future of\u00a0Iraq\u00a0\u2014 arguments over self-interest and values happen in every long war when the battlefield does not daily bring back good news.<\/p>\n Instead, the worry is that too many have misdirected their anger at the very culture that produced and nourished them. Sen. Kennedy could have objected to Abu Ghraib \u2014 so far the subject of nine government inquiries \u2014 without comparing the incident to the mass murdering of Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n Sen. Durbin might have had doubts about\u00a0Guantanamo\u00a0\u2014 the constant site of Red Cross and congressional visits \u2014 but there was no need to tie it to the fiendish regimes of Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot.<\/p>\n Cindy Sheehan could have recanted her initial favorable remarks after meeting George Bush without later labeling him the world\u2019s greatest terrorist.<\/p>\n The\u00a0New York Times<\/i>\u00a0might have editorialized about the dangers of stealthy government security measures without publishing sensitive, leaked material in a time of war. It is precisely this escalation from criticism of the war to furor at our elected government and civilian-controlled military that is so worrisome \u2014 and so welcomed by the enemy, as we see when it cleverly regurgitates our own self criticism as its own.<\/p>\n The military is doing its part. It defeated Saddam Hussein, and prevented a plethora of terrorists from destroying a fragile democracy abroad and the contemporary world\u2019s oldest here at home. Despite the caricature and venom, the original belief of the 2002 Congress that there were at least 23 reasons to topple Saddam remains valid and is reaffirmed daily, especially as we learn more of the ties between al Qaeda and Iraqi Baathist intelligence and slowly trace down the footprints of a once vast WMDs arsenal. And the effort to ensure a democratic denouement to the war, both in and beyond\u00a0Iraq\u00a0, is the only solution to wider\u00a0Middle East\u00a0pathology.<\/p>\n No, our problem lies in two more abstract but just as important struggles overIraq\u00a0. Either we did not communicate well the noble purposes of sacrifices abroad, or, after\u00a0Vietnam\u00a0, an influential elite has made it impossible for any president to do so.<\/p>\n We can correct that first lapse, but I am not so sure about the second.<\/p>\n \u00a92006 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" All of its many fronts. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The present fighting is part of a fourth war for\u00a0Iraq\u00a0: Gulf War I, the twelve years of no-fly zones, the three-week war in 2003, and now the three-year-old insurrection that followed the removal of Saddam Hussein.<\/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":[773],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-11L","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2238,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-war-in-afghanistan\/","url_meta":{"origin":3953,"position":0},"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":1695,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/so-what-happened-to-iraq\/","url_meta":{"origin":3953,"position":1},"title":"So What Happened to Iraq?","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Six years ago, the conventional wisdom was that Ayad Allawi, then prime minister of the appointed Iraqi Interim Government, was a puppet of the United States. Last month, though, the Allawi-led Iraqiya alliance won, by a narrow margin, more parliamentary seats than any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "April 2010"","block_context":{"text":"April 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/april-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7605,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/melancholy-lessons-from-iraq\/","url_meta":{"origin":3953,"position":2},"title":"Melancholy Lessons from Iraq","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine The unfolding collapse of Iraq\u2019s government before the legions of al Qaeda jihadists is the capstone of Barack Obama\u2019s incompetent and politicized foreign policy. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), armed with plundered American weapons and flush with stolen money, is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Bombed_out_vehicles_Aleppo-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4044,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hard-pounding\/","url_meta":{"origin":3953,"position":3},"title":"Hard Pounding","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Who will keep his nerve? by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online If I could sum up the new orthodoxy about Iraq, it might run something like the following:\u00a0\u201cI supported the overthrow of the odious Saddam Hussein. But then the poor postwar planning, the unanticipated sectarian strife and insurrection, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "March 2006"","block_context":{"text":"March 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/march-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3488,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/when-good-news-is-no-news\/","url_meta":{"origin":3953,"position":4},"title":"When Good News Is No News","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services There's an old expression about war: \"Victory has many fathers, while defeat is an orphan.\" But in the case of Iraq, it seems the other way around. We've blamed many for the ordeal of the last four years, but it is the American\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "November 2007"","block_context":{"text":"November 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/november-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3773,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-wonders-of-hindsight\/","url_meta":{"origin":3953,"position":5},"title":"The Wonders of Hindsight","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Looking back is a sure way to stumble. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Most of the blame game being played over the Iraqi occupation \u2014 and always with the wisdom of hindsight \u2014 is now irrelevant. Should more or fewer soldiers be in Iraq? That\u2019s basically settled: There\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2006"","block_context":{"text":"October 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/october-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3953"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3954,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3953\/revisions\/3954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}