by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n L<\/span>ately, it has become popular to recant on Iraq. When 2,500 Americans are lost, and when the improvised explosive device monopolizes the war coverage, it is easy to see why \u2014 especially with elections coming up in November, and presidential primaries not long after.<\/p>\n Pundits now daily equivocate in their understandable exasperation at the apparent lack of quantifiable progress. The ranks of public supporters have thinned as final victory seems elusive. It is hard to find any consistent public advocates of the American effort in Iraq other than the editors and writers here at\u00a0National Review<\/em>, the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>, Christopher Hitchens, Charles Krauthammer, Mark Steyn, Norman Podhoretz, and a very few principled others.<\/p>\n But for all the despair, note all the problems for those who have triangulated throughout this war.<\/p>\n First, those who undergo the opportune conversion often fall prey to disingenuousness. Take John Kerry\u2019s recent repudiation of his earlier vote for the war in Iraq. To cheers of Democratic activists, he now laments, \u201cWe were misled.\u201d<\/p>\n Misled?<\/p>\n Putting aside the question of weapons of mass destruction and the use of the royal \u201cwe,\u201d was the senator suggesting that Iraq did\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>violate the 1991 armistice accords?<\/p>\n Or that Saddam Hussein did not really gas and murder his own people?<\/p>\n Perhaps he was \u201cmisled\u201d into thinking Iraqi agents did\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>really plan to murder former President George Bush?<\/p>\n Or postfacto have we learned that Saddam did\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0really shield terrorists?<\/p>\n Apparently the Iraqi regime\u00a0neither<\/em>\u00a0violated U.N. accords\u00a0nor\u00a0<\/em>shot at American planes in the no-fly zones.<\/p>\n Senator Kerry, at least if I remember correctly, voted for the joint congressional resolution of October 11, 2002, authorizing a war against Iraq, on the basis ofall\u00a0<\/em>these and several other\u00a0causus belli<\/em>, well apart from fear of WMDs.<\/p>\n Second, those with a shifting position on the war sometimes cannot keep up with a war that is shifting itself, where things change hourly. And when one has no consistent or principled position, the 24-hour battlefield usually proves a fickle barometer by which to exude military wisdom.<\/p>\n Even as critics were equating Haditha with My Lai, al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda mass murderer in Iraq, was caught and killed. And what was the reaction of the stunned antiwar pundit or politician? Either we heard that there was impropriety involved in killing such a demon, or the former fugitive who was once supposedly proof of our ineptness suddenly was reinvented as having been irrelevant all along.<\/p>\n The Iraqi army \u2014 well over 250,000 strong \u2014 is growing, and the much smaller American force (about 130,000) is shrinking. How do you call for a deadline for withdrawal when Iraqization was always predicated on withdrawal only after there was no Iraqi dependence on a large, static American force?<\/p>\n After lamenting that the Iraqi government is a mess, we now see a tough prime minister and the selection of his cabinet completed. So it is not easy to offer somber platitudes of defeat when 400,000 coalition and Iraqi troops are daily fighting on the center stage of the war against Islamic terrorism. Someone from Mars might wonder what exactly were the conditions under which a quarter-million Muslim Arabs in Iraq alone went to war against Islamic radicalism.<\/p>\n Third, there is a fine line to be drawn between legitimate criticism of a war that is supposedly not worth American blood and treasure, and general slander of the United States and its military. Yet much of the Left\u2019s rhetoric was not merely anti-Bush, but in its pessimism devolved into de facto anti-Americanism.<\/p>\n Senator Durbin compared Guantanamo Bay to the worst excesses of the Nazis. Senator Kennedy suggested that Abu Ghraib, where thousands perished under Saddam Hussein, had simply \u201creopened under new management: U.S. management.\u201d Democratic-party chairman Howard Dean confidently asserted that the Iraq war was not winnable. John Kerry in his youth alleged that Americans were like Genghis Khan in their savagery; in his golden years, he once again insists that we are \u201cterrorizing\u201d Iraqi civilians. With friends like these, what war critic needs enemies? Americans can take disapproval that we are not fighting \u201csmart,\u201d but they resent the notion that we are somehow downright evil.<\/p>\n Fourth, the mainstream media is now discredited on Iraq, and their drumbeat of doom and gloom is starting to rile more than pleases the public. Aside from the bias that counts always our losses and rarely our successes, we are sick and tired of manipulations like the lies about flushed Korans, forged memos, and the rush to judgment on Haditha. Most weary Americans want at least a moment to savor the death of a mass-murdering Zarqawi, without having to lament that he might have been saved by quicker medical intervention.<\/p>\n Fifth, the historical assessment of Iraq is still undetermined, despite the pontification of former supporters who think they gain greater absolution the more vehemently they trash a war they once advocated.<\/p>\n The three-week effort to remove Saddam Hussein was a landmark success. The subsequent three-year occupation in his place has been messy, costly, and unpopular. But the result of the third and final stage that Iraq has evolved into \u2014 an existential fight between Iraqi democracy and al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism \u2014 is still uncertain. If we draw the terrorists out, defeat them in the heart of the ancient caliphate, and win the allegiance of enough democratic Iraqis to crush the Islamicists, then our military has won a far greater victory than the removal of Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n Sixth, note how critics now rarely offer alternative scenarios. All the old gripes such as the paucity of body armor or thin-skinned humvees have withered away. The Iraqi elected government is sympathetic and earnest, so demonizing them ultimately translates into something like \u201cCut these guys lose; they weren\u2019t worth the effort.\u201d Yes, the American people want out of Iraq, but on terms that preserve the democracy that we paid so dearly to foster.<\/p>\n Even the one legitimate criticism that we were too slow in turning over control to the Iraqis, and that the Bremmer interregnum had too high a public profile, is now largely moot, as Ambassador Khalilzad and Gen. Casey are in the shadows, giving all the credit to the very public Iraqis and taking most of the blame for the bad news.<\/p>\n So we are nearing the denouement of the Iraq war, where we wanted to be all along: in support of a full-fledged and democratically elected government that will either win or lose its own struggle.<\/p>\n Seventh, the old twin charges \u2014 no link between al Qaeda and Saddam, no WMDs \u2014 are also becoming largely irrelevant or proving untrue. It must have been difficult for\u00a0Time<\/em>,\u00a0Newsweek<\/em>, and the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, in their coverage of the death of Zarqawi, to admit that he had been active in Iraq well\u00a0before<\/em>\u00a0the end of Saddam Hussein, along with a mishmash of old killers from Abu Nidal to Abdul Rahman Yasin, the Iraqi American who helped plan the first World Trade Center bombing.<\/p>\n In addition, most abroad were convinced before the war that the CIA was right in its pre-war assessments. The publication of the Iraqi archives points to a real, not a phantom and former, WMD capability \u2014 in line with efforts elsewhere in the Islamic world, from Iran to Libya, to reclaim something akin to the old Soviet deterrent.<\/p>\n The costs in Iraq have been high and the losses tragic. But\u00a0nothing<\/em>\u00a0in the past three years has convinced me otherwise than that:<\/p>\n 1. in a post-September-11 world Saddam had to be removed on ethical and strategic grounds;<\/p>\n 2. the insurgency, though unexpected in its intensity, could be put down by a U.S. military that would react and evolve more quickly than the terrorists to changing conditions on the ground;<\/p>\n 3. our mistakes, though several and undeniable, are tragically the stuff of war, and so far have not proved to be irreversible or beyond what we experienced in any of our past efforts;<\/p>\n 4. the maligned secretary of Defense was right about troop levels and the plan for Iraqization \u2014 although demonized for trying to transform the very nature of the American military in the midst of a war;<\/p>\n 5. we are engaged in the great humanitarian effort of the age, as \u201cone person, one vote\u201d has brought to the perennially downtrodden Arab Shiites a real chance at equality;<\/p>\n 6. the best method of winning this global struggle against fascistic Islamic terrorism remains fostering in the Middle East a third democratic alternative between autocracy and theocracy that alone can deal with the modern world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Once a democratically elected Iraqi government emerged, and a national army was trained, the only way we could lose this war was to forfeit it at home, through the influence of an adroit, loud minority of critics that for either base or misguided reasons really does wish us to lose. They really do.<\/p>\n \u00a92006 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s far from a safe bet. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Lately, it has become popular to recant on Iraq. When 2,500 Americans are lost, and when the improvised explosive device monopolizes the war coverage, it is easy to see why \u2014 especially with elections coming up in November, and presidential primaries not […]<\/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-11W","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3678,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/anatomy-of-iraq\/","url_meta":{"origin":3964,"position":0},"title":"Anatomy of Iraq","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"How did we get to this baffling scenario? by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online It\u2019s make it or break it in Iraq in 2007. Or so we are told, as America nears four years of costly efforts in Iraq. But how did we get to this situation, to this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "March 2007"","block_context":{"text":"March 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/march-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5423,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/newsworthy-reconsidered-paris-hilton-or-colonel-sean-mcfarland-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":3964,"position":1},"title":"Newsworthy Reconsidered: Paris Hilton or Colonel Sean McFarland?","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Which of these two do we Americans know anything about?\u00a0 Is it the daily minutiae of an empty-headed blond, or the enlightened action of a Marine colonel in Iraq, who helped turn once murderous Sunni insurgents into fellow enemies of al Qaeda \u2014\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2007"","block_context":{"text":"October 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/october-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3519,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/newsworthy-reconsidered-paris-hilton-or-colonel-sean-mcfarland\/","url_meta":{"origin":3964,"position":2},"title":"Newsworthy Reconsidered: Paris Hilton or Colonel Sean McFarland?","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Which of these two do we Americans know anything about?\u00a0 Is it the daily minutiae of an empty-headed blond, or the enlightened action of a Marine colonel in Iraq, who helped turn once murderous Sunni insurgents into fellow enemies of al Qaeda \u2014\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2007"","block_context":{"text":"October 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/october-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4235,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/with-a-whimper\/","url_meta":{"origin":3964,"position":3},"title":"With a Whimper","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 21, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"How the violence in Iraq will end. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The Western media was relatively quiet about the quite amazing news from the recent trifecta in Iraq: very little violence on election day, Sunni participation, and approval of the constitution. Those who forecasted that either the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2005"","block_context":{"text":"October 2005","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2005\/october-2005\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4126,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/standoff-in-iraq-the-ied-vs-democracy\/","url_meta":{"origin":3964,"position":4},"title":"Standoff in Iraq: The IED vs. Democracy","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The insurgency in Iraq has no military capability either to drive the United States military from Iraq or to stop the American training of Iraqi police and security forces \u2014 or, for that matter, to derail the formation of a new government. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "February 2006"","block_context":{"text":"February 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/february-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3953,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/winning-the-iraq-wars\/","url_meta":{"origin":3964,"position":5},"title":"Winning the Iraq Wars","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 30, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"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. 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