by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n Myth #1: America turned off its allies.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n According to John Kerry, due to inept American diplomacy and unilateral arrogance, the United States failed to get the Europeans and the U.N. on board for the war in Iraq. Thus, unlike in Afghanistan, we find ourselves alone.<\/span><\/p>\n In fact, there are only about 4,500-5,500 NATO troops in Afghanistan right now. The United States and its Anglo allies routed the Taliban by themselves. NATO contingents in Afghanistan are not commensurate with either the size or the wealth of Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n There are far more Coalition troops in Iraq presently than in Afghanistan. As in the Balkans, NATO and EU troops will arrive only when the United States has achieved victory and provided security. The same goes for the U.N., which did nothing in Serbia and Rwanda, but watched thousands being butchered under its nose. It fled from Iraq after its first losses.<\/span><\/p>\n Yes, the U.N. will return to Iraq \u2014 but only when the United States defeats the insurrectionists. It will stay away if we don’t. American victory or defeat, as has been true from Korea to the Balkans, will alone determine the degree of (usually post-bellum) participation of others.<\/span><\/p>\n Myth #2: Democracy cannot be implemented by force.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n This is a very popular canard now. The myth is often floated by Middle Eastern intellectuals and American leftists \u2014 precisely those who for a half-century damned the United States for its support of anti-Communist authoritarians.<\/span><\/p>\n Now that their dreams of strong U.S. advocacy for consensual government have been realized, they are panicking at that sudden nightmare \u2014 terrified that their fides, their careers, indeed their entire boutique personas might be endangered by finding themselves on the same side of history as the United States. Worse, history really does suggest that democracy often follows only from force or its threat.<\/span><\/p>\n One does not have to go back to ancient Athens \u2014 in 507 or 403 B.C. \u2014 to grasp the depressing fact that most authoritarians do not surrender power voluntarily. There would be no democracy today in Japan, South Korea, Italy, or Germany without the Americans’ defeat of fascists and Communists. Democracies in France and most of Western Europe were born from Anglo-American liberation; European resistance to German occupation was an utter failure. Panama, Granada, Serbia, and Afghanistan would have had no chance of a future without the intervention of American troops.<\/span><\/p>\n All of Eastern Europe is free today only because of American deterrence and decades of military opposition to Communism. Very rarely in the modern age do democratic reforms emerge spontaneously and indigenously (ask the North Koreans, Cubans, or North Vietnamese). Tragically, positive change almost always appears after a war in which authoritarians lose or are discredited (Argentina or Greece), bow to economic or cultural coercion (South Africa), or are forced to hold elections (Nicaragua).<\/span><\/p>\n Myth #3: Lies got us into this war.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Did the administration really mislead us about the reasons to go to war, and does it really now find itself with an immoral conflict on its hands? Mr. Bush’s lectures about WMD, while perhaps privileging such fears over more pressing practical and humanitarian reasons to remove Saddam Hussein, took their cue from prior warnings from Bill Clinton, senators of both parties including John Kerry, and both the EU and U.N.<\/span><\/p>\n If anyone goes back to read justifications for Desert Fox (December 1998) or those issued right after September 11 by an array of American politicians, then it is clear that Mr. Bush simply repeated the usual Western litany of about a decade or so \u2014 most of it best formulated by the Democratic party under Bill Clinton. Indeed, we opted to launch that campaign in large part because of Iraq’s work on WMDs.<\/span><\/p>\n No, the real rub is whether Iraq will work: If it does, the WMD bogeyman disappears; if not, it becomes the surrogate issue to justify withdrawing.<\/span><\/p>\n Myth #4: Profit-making led to this war.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Then there is the strange idea that American administration officials profited from the war. Companies like Bechtel and Halliburton are supposedly “cashing in,” either on oil contracts or rebuilding projects \u2014 as if any company is lining up to lure thousands of workers to the Iraqi oasis to lounge and cheat in such a paradise.<\/span><\/p>\n This idea is absurd for a variety of other reasons, too. Iraqi oil is for the first time under Iraqi, rather than a dictator’s, control. And the Iraqi people most certainly will not sign over their future oil reserves to greedy companies in the manner that Saddam gave French consortia almost criminally profitable contracts. Indeed, no Iraqi politician is going to demand to pump more oil to lower gas prices in the country that freed him. Some imperialism.<\/span><\/p>\n All U.S. construction is subject to open audit and assessment. A zealous media has not yet found any signs of endemic or secret corruption. There really is a giant scandal surrounding Iraq, but it involves (1) the United Nations Oil-for-Food program, in which U.N. officials and Saddam Hussein, hand-in-glove with European and Russian oil companies, robbed revenues from the Iraqi people; and (2) French petroleum interests that strong-armed a tottering dictator to sign over his country’s national treasure to Parisian profiteers under conditions that no consensual government would ever agree to. The only legitimate accusation of Iraqi profiteering does not involve Dick Cheney or Halliburton, but rather Kofi Annan’s negligence and his son Kojo’s probable malfeasance.<\/span><\/p>\n Myth #5: Israel has caused the United States untold headaches in the Arab world by its intransigent policies.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The refutation of this myth could take volumes, given the depth of daily misinformation. Perhaps, though, we can sum up the absurdity by looking at the nature of West Bank demonstrations over the past few months.<\/span><\/p>\n The issues baffle Americans: Some Arab citizens of Israel, residing in almost entirely Arab border towns and calling themselves Palestinians, were furious about Mr. Sharon’s offer to cede them sovereign Israeli soil and thus allow them to join the new Palestinian nation. Others were hysterical that two killers \u2014 who promised not merely the “liberation” of the West Bank, but also the utter destruction of Israel \u2014 were in fact killed in a war by Israelis. Both of the deceased had damned the United States and expressed support for Islamicists now killing our soldiers in Iraq \u2014 even as their supporters whined that we did not lament their recent departures to a much-praised paradise.<\/span><\/p>\n Elsewhere fiery demonstrators were shaking keys to houses that they have not been residing in for 60 years \u2014 furious about the forfeiture of the “right of return” and their inability to migrate to live out their lives in the hated “Zionist entry.” Notably absent were the relatives of the hundreds of thousands of Jews of Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, and other Arab capitals who years ago were all ethnically cleansed and sent packing from centuries-old homes, but apparently got on with what was left of their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n