Was Iraqi Threat a Fabrication?
Harold Meyers recent claim (Here) that future historians will see Bush as a President who fabricated crises, is a familiar theme for the left these days. The problem with Social Security I have recently discussed. (More on Social Security, Does Social Security Need to be fixed?) The claims on Iraq reveal a marked difference in the way the left and the right view the conflict.
The dispute over the war in Iraq is not an issue of fabrications; it is a fundamental difference in perspective. Many on the left see the fight against terrorism as a police action (at least those who don’t just hate Bush and will just oppose anything he does). Thus the focus on UBL, and “those who attacked us on 9/11.” For Bush, and many on the right including myself, this is not a police action but a global war on terrorism. Thus while we want to get those responsible for 9/11, the war is not limited to those but on the entire threat of global terrorism.
This is a key difference over Iraq, for while the left claim that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 is most likely correct, there is no doubt that Saddam was a major supporter of Terrorism and had been for many years, including attempting to sponsor terrorist attacks in the United States. Thus from a police action perspective, there was little reason to go into Iraq, but for a war on terrorism perspective, there was very good reasons to go into Iraq. It was in fact the most logical next step after Afghanistan. Not war on terrorism could ever be won as long a Saddam was in power.
Frankly I find the left’s view of a police action to be unrealistic and it is just one of the reasons I do not believe that they really grasp the nature of the threat we face. We tried the police action approach for decades, and things only got progressively worst.
We are in a world wide struggle that threaten civilization as we know it, in many respects this is WWIII (or IV if you see the cold war as III as some do). I happen to think we are winning at the moment, but the tides of war can easily change and thus currently the outcome is uncertain. Should we loose in Iraq, it would be a major set back and would very likely result in the loss of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives.
The establishment of a stable democracy in Iraq would be a huge set back for our enemy. The enemy’s strategy all along has been built on the belief that the US is weak, that we are “the weak horse.” UBL has cited examples of Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia as example of how they can win if they can just kill enough of our soldiers so that we will cut and run. This is there goal in Iraq kill enough of our soldiers so as build opposition in the US that will force us to pull out. The left opposition and calls for withdrawal only emboldens and encourages this strategy. Sadly many of the left are so focused on their hatred of Bush, that they do not realize or care that their goals are the same as our enemies.
