Posted on 04/20/2004 4:00:56 PM PDT by knighthawk
When the duke of Wellington was asked for advice by a subordinate on how to handle a problem in which he was embroiled, the old soldier replied laconically: ''Sir, you have got into a pretty pickle, and must extricate yourself as best you can. Yours, etc.''
Most of the world -- not excluding both coasts of the United States -- seem to be taking the same not-very-helpful attitude to President Bush and the Iraqi crisis. It is universally acknowledged that the president alone wantonly plunged us into a needless war, lied about the basis for doing so, has united Iraq and the Islamic world against us, and is now recklessly taking us further into a quagmire without either a map or a paddle.
But is it a truth? To begin with, the president did not act alone -- nor even accompanied solely by Tony Blair. Both parties in Congress voted for the war. (Democrats had second thoughts mainly when Howard Dean started winning primaries by attacking it.) Most European governments also supported the intervention. And in Britain, the war had the support of the Blairite majority in the governing Labor Party, the main Tory opposition, and a slight majority of public opinion.
Nor did Bush lie about weapons of mass destruction. Almost the entire intelligence world -- including the French and German intelligence services -- thought that Saddam Hussein retained weapons of mass destruction. Hans Blix, heading the U.N. inspection team, reported that Saddam could not account for some of the stockpiles known previously to exist. And the fact that the United States and allied soldiers suited up to protect themselves against chemical attack suggests that the military too believed that Saddam retained WMD. Even Saddam wanted the outside world to think he possessed such weapons. It increased his prestige in the Arab world and thus his power of blackmail.
It now seems likely that, like everyone else, Bush and Blair were wrong to believe that such WMD existed -- or existed in the quantities they suspected. But being wrong is very different from setting out to deceive the public. And if they did sincerely believe that a ruthless dictator like Saddam possessed such weapons and was acquiring the ability to wage nuclear war, then they had a very reasonable justification for preemptive intervention in Iraq.
As for the invasion uniting Iraq and the Arab world against the United States, this fails on a whole host of grounds. Opinion polls taken beforehand showed that Arab and Muslim opinion was extraordinarily hostile to the United States even in allies like Turkey and Jordan. Why? Mainly because of American support for Israel in its struggle with the Palestinians. Only those politicians and journalists who wish to end the U.S.-Israel alliance are entitled to cite such hostility as justification for their policy. Will they please step forward and identify themselves?
As for Iraq itself, according to almost all the opinion polls taken there since the invasion, most people think they are better off than under Saddam, favor some kind of democracy with Islamic trimmings, and therefore accept that the intervention was on balance a Good Thing (in the language of the history satire 1066 and All That).
To be sure, most Iraqis will occasionally feel resentment at the foreigners who are temporarily ruling their country. But that will hardly spur them to attack a coalition regime that already has announced its departure date. It is those few who are drawn either to the Islamo-fascism of Osama bin Laden or the Baathist despotism of Saddam who hate the United States to the point of waging terrorism against it. But these last are the very people who danced in the streets when the twin towers were brought down on Sept. 11. They are enemies to be defeated rather than potential friends to be conciliated. And if the intervention in Iraq succeeds in establishing a decent stable government in Baghdad -- if possible a democracy but if necessary a liberal reforming government that will lay the foundations of democracy -- then it will have taken a large step toward the ultimate defeat of these retrogressive forces.
On almost every count the anti-Bush case on the Iraq war crumbles away into nothingness. Why then is it rapidly becoming the conventional wisdom here and abroad? Why has Vietnam suddenly emerged as its odious comparison?
The answer is alarmingly simple: For the first time since the collapse of the Soviet empire in the liberal revolutions of 1989 and 1991, the United States looks vulnerable. And all those who have hitherto nursed their anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-Western grievances in the shadows feel a sudden upsurge of hope that the Iraqi ''resistance'' will inflict a defeat on the United States similar to that inflicted almost 30 years ago in Vietnam. These nostalgic veterans of the left and "the revolution" are rallying, however inconsistently, to the black flag of nihilism and the green flag of Islamo-fascism.
They are almost certainly deluding themselves. The ''uprisings'' of the last month have not succeeded in igniting a general firestorm across Iraq. Fighters in Fallujah are surrounded by a U.S.-led siege. The Shiites have not rallied to the firebrand al-Sadr. The loss of life among the terrorists in Fallujah will serve to deter similar rebellions. And an Iraqi government is scheduled to take over power from the Coalition Provisional Authority in 10 weeks. Though the crisis is far from over, the signs are that the United States is prevailing by a mixture of force and guile.
The anti-Bush bitter-enders in America -- and to his credit they do not include Sen. John Kerry -- have only two realistic hopes left. The first is that the United States will make some massive error in its mopping-up operations and drive Iraqis to support the ''resistance'' against their own interests.
The second is that, despite the facts on the ground in Iraq, the media and the anti-war movement between them will persuade the American public that an unwinnable war is being lost. And that is exactly what happened when the United States defeated the Vietcong's Tet offensive in Vietnam but lost it on American television.
Fool you once, shame on them. Fool you twice, shame on you.
Heads up...We're coming and we've got tongue blades!!
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