To this way of thinking, victory is impossible by definition, because any response other than restraint is bound to inflame the militancy of the other side. Since the jihadists, by every available account, are also inflamed and encouraged by everything from passivity to Danish cartoons, this seems to shrink the arena of possible or even thinkable combat.And he asks the right questions:
(Nobody ever asks what would happen if the jihadists had to start worrying about the level of casualties they were enduring, or the credit they were losing by their tactics, or the number of enemies they were making among civilized people who were prepared to take up arms to stop them. Our own masochism makes this contingency an unlikely one in any case.)But more, he's able to see through the onslaught of bad press to the accomplishments of the war (I keep asking myself in anyone is responsive to the Good anymore):
otherwise we would not be able to celebrate the arrest and trial of Saddam Hussein; the removal from the planet of his two sadistic kids and putative successors; the certified disarmament of a former WMD- and gangster-sponsoring rogue state; the recuperation of the marshes and their ecology and society; the introduction of a convertible currency; the autonomy of Iraqi Kurdistan (currently advertising for investors and tourists on American television); the killing of al-Qaida's most dangerous and wicked leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and many of his associates; the opening of dozens of newspapers and radio and TV stations; the holding of elections for an assembly and to approve a constitution; and the introduction of the idea of federal democracy as the only solution for Iraq short of outright partition and/or civil war.And he seems to be the only pundit who's thinking about our obligations to the Iraqis:
We have acquired this responsibility not since 2003, or in the sideshow debate over prewar propaganda, but over decades of intervention in Iraq's affairs, starting with the 1968 Baathist coup endorsed by the CIA, stretching through Jimmy Carter's unforgivable permission for Saddam Hussein to invade Iran, continuing through the decades of genocide in Kurdistan and the uneasy compromise that ended the Kuwait war, and extending through 12 years of sanctions and half-measures, including the "no-fly" zones and the Iraq Liberation Act, which passed the Senate without a dissenting vote. It is not a responsibility from which we can walk away when, or if, it seems to suit us.Right on. I could add that some of the mass graves in the south of Iraq came about when Saddam retaliated for a Shi'a uprising after the Gulf War --that we inspired, and for which we promised support-- and then abandoned. There's more --including a strategy I haven't run across before but which seems eminently sensible and do-able at first light. Do RTWT. But rather than quote more, here's a strategic argument that compliments Hitch's moral one --left in a combox here.
The multilateralists who have been screaming for years how Bush snubbed our "allies" will get a horrible surprise if Iraq is abandoned.
Much of the planet will conclude that America in the end always abandons its allies for reasons of domestic politics. They will point to South Vietnam as the other example (yes, even those who screamed "Hands off Vietnam" are not above using that example).
Who will want to be an ally to that nicer, humbler US? Even a Democrat administration will come to regret what their ideological stooges have done to weaken America´s image abroad. Perhaps they will see why politics should have stopped at the waters edge.
What used to be the mantra? "We cannot go it alone"? But how many beleaguered nations and populations would not rather cast their lot with those second rate powers who are doing fine by going it alone, because they are sending a strong signal that they will have to be dealt with four years hence, when nobody knows who will be in the White House by then.
You would think that Hitchen´s mortal enemies, the proponents of Realpolitik, understood that mechanism even if they do not generally care about third world peoples.
In other words, Bush is leading, not "going it alone." If you want to find out what "alone" is, leave Iraq prematurely. You won't like what it does for us --or for the people we in theory must feel solidarity with.
