Election

The election seems to have had good effects on two fronts. One, the military is convinced war is coming and not a contingency. This from the apparent endorsement of the president and his foreign policy—read Iraq—that indicates that the American people—that vital leg of the Clausewitzian trinity—are behind the war effort. Get the “i’s” dotted and the “t’s” crossed and support will follow.

Second, the international community knows we are serious and despite Streisand press releases and Woody Harrelson tirades, the American people back war. We will get our Security Council Resolution. Perhaps the French thought that Alec Baldwin and all the others who fawn over Europe’s “wisdom” would prevail on Tuesday and derail those mad Americans. They probably thought all they had to do was hold on until after the elections. Instead, Americans clearly, if narrowly, backed the president. The UN will now vote.

For me that is the most important part of the election. Destroying our enemies cannot stop with the crippling of al Qaeda. We must smash Iraq, too, and continue the war on terror. It may be costly, it may be lengthy. But it is necessary. We don’t know what will happen when we launch our war, but we do know what happens when we sit back and let our enemies prepare. They pursue nuclear weapons. They seek chemical and biological weapons. They fly our planes into our buildings and kill our people.

The pieces fall into place and our military readies itself to fight. Soon, the quiet deployments will gather in pace until we cannot disguise the fact that we are preparing for war. Then we will openly mobilize our reserves for the war. The inspections process will give us cover as we wait for Iraq to tell us about their illegal programs. When that farce ends, we will attack. Just after Christmas.

Will the Iraqis launch a pre-emptive strike? With chemicals? Maybe. But then we will have all the international support we need. Many say Saddam is a gambler who may take such a risk. I guess he won’t. Look at his gambles. He invaded Iran, yet sought a limited border change. He didn’t pursue regime change by aiming for Tehran. He didn’t go for the whole enchilada. Similarly, in 1990, he stopped at the Kuwait-Saudi border leaving those ports and airfields for us to use. A real gambler would have struck south immediately after grabbing Kuwait. If Saddam does gamble this time, he will hold back enough force to face any counter-attack. Just like he quickly went over onto the defensive in 1980 and 1990 when he failed to induce his enemies to accept his limited conquests. So, he may strike us with forces insufficient to really stop us—just enrage us and give us the excuse many nations need to back us. The second part of his miscalculation will be that what he has husbanded will be sufficient to win on the defensive. The Iranians bled him white over nearly eight years; and we smashed him in six weeks. We will smash him again. This time for good.

God bless our troops and sustain them in this fight. The imminence of war makes the prospect of their death and injury sobering and even depressing. This feeling has been building for weeks now as I have concluded that war is coming without a doubt. Yet we have no choice if we are to hope to control our future and not hope for the best and the good will of thugs and murderers. I hope the price we pay will not be too great. I’m pretty darn sure the price goes up next year or the year after, however.

On to Baghdad.