Seen in the history of past wars, the American effort to remove Saddam and seed democracy in the Middle East seems little short of miraculous. A successful military action has been carried out 7,000 miles from home. This has been done at far less human and material cost than almost any prior comparable U.S. war. A powerful, multi-pronged effort to eliminate the nexus of Arab autocracy and Islamism (the conditions that germinated bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terror) now continues to gain ground.
Sadly, most criticism is devoid of any such knowledge. This was particularly sad.
Even a bout of Shia anger at the Sunnis for failing to contribute to the defeat of the enemy inside Iraq will not make Hanson's point less true. The bottom line is that the Sunnis cannot beat either a combination of Shias and Kurds or the Shias alone if it comes to a full blown sectarian conflict. And if it does, it is no more "civil war" than the long reign of terror that the Sunnis inflicted on the Shias and Kurds under Saddam's rule. Is it bad? Yes. But we can still achieve our objectives.
And perhaps a good bout of real fear will finally bring wisdom to the Sunnis and lead them to turn fully on the Baathists and jihadis that hide among them and fight the Shias and Kurds in their name.
But as we see Shia anger in Iraq over the attack on their holy shrine, remember that in war it isn't all about our plan. The enemy has a plan and they are trying to win, too. So don't panic. It is ridiculous to conclude from this incident that we've failed in Iraq and had better get out before the full religous war is unleashed.
We've come a long way in this war and achieved much. Cope with the immediate crisis. Keep moving forward. And for Pete's sake, keep an eye on the Iranians and put that crisis-in-a-box Moqtada al Sadr out of commission.
UPDATE: Oh good grief. William F. Buckley has decided to panic. I honestly don't know what his position on the Iraq War has been up to now. But his reasoning in his piece is silly. News quotes of a couple Iraqis blaming us for the shrine bombing? Please. He could have switched positions at any time in the last three plus years if he only needed a couple quotes to persuade him of that. Or poll any humanities department faculty lounge, for that matter. And please recall how in the first year of the war, Shias routinely blamed us for bombings. Yet Buckley did no go belly up then, and we persevered and brought the Shias to our side fully.
And to insist that the successful attempts to transform Germany and Japan after World War II were actually easy and straightforward efforts is to forget the difficulties of the past and assume that because they did happen they must have happened. History is not inevitable. People made of sterner stuff than Buckley made that history. It is incomprehensible that Buckley actually relied on the attitude of the Iranian head nutjob to bolster his view. Really. Since we lost Ahmadinejad we've lost Iraq?
We are training an Iraqi security apparatus to defeat the insurgents and terrorists. We are pushing the Iraqis toward democracy and so far they are taking advantage of the chance paid for by American, Coalition, and Iraqi blood and sacrifice. One successful terror attack does not mean we have failed. Or did Buckley convert to Islam after 9-11?
Truly, I am disappointed that Buckley has written this ill-advised column. Our enemies may have defeated Buckley, but they have not defeated America. And they have not defeated democracy.
