Our friends in Iraq, who want the democracy and rule of law that some here would abandon as a goal all to easily, are worried about whether we will stick with them. The Iraqi vice president wants assurances we will stick with them. He received them from the President but our media's fixation on "imminent" civil war and cutting our losses, giving the Sunni terrorists concessions to end shootings and bombings, and getting out worries Iraqis who want what we want:
For the most part, our queries were politely and somewhat laconically dismissed. Iraq is not in a civil war, Mahdi said, and doesn't need more U.S. troops. It has a constitution and elected government, and thus there is no need for an international conference. As for constitutional reform, the Shiite and Kurd parties that wrote the charter last year are waiting for proposals from Sunni dissidents. Mahdi added: "So far we have heard nothing."
So what is the solution? "Time -- that is it," Mahdi replied. "A nation like Iraq needs time. The elections for a permanent government happened eight months ago. We have been in office a few weeks. The people who we have in office have never governed. These people come from oppression and a bad political system. We can't import ministers to Iraq. There will be many mistakes. The Americans made many mistakes, and Iraqis had to support that."
"Our options as Iraqis are that we don't have an exit strategy or any withdrawal timetable," Mahdi said, somewhat bitterly. "We simply go on. . . . It is a process, and brick by brick we are working on it."
I've harped on this for three years--the Iraqis have no place to go. They have no exit strategy. If we stick with the 80% of the Iraqis who reject Saddam's rule, they will build a better Iraq. They will defeat our common enemies and remain an asset rather than a liability in the Long War.
And if our friends who have frequent contact with our government are worried we will leave, can anyone say that our enemies who only read the papers aren't encouraged by our media's constant defeatism?
Have the confidence to win this--or rather, have the confidence to let our Iraqi friends win.
And stop inflating problems into hopeless crises. History is just a series of problems that were overcome by our ancestors. Focus on solving ours and not looking for innovative ways to surrender without calling it by that name.
It is shameful that so many here on the left and right would abandon Iraqi friends who fight for liberty and freedom from Islamic fascism.
