I am further puzzled by the persistent idea that we are losing the fight inside Iraq and that the Baathists and jihadis are unbeatable by those Iraqis who want democracy.
We are not doomed, people. We are, in fact, holding off the bloody terrorists (inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy in the process) while the Iraqi government get stronger. We are their shield and sword until they can take over the fight from us. Already they die in greater numbers than we do in defense of their unique experiment.
Amir Taheri explains:
Most Iraqis regard the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the dismantling of his machinery of war and oppression and the introduction of pluralist politics to Iraq as an historic success. The issue is how to consolidate that victory, not to snatch defeat from its jaw. Those challenging this historic victory are enemies of both the Western democracies and the Iraqi people.
Iraq today is the central battlefield in the global war between two mutually exclusive visions of the future. Yet the jihadists now know they can't win on that battlefield. After three years of near-daily killings, often in the most horrible manner maginable, they've failed to alter Iraq's political agenda. Nor have they won control of any territory or even broadened their constituency.
The jihadists have suffered thousands of casualties, with many more captured by Coalition forces and the new Iraqi army and police. Despite more than 120 suicide operations, and countless attacks on civilian targets, the jihadists have been on the defensive since they lost their chief base at Fallujah last year. Their strategic weakness: They can't translate their killings into political gains inside Iraq.
The enemy has succeeded in killing, but little else. In time, we will stop the enemy from killing, too.
Iraqis are fighting with us against our common enemies and are enduring worse losses than we are even in this tough month of October.
Debate how to win, by all means. But debating whether we should have invaded is pointless. And wondering whether our side deserves to win is revolting. We smashed a murderous and cruel thug regime under Saddam and have created a struggling Moslem democracy fighting with us rather than against us in the heart of the Middle East. We should be proud of these achievements. And we must help keep this new Iraqi republic alive against enemies so evil that it defies our imagination.
Shouldn't we be ashamed to be thinking of abandoning allies fighting for our highest ideals against horrible enemies who would turn the clock back centuries if they could?
Shouldn't it be embarassing to advocate retreat in Iraq when we are actually winning?
And shouldn't a healthy sense of self preservation lead us to be fully determined to defeat such barbarians anywhere in the world when they will not rest in their efforts to kill us?
We are at war, people. Act like it.
