But then Kaplan throws in a shot at--I assume--our Iraq intervention that makes me ask yet again, what is it with these anti-Iraq War people that they cannot avoid working up a frothy rage over what in the end was a morally correct success? Kaplan writes, in defense of caution that keeps us out of Libya:
Do you really want to get into this? Do you want to get into another war in another Muslim country in the Middle East?
Leon Wieseltier recently wrote in the New Republic, "I do not see a Middle East rising up in anger at the prospect of American intervention." Oh, really. Where did we last see that degree of blitheness? [emphasis added]
Well, Mr. Kaplan, answer your question. Are you speaking of Iraq? If so, just where was that Middle East rising up in anger at our intervention? Indeed, the short-lived Arab Spring of 2005 seemed to be inspired by our overthrow of a despot in the Arab world. And even though jihadis exploited propaganda to recruit angry Arabs as violence escalated in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, recruits were inspired pre-Iraq by Afghanistan and pre-Afghanistan, obviously, since the 9/11 attacks set off this entire long war. Further, Arab governments backed us in our war on terror and none fell to anti-American mobs.
Even in the current wave of unrest, where are the anti-American mobs that Iraq supposedly caused? Even rebels in Libya want a Western (American-led) no-fly zone (including one rebel who asked for Bush!). And if they get a no-fly zone and see how pointless it is, they'll ask for more help rather than lose, I bet.
I know that it is inconvenient for some that we aren't fighting a global Aryan conspiracy to kill us. But the unfortunate fact is that, just as Willie Sutton robbed banks because, as urban legend has him saying, that's where the money is, we find ourselves fighting overtly and covertly in Arab countries (usually with the help of the Arab governments) because that's where the jihadis are. Sorry. Really, I am. But that's the way it is.
Get it over it Mr. Kaplan, we defeated a series of evil enemies in Iraq, including Saddam's regime, Baathists, Sadrists, and jihadis despite the call of your ilk that it was impossible and immoral. Iraq may, as Vice President Biden noted, be the Obama administration's greatest success story.
And the claims that we'd alienate the Moslem world by freeing Iraq haven't come to pass, either. Mr. Kaplan would be better off arguing the merits of Libya rather than sucking up to his anti-Iraq War fans and trying to piece Libya into his grand "Iraq Bad" tapestry that the anti-war side still tries to weave no matter what the subject is. Seriously, what is it with these people?
