"I can tell you there will be a power vacuum in the region. We are ready with other regional countries, such as Saudi Arabia, and the people of Iraq to fill this vacuum."
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
It will be difficult to listen to the cut and run crowd after Labor Day, especially in light of the success of the change in strategy in Iraq, as well as today's telegraphic statement from Iran's head nutcase. In complete defiance of the stated and unstated objectives of Iran, the so called Progressive (aka Liberal) wing of the Democrat Party will again ask for a commitment to act as crazy as Ahmadinejad by trying to set a timeline for withdrawal.
When Herr Hitler was writing Mein Kampf after the abortive Beer Hall Putsch, he clearly outlined his strategy for lebensraum, or "living room". All Joe Stalin had to do was read the book and he would have known that Adolf was coming sooner or later. I wonder if Neville Chamberlain ever read the book? If he did not, he was remiss in not doing so. If he did read the book, and then went on to sign the Munich Agreement anyway, he was criminally inept.
Appeasement did not stop the Nazi's; it will not stop the terrorists; it will not stop Iran. You may choose to believe that Iran wants a nuclear capacity for peaceful purposes only. You may believe that we need to abandon the people of Iraq as soon as possible. If so, you have opted to stand along side other good men who chose to do nothing in the past. In the long run, it only means that more people will die as a result of the lack of action. The error of omission is only viewable in the rear view mirror. The supposed error of commission, our standing up for the freedom of others, is easy to assail in the here and now. The difficult task is sustaining the effort despite the inescapable desire for peace. How easy it is to fall under the sway of a false hope for peace through acquiescence.
I learned how to type in the summer of 1967 as a somewhat ambitious/bored-in-the-country sixteen year old. One of the sentences that I used to help hone my digital dexterity was the following:
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.
I would amend that phrase today to read:
Now is the time for all good men to stand by their country -
not their party!
4 comments:
In your view I'm a 'cut and runner' but at my age maybe its just a walker.
Would you comment please on the
concept of fostering a predominately arab major regional diplomatic effort to partition Iran into three regions (Shia, Sunni and Kurd). With those free standing geographical units created
we should be able to withdraw gradually from what is clearly now a civil war. We created the mess when we brought the bull into the china shop and now we have some moral responsibility to tamping the violence down.
What do you think? Seriously.
At this point, my confidence in Maliki is almost exhausted, but seeing as how the government took the month of August off, I am willing to be patient a bit longer. The idea you propose, Senator Biden's proposal from some time ago, may be the avenue we finally will have to follow, but I believe there is a growing sense of "nation" within Iraq. I don't know if you're familiar with Michael Yon's reporting from Iraq, but you might want to take a look at his latest post on michaelyon.com.
Coming from a conservative you may find this hard to swallow, but I believe that a more secular, unified government in Iraq is the key to long term success. I believe in the separation of church and state in all democracies. Not the elimination of religious principles, or removing the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the local Court House, but the complete lack of recognition by the government of any one religion as the official state religion. I believe that if we allowed the partition, we would only have provided three groups the training and bleeding grounds for their future generations.
To think that any endeavor such as this can be finished within a government regulated length of time is sophomoric at best, and politically-inspired opposition at worst.
As far as your reference to the bull in the china shop, I would suggest that Islamic terrorists are the frothing bull in the china shop of freedom and democracy, and they have been since the Carter administration. The terrorists expect us to quit, and they rely upon the vast majority of our media to help them. Inadvertent, unintended assistance to the enemy is still helping the enemy.
As far as our "moral responsibility" is concerned, I would suggest turning our backs on those Iraq's, and other peoples throughout the Middle East who are seeking and dying for freedom, would be an act of incredible moral "irresponsibility".
Hi Watson,
You keep making references to 'the enemy' in Iraq. Who are they? Just who are we going to beat up with our 160,000 troops? The answer is, of course, that we don't have a defined enemy. We are trying to squelch a civil war.
The religous zealots are pounding the bejeepers out of each other after we created an environment without any social stability.
The reality is that we have become the unwelcome occupiers of their turf and they want us out. So do our citizens want us out.
I agree with you that we need to watch closely and keep in check the rash of Islamic fundamentalists that produce the IED makers. But all the kings horses and all the kings men will never put Iraq back together again.
Let the competing arab communities minimize their civil war with outside forced diplomacy while we slowly withdraw from a situation we never should have gotten into in the first place.
Somehow I don't think you are going to agree with that but it makes sense to moi.
When OBL & AQ make reference to Iraq as the front in the war on America, {remember the letter to the now defunct Zarcowi (phonetic spelling - not worth looking up the jerks proper spelling)}- what else is it you require to realize that the enemy, radical Islamic terrorists, are in Iraq as well as throughout the world? There is "sectarian" violence as you refer to it, but isn't there a slight chance that Iraq has criminals as well as terrorists? We certainly seem to have our share.
You make the generalization that the people of Iraq want us out - I'm sure that most of them would like us gone. But I submit to you that most of them realize that will only happen when the average citizen can feel secure. We want to be gone as badly as they want us gone, but sensible people with some foresight realize that this is a long term project, not some reality show that's wrapped up at the end of a 16 week television season. We "created an environment without any social stability": How many of them do you think would prefer to still be under the rule of Saddam?
Instead of taking a strictly political view, put some historical perspective on it, and then ask what the long term goals are. I realize Iraq was a creation of The League of Nations, and some "nations" last, some don't. That's history - but should we not try and write our own history? Aren't the concepts of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to pursue happiness, one man - one vote (sorry, not PC gender-wise, but I'm old school)worth propagating?
The problem with using diplomacy in this case is obvious to me: The Iraqi's would be the only ones who really care about their interests, all of the other participants from the region would have their own agendas, and Iraqi security would be very far down on their list of priorities. I don't see any future in allowing Iran any greater access to Iraq then they already have.
We need to get out of Iraq, but what we don’t need is public discussion of when/where/how, we don’t need a timeline the enemy can plan around, and we need to reassure people everywhere who are living in fear that the United States is a nation that stands by it’s word, a nation that believes in freeing people – not taking their land & resources, and a nation that will stay the course of freedom, regardless of time and cost.
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