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Is the War in Iraq Worth Supporting?

22 January 2007

Unless you live on a deserted island you are aware that 2/3 of American no longer support the war in Iraq. That coincided precisely with President Bush’s approval ratings which are the lowest of his presidency and one of the lowest of all time. For a multiplicity of reasons, Americans simply do not support the war and most believe it was a mistake in the first place and, perhaps, that it was based on lies.

The question remains, regardless of what most Americans believe or don’t believe, what are the realistic options regarding this war? Is a pullout, or as Democrats like to phrase it, a phased redeployment, actually a viable option? What can be expected if we do pull out? I think there are a couple of obvious answers that cannot be easily swept away.

First, American credibility will be decimated for the foreseeable future, regardless of who controls Congress or the White House. We have already had too many instances where we did not follow through with our commitments and the world already suspects that we cannot be depended upon to do what we say we will do. Perhaps that is a consequence of our form of government, although historically we had a much better reputation. From here on out we will not be able to gain allies in any serious international endeavor because the world will now that when it gets tough we bail out.

As serious as such a consequence may be, it is not as serious as the second difficulty with the redeployment strategy. As noted above, much of the world already expects that when it gets really tough the US will run. Indeed, Osama bin Laden said as much following our exodus from Somalia and that has been the stated strategy of Islamic fascists the world over. They know they cannot beat the US in a military sense. So their strategy has been to make it too costly to continue to engage them. They understand that the longer they drag this out the less support the President will have at home and, eventually, that support will dry up and he will have little choice but to withdraw.

So what happens then? The Islamic fascists declare their victory over America to start with. And as much as politicians may want to deny it, the claim will be valid. And with that victory will come an incredible increase in the ability of the Islamic fascists to recruit. Their approach will have been fully validated and new recruits will flood in in numbers never before imagined.

And who will be running this new army of Islamic terrorists? Probably Iran. And since we already know what Iran’s goals are, it will not be surprising if shortly thereafter the incidents of terrorism in Israel increase dramatically. Of course, Israel will only be the next step, not the last step. The Islamic fascists refer to Israel as the little Satan. Great Satan is reserved for the US. And if you labor under the false belief that they will change that view if we pull out of Iraq, lets just dispel that right now. Make no mistake, They WILL come after us here on American soil and their goals will far exceed 9/11.

While many Americans have fallen for the ridiculous assertion that Iraq has been a distraction from the war on terrorism, nothing could be further from the truth. Whatever you may believe about the start of the war, whether justified or not, the Islamic fascist themselves claim that Iraq is now the central front in that war. Anything short of complete and total victory there will be disastrous for the US and the world.

I am not the best prognosticator around and I don’t claim to have any sort of crystal ball. But I know this much, the troop increase that President Bush is starting to implement is, at worst, the minimum required at this moment. Regular readers will know that I am not a Bush cheerleader. He has often disappointed me because he is not a conservative. But he is the Commander in Chief and he is the only person in the world who is capable of waging this war, a war that absolutely must be waged. I don’t know if Bush will use these additional troops in an effective way. My gut instinct is that he won’t because America simply does not have the stomach to do what needs to be done. Still, the alternative to adding troops is far worse.

I urge all Americans who value freedom to support the President now. I’m not asking you to like him or approve of his overall job as President. I don’t approve of his overall performance. But he, our troops and the world need us to stand as one and win this conflict. The consequences of failure are simply too dreadful to contemplate.