American public opinion is now the most important front in the war, and it's high time the president began waging the battle. An American election is approaching, which the Democrats--having lost all three elected branches of government for the first time since before the Baathists seized power in Iraq--are positively desperate to win. With the economy going great guns, disaster in Iraq is the Dems' only hope for defeating President Bush.
The Democratic Party is in a morally hazardous position: Its interests coincide with the interests of America's enemies. We get e-mails from Bush-haters who are positively giddy at every setback in Iraq, which they see as setbacks for President Bush--never mind that they're also, and more importantly, setbacks for America and for the Iraqi people.
The culture of hate that gave us Sept. 11 will not fade away if America withdraws from Iraq. Quite the contrary, if America gives up it will embolden our enemies, just as it did when President Reagan withdrew from Beirut and President Clinton from Somalia. Will it really take another Sept. 11--or more than one--to persuade Americans to stay the course? That is what is at stake as President Bush battles for public opinion.
We cannot afford to lose this war, for political or other reasons. Too many people are viewing the current period as "post-war," when in fact, Saddam's people are fighting on -- and this, as Andrew Sullivan noted a few days ago, is perhaps the war they always planned to fight. A war of attrition, a war in which they simply "wear us out" and most importantly, eventually sway American opinion so much that they affect "regime change" here. This cannot be allowed, or we will be in for more 9/11 type events, more terrorism, and a more dangerous world.
The war on the home front is also between two types of thinking, not just Republican vs. Democrat, Liberal vs. Conservative, etc. It is between the Big Picture vs the Small Picture. The war in Iraq is part of a larger picture, a war on international terrorism, an ideal of strength vs. weakness, freedom vs. slavery. The Big Picture understands the stakes. The Small Picture sees only abuses by some guards and tries to expand the guilt to the entire military. The Big Picture realizes this is STILL a war and that, on balance, it has been wildly successful. The Small Picture sees any setback (in war, no less), as a quagmire and starts harping about "exit strategies." The Small Thinkers were looking for one less than a month after the war started, and were practically praying for quagmire at the first supply-line hiccup (remember?). If Ike were still around he would find the concept of an exit strategy at the start of WWII as laughable. You fight until you win. You stop when the enemy is defeated.
The Big Picture sees the war in context, the Small Picture wants to put lawyers in charge.
The Big Picture sees how terrorism and Iraq are related, and how bringing freedom to a tortured country is part of the solution. The Small Picture NEVER believes America can be right in this situation -- even to the point of ignoring the fact that Al Quaeda is now assisting the insurgency. These are the same folks who wanted us to disarm ourselves when the Cold War ended. As if there were no more threats to freedom in the world.
Small Picture equals small, petty, provincial, self-absorbed, purely political thinking. We can't afford it when lives are at stake. Our lives, our servicemen's lives, and the future of the world require better.
1 comment:
"The Small Picture sees only abuses by some guards and tries to expand the guilt to the entire military."
The Pentagon knew about it and encouraged it along with lots of other forms of physical coercion and sexual humiliation. They called it Copper Green among other names and the goal was/is to extract information about the insurgency. These soldiers are not the only ones to blame. This is a military problem rooted at the top.
When they denied encouraging this behavior they lied, just like always.
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