Why we went to Iraq

-- and why the left is so damaging to the cause of freedom there. In today's OpinionJournal.

Would Senators Sam Nunn, Pat Moynihan, Bob Kerrey, Chuck Robb, David Boren or Henry M. Jackson have conducted their opposition to President Bush's war policies in Iraq as have Senators Harry Reid, Richard Durbin, Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer? The former group stood for the idea of a loyal opposition; the latter stand simply in opposition.

Here is one man's view of why we are in Iraq: We are trying to democratize this country so they don't try to kill us. That Iraqis should "get their freedom" is genuinely good and desirable. But I wish President Bush would say more often that Iraqi democratization is in our raw self-interest. It doesn't much matter to me whether the country we democratize is Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia or Syria. The theory that democracies don't attack other democracies is as strong as such notions get, and what the world most needs now is a new, large Islamic democracy. A democracy, however "imperfect," is less likely than an authoritarian state to detonate a nuclear device in someone else's territory.