.Bush and Iraq: Strategic blunder or historical greatness?
Seeing and reading the media blitz of inconsequential and historically inaccurate obituaries of the Bush Administration (particularly the smarmy vitriol from the pathetic hosts at MSNBC) has got my blood boiling. Here are some facts to help set the record straight. Their most often heard complaint is that the Iraq war was this country's “greatest strategic blunder”.
In researching my book Both In One Trench: Saddam's Secret Terror Documents it became quite clear to me how this narrative developed. It began with the run-up to the 2004 presidential elections and the nomination of Senator John Kerry. Before that time, in late 2002 John Kerry said this from the floor of the Senate during the debate over the authorization of war with Iraq:
And he was right. The Iraq War did quickly become deeply politicized. He might seem prophetic. But there is a simpler explanation for his foresight. Kerry would be the one to lead the politicization.
Although 43% of all congressional Democrats voted for the war, it took just over a year for them to reposition themselves nearly uniformly as Iraq War opponents for the 2004 elections. Two years later, while running for president Kerry said:
Understanding how this politicization came to be explains many other inconvenient truths that Democrats won't face. The democrats allege that the “war was/is illegal”, that Bush was a cowboy with a “go it alone” mentality, that WMD was the phantom threat that Bush used to draw us into the war, and that al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq until we got there. All of this is erroneous and easily disproved no matter how many times the media recites from the Democratic Party talking points.
The war with Saddam began with an authorization from congress and UN resolutions which declared Saddam in breach of his obligations. Iraqis began to create a democratically elected, constitutional Iraqi government in 2003. Since that time, both the Iraqi government and the United Nations have legally authorized the presence of coalition forces in Iraq. In addition, the US congress has held the power to remove forces at any time including the last two years in which congress was controlled by Democrats.
These facts completely refute the “illegality” issue and the “go it alone” claim from the media and the Democrats. But when was the last time you heard the media mention that US forces where under host country request and a UN mandate to help maintain security in Iraq? Ever?
In my book I examine the authorization for the use of US forces in Iraq. That document contains a justification portion. The justification mentions terror, terrorism, or terrorists more than it does WMD. Despite years of being told that we went into Iraq because of WMD the original document makes clear that terrorism was the main basis for the perceived threat from Saddam. This is also evidenced by the Kerry statement from 2002. Notice Senator Kerry is mainly referencing terrorism in his own statement.
This question of al Qaeda being in Iraq before we got there is nothing but a strawman argument. The argument was that Saddam was supporting Islamic terrorism, not whether Saddam and Usama bin Laden were chumming it up at Baath Party headquarters.
I can't force biased liberal journalists to read the well documented evidence that Saddam was a terrorist and supported terrorist groups and regimes like the Taliban. The evidence exists and it is overwhelming. If you haven't read this evidence yet you can start with my book which has translations of documents captured in Iraq that show the Saddam regime making agreements with the Taliban for military support.
This is not to say that there have not been mistakes made by the Bush Administration in the Iraq War. It planned to topple Saddam, train up security forces for the follow up government and leave. That plan failed at just about every level for years.
It failed to predict that Saddam loyalists would partner with Islamic terrorists to drive the insurgency. It failed to predict that al Qaeda and other Islamic terror groups- a global jihad network – as well as Iran, and Syria would inject anarchists in such significant quantities as to destabilize the democratic Iraqi government. It failed to recognize the power of the tribal chiefs until late into 2006. The plan failed to acknowledge that a scarred, national psyche created by decades of brutal repression under Saddam would inevitably lead to an explosion of ethnic and sectarian based reprisals once you pulled the lid off.
But, history is written from a broader perspective. History is less about the failure to predict potential outcomes and more about the ultimate outcome. From the perspective of military history, putting hundreds of thousands of troops into a vast, hostile region to depose an enemy regime while creating a new government that shares your security objectives is monumental. While every life lost is felt personally to those of us who love them, on a historical scale, the loss of American life has been minimal.
Not one fire base in Iraq has been overrun. Not one squad has been wiped out. Less American soldiers have been lost in over five years than were lost on D-Day in WWII. Despite media inaccuracies, our forces never lost a battle, not even in the first battle of Fallujah.
US forces there were withdrawn at the request of the fledgling Iraqi government during the first battle. That was until the Iraqi leaders realized they were now the target of the Fallujah based insurgents at which time the Iraqi leaders requested the US troops to finish off the insurgency in Fallujah which they did. From a military history perspective the campaign was successful but with major mistakes, maybe a B minus as wars go.
But most importantly, this supposed “strategic blunder” has left a strong, democratic, constitutionally based regime in one of the most unstable and violent regions on the planet. The Iraqi government will continue to share our security interests even as our troops fade from the Iraqi streets. It may ultimately become the germination ground for democratic and humanitarian reforms throughout the region as fellow Arabs come to recognize the blessings of liberty.
At the current pace of globalization it will probably take less than a generation for these changes to take hold. Democracy and reason will be a forcing function to change the practice of Islam just as it did for the more brutal brand of Christianity practiced in the west until the age of enlightenment changed it to a more loving and less judgmental ideology for most churches.
Most ironically, our cultures own self-proclaimed progressives have utterly failed to see the potential birth of an Arab age of humanistic enlightenment sparked by this man that they scorn.
But the history books will get it right. George W. Bush was an imperfect man, with an imperfect war plan who succeeded in improving the state of humanity on a global scale. His was not so much a war on terror, but rather a war on the conditions of brutality and human oppression in which terror flourishes that brought madness to our shores on September 11th.
Examiner
In researching my book Both In One Trench: Saddam's Secret Terror Documents it became quite clear to me how this narrative developed. It began with the run-up to the 2004 presidential elections and the nomination of Senator John Kerry. Before that time, in late 2002 John Kerry said this from the floor of the Senate during the debate over the authorization of war with Iraq:
But the administration missed an opportunity 2 years ago and particularly a year ago after September 11th. ...The events of September 11th created new understanding of the terrorist threat and the degree to which every nation is vulnerable. That understanding enabled the administration to form a broad and impressive coalition against terrorism. Had the administration tried then to capitalize on this unity of spirit to build a coalition to disarm Iraq, we would not be here in the pressing days before an election, late in this year, debating this now. The administration’s decision to engage on this issue now, rather than a year ago or earlier, and the manner in which it has engaged, has politicized and complicated the national debate and raised questions about the credibility of their case.He would then vote to approve the use of military force to depose Saddam Hussein. A leader of the Democratic party, the man the Democrats would pick to be their president in 2004 was not criticising President Bush's for forming a military coalition to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. His complaint was that President Bush waited too long after the September 11th attacks to do it! His complaint was that the act would now be politicized since a general election was nearing.
And he was right. The Iraq War did quickly become deeply politicized. He might seem prophetic. But there is a simpler explanation for his foresight. Kerry would be the one to lead the politicization.
Although 43% of all congressional Democrats voted for the war, it took just over a year for them to reposition themselves nearly uniformly as Iraq War opponents for the 2004 elections. Two years later, while running for president Kerry said:
We owe it to the American people to have a real debate about the choices President Bush has made, and the choices I would make and have made, to fight and win the war on terror. That means that we must have a great and honest debate on Iraq. The president claims it is the centerpiece of his war on terror. In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and the battle against our greatest enemy.Two years after Kerry bashed the Bush administration for waiting too long to take out Saddam based on a “new understanding of the terrorist threat” he and the Democratic Party called the Iraq War a “distraction” from the war on terror. This was the point at which the “greatest strategic blunder” mantra took hold with the mainstream media.
Understanding how this politicization came to be explains many other inconvenient truths that Democrats won't face. The democrats allege that the “war was/is illegal”, that Bush was a cowboy with a “go it alone” mentality, that WMD was the phantom threat that Bush used to draw us into the war, and that al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq until we got there. All of this is erroneous and easily disproved no matter how many times the media recites from the Democratic Party talking points.
The war with Saddam began with an authorization from congress and UN resolutions which declared Saddam in breach of his obligations. Iraqis began to create a democratically elected, constitutional Iraqi government in 2003. Since that time, both the Iraqi government and the United Nations have legally authorized the presence of coalition forces in Iraq. In addition, the US congress has held the power to remove forces at any time including the last two years in which congress was controlled by Democrats.
These facts completely refute the “illegality” issue and the “go it alone” claim from the media and the Democrats. But when was the last time you heard the media mention that US forces where under host country request and a UN mandate to help maintain security in Iraq? Ever?
In my book I examine the authorization for the use of US forces in Iraq. That document contains a justification portion. The justification mentions terror, terrorism, or terrorists more than it does WMD. Despite years of being told that we went into Iraq because of WMD the original document makes clear that terrorism was the main basis for the perceived threat from Saddam. This is also evidenced by the Kerry statement from 2002. Notice Senator Kerry is mainly referencing terrorism in his own statement.
This question of al Qaeda being in Iraq before we got there is nothing but a strawman argument. The argument was that Saddam was supporting Islamic terrorism, not whether Saddam and Usama bin Laden were chumming it up at Baath Party headquarters.
I can't force biased liberal journalists to read the well documented evidence that Saddam was a terrorist and supported terrorist groups and regimes like the Taliban. The evidence exists and it is overwhelming. If you haven't read this evidence yet you can start with my book which has translations of documents captured in Iraq that show the Saddam regime making agreements with the Taliban for military support.
This is not to say that there have not been mistakes made by the Bush Administration in the Iraq War. It planned to topple Saddam, train up security forces for the follow up government and leave. That plan failed at just about every level for years.
It failed to predict that Saddam loyalists would partner with Islamic terrorists to drive the insurgency. It failed to predict that al Qaeda and other Islamic terror groups- a global jihad network – as well as Iran, and Syria would inject anarchists in such significant quantities as to destabilize the democratic Iraqi government. It failed to recognize the power of the tribal chiefs until late into 2006. The plan failed to acknowledge that a scarred, national psyche created by decades of brutal repression under Saddam would inevitably lead to an explosion of ethnic and sectarian based reprisals once you pulled the lid off.
But, history is written from a broader perspective. History is less about the failure to predict potential outcomes and more about the ultimate outcome. From the perspective of military history, putting hundreds of thousands of troops into a vast, hostile region to depose an enemy regime while creating a new government that shares your security objectives is monumental. While every life lost is felt personally to those of us who love them, on a historical scale, the loss of American life has been minimal.
Not one fire base in Iraq has been overrun. Not one squad has been wiped out. Less American soldiers have been lost in over five years than were lost on D-Day in WWII. Despite media inaccuracies, our forces never lost a battle, not even in the first battle of Fallujah.
US forces there were withdrawn at the request of the fledgling Iraqi government during the first battle. That was until the Iraqi leaders realized they were now the target of the Fallujah based insurgents at which time the Iraqi leaders requested the US troops to finish off the insurgency in Fallujah which they did. From a military history perspective the campaign was successful but with major mistakes, maybe a B minus as wars go.
But most importantly, this supposed “strategic blunder” has left a strong, democratic, constitutionally based regime in one of the most unstable and violent regions on the planet. The Iraqi government will continue to share our security interests even as our troops fade from the Iraqi streets. It may ultimately become the germination ground for democratic and humanitarian reforms throughout the region as fellow Arabs come to recognize the blessings of liberty.
At the current pace of globalization it will probably take less than a generation for these changes to take hold. Democracy and reason will be a forcing function to change the practice of Islam just as it did for the more brutal brand of Christianity practiced in the west until the age of enlightenment changed it to a more loving and less judgmental ideology for most churches.
Most ironically, our cultures own self-proclaimed progressives have utterly failed to see the potential birth of an Arab age of humanistic enlightenment sparked by this man that they scorn.
But the history books will get it right. George W. Bush was an imperfect man, with an imperfect war plan who succeeded in improving the state of humanity on a global scale. His was not so much a war on terror, but rather a war on the conditions of brutality and human oppression in which terror flourishes that brought madness to our shores on September 11th.
Examiner
posted by madtom at 7:17 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home