« An Historic Day | Main | The Mistakes of President Bush »
January 20, 2009
Iraq - 2009 - Bush was right
For years (really since mid-2002) I've been defending the Bush presidency and its foreign policy goals regarding Iraq. Six long years of argument and criticism from just about everyone I know. I remain defiant and unshaken in my analysis. (Here let me extend a grateful hand to Steven Den Beste for providing so much clear-headed analysis during the early months of this debate).
Bush was right.
Bush will be vindicated in history.
We had to respond to the 9/11 terror attacks. We had to strike at the very core of the Islamic world and convince them that attacks against the U.S. were the worst mistake they could ever make. For a myriad of reasons, Iraq was the best available target for a U.S. attack.
We won that war with just 2 and 1/2 divisions against an army that was five time larger. We destroyed Saddam's government and captured him and then set about the arduous task of rebuilding Iraq on totally new ground. We set about proving to the Islamic world that democracy was not incompatible for people just because they were Arabs, or because they were Moslem. We challenged Al Qaeda, not in some minor country like Afghanistan, but in the very heart of the Islamic world. They had to come and fight us there, Afghanistan they could flee from, Somalia they could leave any time but Iraq, no Iraq was a country that had to be fought for.
And they lost.
The effort of rebuilding Iraq is far from over but I believe we have won. Iraq may very well become what the Bush administration dreamed of: a stable, peaceful, prosperous and democratic country sitting right in the middle of the Islamic world. A constant, daily affront to the dictators in the Islamic world who always tell their people "you aren't ready to choose your government" or "Democracy is Unislamic". Bush tried to change the world and I think he has wrenched machinery of history from a terrible direction to a new and better pathway, better for them, better for all of us.
Things can still go badly. The future is unwritten and not always for the best. But as former President Bush flies home to Texas, I salute him for daring to do the hard, difficult, dangerous thing. And for standing up to the whole weight of opinion from the rest of the country and the rest of world who just wanted to let things stew in the Islamic world.
He was right. The Bush administration did the right thing. Iraq is a better country, and the world is better place thanks to the U.S. invasion and occupation in 2003.
To all the brave men and women who served in the U.S. Army and Marines and Air Force, I salute you. You fought under nearly impossible conditions and you won. Counter-insurgency is hard but our enemies were fools and our goals - peace and freedom for the Iraqi people - were noble.
Let me close with the immortal words of President Kennedy, spoken 48 years ago, and still true
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
To President George W. Bush, champion of liberty!
Posted by rakhier at January 20, 2009 12:44 PM