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COMMENTARY
January 13, 2007
Baghdad express
We could begin with the questions, “Do you think President Bush’s plan, to send more than 20,000 extra troops to Iraq, to help secure Baghdad and key points surrounding against the terrorist insurgency, while stepping up interdiction around Iraq’s frontiers, has a chance of working?”And, “Do you think it will in fact work, and make it possible for Americans and allies to start going home, within a year or so, leaving a secure Iraqi government behind, still allied with the West?” My answer to the first question is, of course it has a chance -- first supposing that the plan is not successfully sabotaged, by the new Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress. For it is the product of a remarkably hard-headed analysis of previous allied failures, to secure territory after the enemy had been cleared. It contains implicitly the kind of threats to Iran and Syria, that might well dissuade them from continuing to feed the Iraqi insurgency. And it puts a much-needed fire under the Iraqi government, to deliver on its share of the burden. My answer to the second question is, I don’t know. I am sceptical chiefly of the timeline suggested, of what happens if it can’t be met, or if the Iraqi government fails to keep its side of the bargain. President Bush is at his most Lincolnesque at the moment. Abraham Lincoln made most of the key decisions that ultimately won the American Civil War, over the opposition of Congress, public opinion, and most particularly, his generals. He was depicted in the press of his day much as Mr Bush is depicted in the media of our day: as a simpleton, in over his depth. Which doesn’t mean Bush is another Lincoln. But doesn’t preclude it, either. I am immensely impressed by the grit and determination with which the U.S. President has regrouped, learned from mistakes, and is now pushing forward. I am especially impressed by what amounts to his refusal to buy into either the premises or the conclusions of the Baker-Hamilton “Iraq Study Group” -- which couldn’t contemplate defeat in Iraq, but wouldn’t contemplate victory, either. And something might even be said for the American people, who are very weary of carrying the ball alone, in the face of allies who indulge cheap anti-Americanism to avoid taking their share of the cost in blood and money of defending the West. The popular response to Baker-Hamilton seemed to be an equally weary recognition that there was no alternative to slogging on. Yet there is no love lost for Mr Bush, either. As there was, incidentally, no love lost for Winston Churchill after what he’d put Britain through for five years. The test of America has been nothing to compare with the World War II test of Britain, but then, the theatre in which America has been tested is located far away. And while it was obvious why Britain must fight Nazi Germany, from the bombs that were dropping on London, it is less obvious why Americans must fight and die on the plains of Mesopotamia. The two factors balance each other. Within the U.S. itself, a large part of the opposition to any attempt at victory in Iraq, and therefore in favour of catastrophic defeat, is now fuelled by sentimental and deceitful posturing towards the U.S. armed forces. Arguments such as, “Mr Bush hasn’t sent his daughters to Iraq,” suggest the intelligence level at which critics inside and outside Congress have pitched their case. But whether we are speaking of U.S. troops in Iraq, or Canadian troops in Afghanistan, it is important for the reader to remember that the overwhelming majority in our voluntary armed forces utterly despise the Barbara Boxers, Jack Laytons, and media flaks who shed crocodile tears for them, and exploit their anxious or grieving families. Our forces in the field are purpose-driven, and do impressive things every day; men and women alike, they face real risk with true manliness. They have a mission, to find and kill mortal enemies of all higher civilization, and it is the moral duty of every decent human being to wish them godspeed in that task. It is against this background that I am disinclined to carp about this feature or that of the new Iraq proposals. Crucially, they promise to be more aggressive. Moreover, the deployment of a much-enhanced U.S. naval force in the Persian Gulf, and the raid on the Iranian pseudo-consulate at Irbil (with the rich intelligence harvest it will have provided), suggests that the necessary confrontation with revolutionary Iran will not be funked, either, on President Bush’s watch. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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