My previous blog post was a defense of what has been accomplished in Iraq, and it is possible to poke holes in my assumptions and conclusions. It is difficult to view the war in Iraq as an unbridled success, but that is not ultimately the issue. The real question that it all boils down to is this, is there a global Islamic jihad that poses an existential threat to Western civilization? Or not? Everything else flows from how one answers this question. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, et. al.’s answer is yes, though they’ve done a poor job of explicating it to the American people and the world. I agree with them, for what it’s worth.
If your answer is no, then none of this war on terror makes any sense. We should even get the hell out of Afghanistan. The Taliban will take over again and oppress and murder the populace, but they probably won’t be setting up Al Qaeda camps anytime soon, and if they do, we can just bomb them. Iran wouldn’t dare do anything to us, so let them have their nukes. Syria can’t hurt us, so give them Lebanon. Al Qaeda is already on the run. We just need to dry up their sources of funds by reasoning with our Saudi friends. If Europe turns into Eurabia, so what? There are plenty of nice places to go on vacation right here in the good old U.S.A. The jihadists don’t have a very attractive agenda. Sooner or later the Muslim world will get tired of them, and their numbers will dwindle. Why not relax, let globalization do its work, and enjoy the end of history? Then we could spend some of that defense money on homeland security, anti-missile defense, and searching for habitable planets.
I would dearly love to believe that such is the reality, but if it isn’t, then withdrawal will be a disaster. It will embolden our enemies and dishearten our friends. Ghaddafi will regret caving in so easily. Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Egypt, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al Qaeda, all of whom were set back on their heels by the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, will go back on the offensive, against us and against their own people. Since the U.S. campaign and election, they have already begun.
The Baker report, which reeks of committee authorship, is not entirely irresponsible. It actually calls for more engagement in the Middle East rather than less. The problem with it is that it is a compromise between those who answer yes and those who answer no to the fundamental question. As John McCain says, “Well in war, my dear friends, there is no such thing as compromise; you either win or you lose.”