A dire prediction
On election day, I heard snips of all kinds of news coverage and talk radio and talking heads on TV, and in all of that I hit Rush Limbaugh on the dial just when he started talking about a lengthy commentary called The Only Issue This Election Day, which of course was about Iraq. It was a remarkable piece, he said, because it laid out a detailed and urgent argument for keeping control out of the hands of Democrats who want to withdraw our troops, it was written so exhaustively, and written by a self-proclaimed Democrat.
I checked it out, and…you at least have to consider this seriously. Now that the election is over, all the more so. It’s such a lengthy piece, I’ll just snip portions of it here, starting halfway through the article.
If control of the House passes into Democratic hands, there are enough withdraw-on-a-timetable Democrats in positions of prominence that it will not only seem to be a victory for our enemies, it will be one.
I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America’s role as a light among nations.
But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war. And since the Democratic Party seems hellbent on losing it — and in the most damaging possible way — I have no choice but to advocate that my party be kept from getting its hands on the reins of national power, until it proves itself once again to be capable of recognizing our core national interests instead of its own temporary partisan advantages.
To all intents and purposes, when the Democratic Party jettisoned Joseph Lieberman over the issue of his support of this war, they kicked me out as well. The party of Harry Truman and Daniel Patrick Moynihan — the party I joined back in the 1970s — is dead. Of suicide.
He makes a case for why the war in Iraq is part of the war on terror, and should be. And he asks–and answers–probing questions.
Can We Win?
That is certainly not what most who call for withdrawal intend. They see Americans dying and they have no hope of victory. The Iraq War (as they call it) is costing lives and shows no sign of ending. Meanwhile, Iran is getting nuclear weapons, North Korea already has them, Syria and Iran are sponsoring continuing and escalating attacks on Israel — how can we possibly “win” a war that threatens constantly to widen? Let’s cut our losses, retire to our shores, and …
And will you please stop and think for a moment?
There is no withdrawal to our shores. American prosperity requires free trade throughout most of the world. Free trade has depended for decades on American might. If we withdraw now, we announce to the world that if you just kill enough Americans, the big boys will go home and let you do whatever you want.
Every American in the world then becomes a target. And, because we have announced that we will do nothing to protect them, we will soon be trading only with nations that have enough strength to protect their own shores and borders.
Only … what nations are those? Not Taiwan. If they saw us abandon Iraq, what conclusion could they reach except this one: They’d better accommodate with China now, when they can still get decent terms, than wait for America to walk away from them the way we walked away from Vietnam and Iraq.
We cannot win by going home. In a short time, “home” would become a very different place, as our own prosperity and safety steadily diminished. Isolationism is a dead end. If we lose our will to protect the things that support our own prosperity, then what can we expect but the end of that prosperity — and of any vestige of safety, as well?
Have you heard a case made like this before? Certainly not by a Democrat.
What about Iran? The idea of a ground war in Iran — especially when we’re still fighting in Iraq — seems impossible.
But it is also probably unnecessary. Because Iran’s present government is not just hated, it is also losing its grip on power.
Not on the trappings of power — they control the “elections” to such a point that nobody can be nominated without the approval of the ayatollahs.
But government power — even in democracies — depends absolutely on the will of the people to obey. And when you rule by tyranny and oppression, the obedience of the people comes from the credibility of the threat of violence from the government.
…Tyrannies only continue in power when they can give the order to kill their own people and be obeyed.
In Iran, there have been several incidents in the past months and years where troops refused to fire on demonstrators. This is huge news (virtually unreported in the West, of course), because of what it means: The ayatollahs’ days are numbered.
Face it. These are things we don’t think about as a busy, modern, soundbite society that likes everything quick, and still believes what the mainstream media all say. They’re not saying anything like this.
This is the victory that awaits us — and it remains possible for two reasons only:
1. America’s brilliant, brave, and well-trained military, which projects not just power but decency and compassion wherever our soldiers go, and
2. President George W. Bush, who, regardless of his critics and detractors, has steadfastly pursued the only course that holds the hope of victory without plunging us into a worldwide war with a united Islam or isolating America in a world torn by chaos.
Those are the scylla and charybdis that threaten us on either hand. If we do not win this containable war now, following the plan President Bush has set forth, we will surely end up fighting far bloodier wars for the next generation.
The article gets into the complicated geopolitics and cultural/religious divides in the Middle East.
It’s an astonishingly twisted game — and as long as we don’t do anything really, really stupid, like withdrawing from Iraq, all these various treacheries will inevitably lead to the fall of the tyrants in Iran, and therefore in Syria, and therefore the taming of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Bush’s game is to keep from letting any of these faction unite, while preparing to deliver strategic blows that can bring down the ayatollahs at relatively little cost.
Every action has repercussions. Just as our withdrawal from Iraq would terrify and silence our allies everywhere, and embolden our enemies, so also would the fall of the ayatollahs — particularly if it is as the result of an American intervention in the Gulf — make waves everywhere. Democracy would be perceived as the wave of the future. Our friends in many countries would feel free to speak up for democracy and pro-American policies — and their enemies would be afraid to silence them.
Why are other political leaders, and media elites, staying away from this for the most part? On election night, I did hear Sen. John McCain say that to withdraw from Iraq now would have severe consequences around the world. He said that when it was clear that Democrats would be coming into majority power.
Remember, this commentary was posted before the first votes were cast. It was a plea.
If we, the American people, are stupid enough to give control of either or both houses of Congress to the Democratic Party in this election, we will deserve the world we find ourselves in five years from now.
Now that the American people have, indeed, handed over the reins of Congress, I sure hope this guy’s wrong.
