What if we lose?
Three years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq swept away the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, eroding public support for the mission – fueled by the persistent negativity of political elites and the mainstream media – is endangering the consolidation of that country’s liberation. As a forceful editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal warns, this pessimism "threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophesy if it goes unchallenged."
If not convinced that things are going well by three successful rounds of democratic elections, an absence of the civil war so often predicted by naysayers, and an increasingly capable Iraqi security force, the Journal asks the American public to consider the implications of a premature withdrawal of U.S. forces that would include:
- Broader Middle East instability. Absent America’s deterrent effect, countries of the region would to a much greater degree attempt to establish spheres of influence beyond their own borders, while Iran’s mullahocracy could not be coercively dissuaded from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The loss of credibility with Muslim reformers. If the Iraqi people’s quest for freedom is betrayed, the United States would permanently lose the support of the majority of Middle Eastern Muslims who favor democratic government.
More terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. A retreat in Iraq would convince terrorists of the effectiveness of their tactics and of America’s weakness, emboldening them to again strike the U.S. homeland.
The Journal editorial reflects a column in yesterday’s Washington Times by Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., who explained that Iraq is a vital front in the war against Islamofascists "determined to destroy the Free World, whose nations, values and institutions are seen as impediments to the global triumph of the Islamists’ preferred, Taliban-style religious rule." Clearly, there can be no accommodation with this totalitarian ideology, either at home or abroad.
What if we lose
Wall Street Journal, 22 March 2006
The third anniversary of U.S. military action to liberate Iraq has brought with it a relentless stream of media and political pessimism that is unwarranted by the facts and threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophesy if it goes unchallenged.
Yes, sectarian tensions are running high and the politicians of Iraq’s newly elected parliament are taking a long time forming a government. But the attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra several weeks back has not provoked the spiral into "civil war" that so many keep predicting. U.S. casualties are down over the past month, in part because Iraqi security forces are performing better all the time.
More fundamentally, the coalition remains solidly allied with the majority of Iraqis who want neither Saddam’s Hussein’s return nor the country’s descent into a Taliban-like hellhole. There is no widespread agitation for U.S. troops to depart, and if anything the Iraqi fear is that we’ll leave too soon.
Yet there’s no denying the polls showing that most Americans are increasingly weary of the daily news of car bombs and Iraqi squabbling and are wishing it would all just go away. Their pessimism is fed by elites who should know better but can’t restrain their domestic political calculations long enough to consider the damage that would accompany U.S. failure. A conventional military defeat is inconceivable in Iraq, but a premature U.S. withdrawal is becoming all too possible.
With that in mind, it’s worth thinking through what would happen if the U.S. does fail in Iraq. By fail, we mean cut and run before giving Iraqis the time and support to establish a stable, democratic government that can stand on its own. Beyond almost certain chaos in Iraq, here are some other likely consequences:
Now Iran is dangerously close to acquiring nuclear weapons, a prospect that might yet be headed off by the use or threat of force. But if the U.S. retreats from Iraq, Iran’s mullahs will know that we have no stomach to confront them and coercive diplomacy will have no credibility. An Iranian bomb, in turn, would inspire nuclear efforts in other Mideast countries and around the world.
Syria would feel free to return to its predations in Lebanon and to unleash Hezbollah on Israel. Even allies like Turkey might feel compelled to take unilateral, albeit counterproductive steps, such as intervening in northern Iraq to protect their interests. Every country in the Middle East would make its own new calculation of how much it could afford to support U.S. interests. Some would make their own private deals with al Qaeda, or at a minimum stop aiding us in our pursuit of Islamists.
We could go on, but our point is that far more is at stake in Iraq than President Bush’s approval rating or the influence of this or that foreign-policy faction. U.S. credibility and safety are at risk in the most direct way imaginable, far more than they were in Vietnam. In that fight, we could establish a new anti-Communist perimeter elsewhere in Southeast Asia. The poison of radical Islam will spread far and wide across borders if it can make even a plausible claim to being on the ascendancy, and nothing would show that more than the retreat of America from Iraq.
We still believe victory in Iraq is possible, indeed likely, notwithstanding its costs and difficulties. But the desire among so many of our political elites to repudiate Mr. Bush and his foreign policy is creating a dangerous public pessimism that could yet lead to defeat — a defeat whose price would be paid by all Americans, and for years to come.
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