Posted by
Soldier Dad on Wednesday, August 02, 2006 2:52:49 PM
You don’t have to look far in today’s media to find pundits, politicians, and parents of dead soldiers condemning, vilifying, the war in Iraq. You may even find the occasional article trying to prove the military campaigns in Afghanistan are failing as well – though the ambitious journalists who report those “stories” tend to see their arguments slip quietly into trash cans when their logic just doesn’t add up. Since critics of the Bush Doctrine are so keen on Monday-morning quarterbacking, let’s think about what would have happened if America had not chosen to oust Saddam Hussein (12 years too late, but that’s another story).
During the 1990s and early 2000s, Saddam had shown himself to be increasingly identifying with Sunni Muslims in his country. Year after year, he built mosques. He added “God is the greatest” to the Iraqi flag. During a 2003 CBS interview, he said, “Whatever Allah decides. We are believers. We believe in what he decides. There is no value for any life without imam, without faith.”
Let me be clear: Saddam Hussein was positioning himself as a premier leader of fanatical Muslims in the Middle East.
In this week’s Time, Charles Krauthammer wrote a thought-provoking article regarding the transition of the current Arab-Israeli conflict from a secular, political struggle to an outright religious war. He explains that Hamas’ victory six months ago ensured that the direction of Palestinian policy was towards an Islamic state rather than a 23rd “secular” Arab nation. He writes, “As pan-Arabism declined, pan-Islamism rose in its place. Hence Islamist Hizballah--client of Islamist Iran, ally of Islamist Hamas--provokes a war with Israel. Hizballah's motivation has nothing to do with Arab nationalism. Israel withdrew from every square meter of Lebanese territory six years ago. But legal obligation means nothing to Hizballah. Like Hamas and Iran, Hizballah views the destruction of Israel as a religious obligation.”
Saddam could not have watched Hezbollah attack Israel and not seen the tremendous implications the conflict would have for him. Saddam realized the power behind Islamist groups and would have jumped headfirst into this religious war, if not overtly, certainly behind the scenes. A special report from the American Spectator noted that if Saddam was still president, “Iraq would still be providing gifts of $20,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, exacerbating the current Arab-Israeli conflict.”
It is also probable that the U.N.’s clumsy efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear program would have served to bolster Saddam’s confidence and create an arms race between the two rivals. And like we have seen with Iran and North Korea, diplomacy would fail again – and the United States would be pushed into a situation much more… well, explosive…than the current one.
So when you hear the pundits and the politicians, who sit safely in Washington while critiquing the very actions that may ensure their ability to do so, braying that the Iraq war is a failure, remember that the conflict in the Middle East is our war too. Iraq was a second step towards stabilizing the region, but the Bush Administration must continue to support Israel, and be prepared for a long, hard, struggle.