Constitution Club

Last week, the Democrats passed a bill so irresponsible that I don’t believe even they would have done it had they not known the President would veto it. There are no members of the Democratic foreign policy establishment who support it. None of the leaders in Iraq supports it. None of America’s allies back a withdrawal, and the Arab states are appalled at the idea. Indeed, the only element who backs a US withdrawal (other than al Qaeda and Iran) are the MoveOn, Kos, HuffPost blogosphere, a group that collectively possesses ZERO foreign policy thinkers, but one that has shockingly seized the reigns of the Democratic party.
It is important to note what the advocates of withdrawal are arguing, and what they are not. They have not made a case, or even attempted to, that US retreat will help the Iraqi prople. Nor have they explained what they think the Middle East will look like following such precipitous action. This is because the case, and now the bill, for withdrawal isn’t based on strategic concerns at all.
The reality is that the Left views a US troop withdrawal as the period on the sentence “We were right, and you were wrong” Ever since things have turned south there, they have been waiting with hovering pen, ready to dot the page and declare victory. They need instead to graciously accept a less satisfying, though much more sensible, American plan. One that acknowledges that while the Iraq War was a mistake, the situation there now is one that still holds both tremendous possibility and enormous plight for US interests.
To flee Iraq now, would be akin to leaving Afghanistan. Indeed the two situations are almost identical. Each has a fledgling government that is very pro-West, but will take years to be able to hold power on their own. each has enemies that are scattered and have almost no chance to actually regain power, but who are ruthless and effective and know that mere carnage helps their cause. In each case, al Qaeda fears that a loss to the US could threraten their very existence. And in each case, there are millions of countrymen who have risked or given their lives for the cause, and who are to this day relying on the solemn promise of the United States of America that we would not cut and run, leaving them defenseless.
The only real difference between Iraq and Afghanistan is that Iraq, because of its location, is even more important to western interests. That’s it.
Since the Left doesn’t want to talk about what a post-US Iraq will look like, somebody should. Should we pull out as soon and as rapidly as the Democrats have proposed, Muqtada al Sadr would immediately return and seek to broaden his power. The Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade, now knowing that there is no one capable of providing security, would reconstitute thier murder squads, but this time with impunity. Similarly, Iran, who seeks a Shia government in Tehran, would ratchet up its support for the militias.
Al Qaeda would not peel away as some Democrats are laughably suggesting, but instead would believe that it could win. The suicide bombings that are killing Iraqi civilians are almost all al Qaeda. Right now they are carried out with 160,000 US troops. Wait until we leave. If you think the car bombings are horrific now, just wait.
Fearing this menacing Shia bloc, Riyhad has already communicated to us that they would have to intervene to protect the Sunnis from the carnage surely headed their way. US congressmen huff about an Iraqi civil war, but when that war sucks in Iran, Jordon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and all sorts of sundry and shadowy Middle East netwoorks, we would have a region-wide civil war.
On Bill Maher the other night, John O’Sullivan pointed out some parallel times in history. In 1947, the Indians wanted the British out. Some argued for a slow, phased withdrawal. Anti-imperialists would have none of it, so the Brits left quickly. The result — a million dead Indians, because the nation wasn’t prepared to provide security yet. In 1973, when the US had to rapidly flee southeast Asia, the people of Cambodia, Laos, and southern Vietnam died in the millions.
If the left-wing fantasy of withdrawal were to happen, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would be ensnared in a bloodbath. Why is it that so-called anti-war advocates seek a policy that would assuredly precipitate carnage?
If we left Iraq, our Arab allies in the region would be embroiled in an awful gyre that they haven’t the power to control. They likely would call on us to re-enter at some point. Why is it that so-called progressives seek a policy that would engulf moderate Arabs and enflame the extremists?
If we fled now, the Middle East oil fields would be surrounded by an inferno of hostility and instability. Western democracies would ask the United States to restore order, having failed to convince us to stay in the first place. Why are the so-called internationalists telling our closest allies to pound sand?
The case for withdrawal isn’t a serious one, which is why everyone from the Senate Majority Leader to ConClub’s own advocate of retreat, refuse to clearly outline their defense for such a radical policy. The wise thinkers in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, Cairo, Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Amman, Sydney, Ottawa, Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi, and even Beijing, want us to stay. What kind of person seriously argues that we should tell all of them to go to hell and up and leave anyway? Certainly not a humanist, nor a pacifist, nor an internationalist. No, the advocates of retreat are none of those, but something far more sinister instead.