 |
|
|
September
8, 2003, 9:00 a.m.
On
the “Frontlines of Freedom”
Reaction to
President Bush's Sunday-night address on Iraq.
An NRO Symposium
|
|
Michael
Ledeen
My guess, listening between the lines, is that so many people all over
the world viewed our appeal to the United Nations as a clear sign of retreat,
that the president decided he'd better get out there and look tough. He
rightly said that we've learned that weakness invites terrorist attack
while strength deters it, and he insisted that we're strong, that we're
taking the battle to the bad guys, and we're going to track them all down.
Let's
hope it works, but I doubt it. I think we're in for a new wave of attacks,
both here and in the Middle East, in part because the terrorists have
to show signs of real strength, and in part because so much of what has
been coming out of this administration of late really does reek of retreat.
As usual, it was
a good speech, carefully crafted and elegantly presented. I like his clearly
heartfelt reiteration of the theme of freedom versus tyranny, which is
indeed the heart of the matter. He's clearly pleased, as we should all
be, that there has been great progress throughout Iraq, electing local
governments, getting schools up and running, and so forth.
But, alas, he has
lost focus. He reminded us that he had always expected this to be a long
war, but he never mentioned the Evil Axis, never once talked about the
several countries that are supporting the terrorist attacks against us,
never mentioned the Iranian atomic bomb or the North Korean nuclear program
or the ongoing Saudi and Syrian support for terror. This speech was narrowly
about Iraq, with a couple of afterthoughts about Afghanistan. If he's
aware that we can't possibly win in Iraq unless we bring down the mullahcracy
in Tehran, he didn't give any sign of it.
We're dithering again,
wasting time while the terror masters prepare their next assault, instead
of going after them where they live.
James
S. Robbins
President Bush
sought to contextualize the war and its various phases: Afghanistan, where
the al Qaeda and Taliban strongholds were attacked directly and overwhelmed;
attacks on the terrorist infrastructure, which has resulted in nearly
two thirds of known senior al Qaeda leaders, operational managers, and
key facilitators being captured or killed; breaking up terrorist financial
and logistical networks; and taking down Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq,
which supported terrorism and had the potential to equip terrorists with
weapons of mass destruction. Of these, the president's critics have focused
most of their attention on denying the links between Iraq and al Qaeda.
Whether or not they want to believe that such links existed in the past,
they surely do now.
"Iraq is now
the central front," the president said, and this is true not only
from our perspective but also from the enemy's. Al Qaeda fighters and
sympathizers are flooding into Iraq from all over the world to try to
bring the battle to the Crusaders. They view Iraq as "the
perfect place" to engage U.S. forces. They see our situation
as similar to that of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, in which the Mujahedeen
were able to wage unrelenting guerrilla war and drive the Red Army out.
Of course, they also thought that Afghanistan would be our Afghanistan,
a rather more precise analogy and one which did not turn out they way
they expected.
The terrorists draw
their strategic lessons from Vietnam, Beirut, and Somalia. In each case,
the U.S. was wounded but not defeated militarily. Yet, in each case, the
United States withdrew because the national will faltered. A combination
of lack of leadership, mission ambiguity, and domestic political factors
led to a defeat that was disproportionate to the might of the enemies
we faced. Al Qaeda, their sympathizers, and other enemies of civilization
seek to recreate those conditions.
President Bush explained
to the American people what the press has been slow to understand, and
the opposition has no interest in discussing — that the events taking
place in Iraq today are connected directly to the central threat of our
age, the Islamic radicals and secular despots who are seeking to push
back the tide of freedom that burst through the Iron Curtain 14 years
ago and is bringing the light of liberty and civilization to their neglected
corner of the world. A free, secular, democratic Iraq would be a monumental
and unparalleled achievement. The beneficial effects would redound across
the region and the world. This is why the enemies of freedom are waging
a desperate rear-guard action in Iraq. They cannot prevail unless the
American people withdraw their support. The case the president made was
not a new one — the administration has been remarkably consistent
in its strategic approach to the war — but it bears repeating. There
are too many people at home and abroad that will seek to exploit divisions
over the conduct of the war. It helps to remind people what we are fighting
for.
|
|
|
|
