Dan

Calabrese

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March 3, 2008

Hey, AP: The Goal In Iraq Is to Win, Not to Leave

The lead on the Associated Press dispatch spoke volumes – about the Associated Press:

President Bush declined Saturday to repeat promises made by others in his administration that more U.S. troops will return home from Iraq than scheduled before he leaves office.

So the news, as determined by the AP, is not whether we’re winning or losing in Iraq, but when we will leave. In fairness to the AP, it is certainly not alone in having bought in to this storyline. It is simply the best and most predictable example of conventional media wisdom.

The AP likes to tout its practice of “accountability journalism,” which supposedly means it holds public officials’ feet to the fire with regard to whether they are doing the work they’re supposed to be doing. So when they press Bush on the question of whether and how soon the troops are coming home, it gives away its own agenda of leaving, not winning, as the objective in Iraq.

Leaving, of course, is not our objective in Iraq. Winning is. But you’re not likely to hear many journalists press the president to “promise” we will win there. Victory is not what the AP feels it needs to hold Bush “accountable” for.

Every time Bush is asked when the troops are coming home, he gives the same answer: They’ll come home when they’re no longer needed there to achieve our strategic objectives.

This answer goes in one media ear and out the other, and they ask again, So, when are the troops coming home?

Most of the mainstream media, and pretty much every Democrat except Joe Lieberman, do not really believe there is a worthwhile strategic objective in Iraq, unless it’s to prevent the chaos that would occur if we left. This, of course, they would blame on Bush, which may be why Barack Obama would be so happy to bring the troops home the moment he got the chance.

The Media/Democratic storyline on the war is basically this: Bush faked or exaggerated intelligence about weapons of mass destruction as an excuse to invade Iraq. Why did he do this? Take your pick. Control of oil. Profits for Halliburton. Revenge for the 1993 assassination attempt on Pere Bush.

It doesn’t really matter why you think he did it, so long as you’re convinced he had no good reason whatsoever, that Iraq was better off with Saddam in charge and that we gain nothing by helping to establish a stable democratic government there. If this is the way you see it, no wonder you don’t care about anything but bringing the troops home. And if everything you know about Iraq is what you read from the AP and other mainstream media, then this is what you think.

Reality, of course, bears no resemblance to any of this. Saddam Hussein was in undeniable violation of his obligations under the terms of the Gulf War cease-fire agreement of 1991, which clearly stated that hostilities would resume if he did not comply.

You probably think the U.S. has egg on its face because it didn’t find Saddam’s WMDs. You’re wrong. It was his job to document that he’d destroyed them. It wasn’t our job to “find” them. It was also his job to respect the no-fly zone, to cooperate with weapons inspectors and to use UN oil-for-food money for food, not to line his own pockets and those of his cronies.

For 12 years he violated all of these commitments, and the feckless United Nations and Clinton Administration did nothing.

By invading Iraq, Bush decided to change some longstanding conventions that needed to be changed. He rejected the notion that a brutal dictator is acceptable to America as long as he counterbalances other brutal dictators. He rejected the notion that the U.S. will not follow through on its threats. But most importantly, he rejected the condescending and arguably racist notion that liberty and self-government are impossible in the Middle East.

Iraq has made enormous strides since the troop surge implemented by Bush at the urging of John McCain and others. Most provinces have achieved stability and security. The economy is growing. The coalition government is beginning to govern.

You can always point to problems, but this is starting to work. If Iraq proves over the next 10 to 15 years that democracy in the Islamic world is feasible, people in neighboring countries will notice. Young people in Iran already demonstrate pro-Western, pro-democracy attitudes. Iran’s lunatic president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, surely had this on his mind when he visited Iraq’s democratically elected leaders this past weekend. Why should Middle Eastern people anywhere else accept servitude to princes and emirs when their Iraqi brethren are free?

If all this happens, history will vindicate Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and he will be regarded as an enormously consequential president. So when are the troops coming home from Iraq? The real question is: How much closer is Iraq to being truly free and democratic?

But that’s not the question being asked, because the people asking don’t even know why we’re there.

This is Column # DC156.  Request permission to publish here.