If America Is Worth Fighting For, So Is Iraq

The Iraqis are better off. Our tactics are improving. Heck, a pro-intervention film appeared at Cannes and military rappers are calling for support. There are good things happening in Iraq (as the latest must-read Chrenkoff entry shows), as well as bad.

Yet the insurgents (and their unwitting allies) in Iraq are playing off American fears, which is paying off. Even the "These colors don't run" crowd are deciding that surrender may be a perfectly acceptable alternative after all. (You have to wonder what these characters would write about our occupation of France.) Defeatism is America's greatest home-grown enemy. The disturbing news:

Six in 10 Americans say they think the United States should withdraw some or all of its troops from Iraq, the highest number who have said that in the Gallup poll.

I watched The Patriot again yesterday. It is far from great (though John Williams' score is effective), but it reminded me that America's own fight for freedom relied on the assistance of a foreign power. Iraq's equivalent of Yorktown will be very different, it may not be a battle at all, but it is worth remembering where we might be had the French pulled out before finishing the job. Liberty was the motivation then, and Victor Davis Hanson's classic "Western Cannibalism" article from early last year makes a liberal argument for ensuring success now...

Everything that the world holds dear — the free exchange of ideas, the security of congregating and traveling safely, the long struggle for tolerance of differing ideas and religions, the promise of equality between the sexes and ethnic groups, and the very trust that lies at the heart of all global economic relationships — all this and more Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and the adherents of fascism in the Middle East have sought to destroy: some as killers themselves, others providing the money, sanctuary, and spiritual support.

We did not ask for this war, but it came. In our time and according to our station, it is now our duty to end it. And that resolution will not come from recrimination in time of war, nor promises to let fundamentalists and their autocratic sponsors alone, but only through the military defeat and subsequent humiliation of their cause. So let us cease the hysterics, make the needed sacrifices, and allow our military the resources, money, and support with which it most surely will destroy the guilty and give hope at last to the innocent.

The terrorists and insurgents have a losing position, and we need to make them realize that. Liberty enlightening the world is a threat to those who prefer seeing the world in despotism's shadow, and to them alone. We have a choice between principle and negligence in Iraq; a choice between commitment and betrayal; a choice between victory and self-defeat.

Update: Hanson now:

Rather, the American public is tiring of the Middle East, its hypocrisy and whiny logic — and to such a degree that it sometimes unfortunately doesn't make distinctions for the Iraqi democratic government or other Arab reformers, but rather is slowly coming to believe the entire region is ungracious, hopeless, and not worth another American soldier or dollar.

This is a dangerous trend. Despite murderous Syrian terrorists, dictatorial Saudis, crazy Pakistanis, and triangulating European allies, and after so many tragic setbacks, we are close to creating lasting democratic states in Afghanistan and Iraq — states that are influencing the entire region and ending the old calculus of Middle Eastern terror. We are winning even as we are told we are losing.