On July 8, the New York Times ran an historic editorial entitled "The Road
Home," demanding an immediate American withdrawal from Iraq. It is rare that
an editorial gets almost everything wrong, but "The Road Home" pulls it off.
Consider, point by point, its confused-and immoral-defeatism.
1. "It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay
than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit."
Rarely in military history has an "orderly" withdrawal followed a
theater-sized defeat and the flight of several divisions. Abruptly leaving
Iraq would be a logistical and humanitarian catastrophe. And when scenes of
carnage begin appearing on TV screens here about latte time, will the Times
then call for "humanitarian" action?
2. "Like many Americans, we have put off that conclusion, waiting for a sign
that President Bush was seriously trying to dig the United States out of the
disaster he created by invading Iraq without sufficient cause, in the face
of global opposition, and without a plan to stabilize the country
afterward."
We'll get to the war's "sufficient cause," but first let's address the other
two charges that the Times levels here against President Bush. Both houses
of Congress voted for 23 writs authorizing the war with Iraq-a post-9/11
confirmation of the official policy of regime change in Iraq that President
Clinton originated. Supporters of the war included 70 percent of the
American public in April 2003; the majority of NATO members; a coalition
with more participants than the United Nations alliance had in the Korean
War; and a host of politicians and pundits as diverse as Joe Biden, William
F. Buckley, Wesley Clark, Hillary Clinton, Francis Fukuyama, Kenneth
Pollack, Harry Reid, Andrew Sullivan, Thomas Friedman, and George Will.
And there was a Pentagon postwar plan to stabilize the country, but it
assumed a decisive defeat and elimination of enemy forces, not a three-week
war in which the majority of Baathists and their terrorist allies fled into
the shadows to await a more opportune time to reemerge, under quite
different rules of engagement.
3. "While Mr. Bush scorns deadlines, he kept promising breakthroughs-after
elections, after a constitution, after sending in thousands more troops. But
those milestones came and went without any progress toward a stable,
democratic Iraq or a path for withdrawal. It is frighteningly clear that Mr.
Bush's plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the
mess on his successor. Whatever his cause was, it is lost."
Of course there were breakthroughs: most notably, millions of Iraqis'
risking their lives to vote. An elected government remains in power, under a
constitution far more liberal than any other in the Arab Middle East. In the
region at large, Libya, following the war, gave up its advanced arsenal of
weapons of mass destruction; Syria fled Lebanon; A.Q. Khan's nuclear ring
was shut down. And despite the efforts of Iran, Syria, and Sunni extremists
in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, a plurality of Iraqis still prefer the chaotic
and dangerous present to the sure methodical slaughter of their recent
Saddamite past.
The Times wonders what Bush's cause was. Easy to explain, if not easy to
achieve: to help foster a constitutional government in the place of a
genocidal regime that had engaged in a de facto war with the United States
since 1991, and harbored or subsidized terrorists like Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas,
at least one plotter of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida affiliates in Kurdistan, and suicide bombers in Gaza
and the West Bank. It was a bold attempt to break with the West's previous
practices, both liberal (appeasement of terrorists) and conservative (doing
business with Saddam, selling arms to Iran, and overlooking the House of
Saud's funding of terrorists).
Is that cause in fact "lost"? The vast majority of 160,000 troops in harm's
way don't think so-despite a home front where U.S. senators have publicly
compared them with Nazis, Stalinists, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, and Saddam
Hussein's jailers, and where the media's Iraqi narrative has focused
obsessively on Abu Ghraib, Guant�namo, and serial leaks of classified
information, with little interest in the horrific nature of the Islamists in
Iraq or the courageous efforts of many Iraqis to stop them.
4. "Continuing to sacrifice the lives and limbs of American soldiers is
wrong. The war is sapping the strength of the nation's alliances and its
military forces. It is a dangerous diversion from the life-and-death
struggle against terrorists. It is an increasing burden on American
taxpayers, and it is a betrayal of a world that needs the wise application
of American power and principles."
The military is stretched, but hardly broken, despite having tens of
thousands of troops stationed in Japan, Korea, the Balkans, Germany, and
Italy, years-and decades-after we removed dictatorships by force and began
efforts to establish democracies in those once-frightening places. As for
whether Iraq is a diversion from the war on terror: al-Qaida bigwig Ayman
al-Zawahiri, like George W. Bush, has said that Iraq is the primary front in
his efforts to attack the United States and its interests-and he often
despairs about the progress of jihad there. Our enemies, like al-Qaida,
Iran, and Syria, as well as opportunistic neutrals like China and Russia,
are watching closely to see whether America will betray its principles in
Iraq.
5. "Americans must be clear that Iraq, and the region around it, could be
even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave. There could be
reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic
cleansing, even genocide. Potentially destabilizing refugee flows could hit
Jordan and Syria. Iran and Turkey could be tempted to make power grabs."
The Times should abandon the subjunctive mood. The catastrophes that it
matter-of-factly suggests have ample precedents in Vietnam. Apparently, we
should abandon millions of Iraqis to the jihadists (whether Wahhabis or
Khomeinites), expect mass murders in the wake of our flight-"even
genocide"-and then chalk up the slaughter to Bush's folly. And if that
seems crazy, consider what follows, an Orwellian account of the mechanics of
our flight:
6. "The main road south to Kuwait is notoriously vulnerable to roadside bomb
attacks. Soldiers, weapons and vehicles will need to be deployed to secure
bases while airlift and sealift operations are organized. Withdrawal routes
will have to be guarded. The exit must be everything the invasion was not:
based on reality and backed by adequate resources.
"The United States should explore using Kurdish territory in the north of
Iraq as a secure staging area. Being able to use bases and ports in Turkey
would also make withdrawal faster and safer. Turkey has been an inconsistent
ally in this war, but like other nations, it should realize that shouldering
part of the burden of the aftermath is in its own interest."
This insistence on planned defeat, following incessant criticism of
potential victory, is lunatic. The Times's frustration with Turkey and other
"inconsistent" allies won't end with our withdrawal and defeat. Like
everyone in the region, the Turks want to ally with winners and distance
themselves from losers-and care little about sermons from the likes of the
Times editors. The ideas about Kurdish territory and Turkey are simply cover
for the likely consequences of defeat: once we are gone and a federated Iraq
is finished, Kurdistan's democratic success is fair game for Turkey,
which-with the assent of opportunistic allies-will move to end it by
crushing our Kurdish friends.
7. "Despite President Bush's repeated claims, Al Qaeda had no significant
foothold in Iraq before the invasion, which gave it new base camps, new
recruits and new prestige.
"This war diverted Pentagon resources from Afghanistan, where the military
had a real chance to hunt down Al Qaeda's leaders. It alienated essential
allies in the war against terrorism. It drained the strength and readiness
of American troops."
The Times raises the old charge that if we weren't in Iraq, neither would be
al-Qaida-more of whose members we have killed in Iraq than anywhere else. In
1944, Japan had relatively few soldiers in Okinawa; when the Japanese
learned that we planned to invade in 1945, they increased their forces
there. Did the subsequent carnage-four times the number of U.S. dead as in
Iraq, by the way, in one-sixteenth the time-prove our actions ill
considered? Likewise, no Soviets were in Eastern Europe until we moved to
attack and destroy Hitler, who had kept communists out. Did the resulting
Iron Curtain mean that it was a mistake to deter German aggression?
And if the Times sees the war in Afghanistan as so important, why didn't it
support an all-out war against the Taliban and al-Qaida, as it apparently
does now, when we were solely in Afghanistan?
8. "Iraq may fragment into separate Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite republics, and
American troops are not going to stop that from happening. . . . To start,
Washington must turn to the United Nations, which Mr. Bush spurned and
ridiculed as a preface to war."
But Bush did go to the United Nations, which, had it enforced its own
resolutions, might have prevented the war. In fact, the Bush administration's
engagement with the UN contrasts sharply with President Clinton's snub of
that organization during the U.S.-led bombing of the Balkans-unleashed,
unlike Iraq, without Congressional approval. The Times also neglects to
mention that the UN was knee-deep in the mess of its cash cow Iraq, from its
appeasement of the genocidal Hussein regime to its graft-ridden, $50 billion
oil-for-food scandal, reaching the highest echelons of Kofi Annan's UN
administration.
9. "Washington also has to mend fences with allies. There are new
governments in Britain, France and Germany that did not participate in the
fight over starting this war and are eager to get beyond it. But that will
still require a measure of humility and a commitment to multilateral action
that this administration has never shown. And, however angry they were with
President Bush for creating this mess, those nations should see that they
cannot walk away from the consequences."
New governments in France and Germany are more pro-American than those of
the past that tried to thwart us in Iraq. The Times surely knows of the
Chirac administration's lucrative relationships with Saddam Hussein, and of
the German contracts to supply sophisticated tools and expertise that
enabled the Baathist nightmare. Tony Blair will enjoy a far more principled
and reputable retirement than will Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schroeder, who
did their best to destroy the Atlantic Alliance for cheap partisan advantage
at home and global benefit abroad.
Nations like France and Germany won't "walk away" from Iraq, since they were
never there in the first place. They never involve themselves in such
dangerous situations-just look at the rules of engagement of French and
German troops in Afghanistan. Their foreign policy centers instead on
commerce, suitably dressed up with fashionable elite outrage against the
United States.
10. "For this effort to have any remote chance, Mr. Bush must drop his
resistance to talking with both Iran and Syria. Britain, France, Russia,
China and other nations with influence have a responsibility to help. Civil
war in Iraq is a threat to everyone, especially if it spills across Iraq's
borders."
China and Russia, seeing only oil and petrodollars, will take no
responsibility to help. Both will welcome a U.S. retreat. Yes, "civil war"
will spill over the borders, but not until the U.S. precipitously withdraws.
Iran and Syria-serial assassins of democrats from Lebanon to Iraq-are hoping
for realization of the Times's scenario, and would be willing to talk with
us only to facilitate our flight, with the expectation that Iraq would
become wide open for their ambitions. In their view, a U.S. that fails in
Iraq surely cannot thwart an Iranian bomb, the Syrian reabsorption of
Lebanese democracy, attacks on Israel, or increased funding and sanctuary
for global terrorism.
11. "President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and
fear to quell Americans' demands for an end to this war. They say
withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists.
Actually, all of that has already happened-the result of this unnecessary
invasion and the incompetent management of this war."
But as the Times itself acknowledges, what has happened in the past only
previews what is in store if we precipitously withdraw. And this will prove
the case not only in Iraq, but elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, the Middle
East, Taiwan, and Korea. Once the U.S. demonstrates that it cannot honor its
commitments, those dependent upon it must make the necessary adjustments.
Ironically, while the Times urges acceptance of defeat, Sunni tribesmen at
last are coming forward to fight terrorists, and regional neighbors are
gradually accepting the truth that their opportunistic assistance to
jihadists is only threatening their own regimes.
We promised General Petraeus a hearing in September; it would be the height
of folly to preempt that agreement by giving in to our summer of panic and
despair. Critics called for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, a change in command in Iraq and at Centcom, new strategies, and
more troops. But now that we have a new secretary, a new command in Iraq and
at Centcom, new strategies, and more troops, suddenly we have a renewed
demand for withdrawal before the agreed-upon September accounting-suggesting
that the only constant in such harping was the assumption that Iraq was
either hopeless or not worth the effort.
The truth is that Iraq has upped the ante in the war against terrorists. Our
enemies' worst nightmare is a constitutional government in the heart of the
ancient caliphate, surrounded by consensual rule in Afghanistan, Lebanon,
and Turkey; ours is a new terror heaven, but with oil, a strategic location,
and the zeal born of a humiliating defeat of the United States on a theater
scale. The Islamists believe we can't win; so does the New York Times. But
it falls to the American people to decide the issue.
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