The consequence of retreat from Iraq

Jeff Jacoby:

...

But for all the clamor to quit Iraq, there is little serious discussion of just what quitting will mean.

If US troops leave prematurely, the Iraqi government is likely to collapse, which could trigger violence on a far deadlier scale than Iraq is experiencing now. Iran's malignant influence will intensify, and with it the likelihood of intensified Sunni-Shiite conflict, and even a nuclear arms race, across the Middle East. Anti-American terrorists and fanatics worldwide will be emboldened. Iraq would emerge, in Senator John McCain's words, "as a Wild West for terrorists, similar to Afghanistan before 9/11." Once again -- as in Vietnam, in Lebanon, in Somalia -- the United States would have proven the weaker horse, unwilling to see a fight through to the finish.

Yet none of this seems to trouble the surrender lobby, which either doesn't think about the consequences of abandoning Iraq, or is convinced a US departure will actually make things better. "If everyone knows we're leaving, it will put the fear of God into them," Voinovich declares. Sure it will. Nothing scares Al Qaeda like seeing Americans in retreat.

Three decades ago, similar arguments were made in support of abandoning Southeast Asia to the communists. To President Ford's warning in March 1975 that "the horror and the tragedy that we see on television" would only grow worse if the United States cut off aid to the beleaguered government in Cambodia, then-Representative Christopher Dodd of Connecticut retorted: "The greatest gift our country can give to the Cambodian people is peace, not guns. And the best way to accomplish that goal is by ending military aid now." So Washington ended military aid, and Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge, which proceeded to exterminate nearly 2 million Cambodians in one of the ghastliest genocides of modern times.

On April 13, 1975, four days before the communist reign of terror began, Sydney Schanberg's front-page story in The New York Times was headlined: "Indochina Without Americans: For Most, A Better Life." In retrospect, perhaps such drastic misjudgments can be partly excused on the grounds that Americans didn't really know what horrors Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were capable of.

But there will be no such excuse for those who insist on pulling out of Iraq. For they know only too well what horrors Al Qaeda and its jihadist allies are capable of. Beheadings. Suicide bombings. Lynchings. Child murder. Chlorine gas attacks. Bali. Madrid. 7/7.

9/11.

We are in a war with barbarians who proclaim their love of death and revel in the slaughter of innocents -- and are fighting to win. We can choose to settle for defeat in Iraq, but far from ending the war, it will only make it more difficult and deadly. The price Americans will pay if they abandon Iraq will be steep. The price Iraqis pay will be steeper.

I am not sure that Democrats don't want these consequences as long as they can blame them on Bush and the Republicans. They see political gain from a disaster as long as they do not have to take responsibility for it. There is a strong element in the Democrat party that opposes the use of force under almost any circumstances and it believes that such a disaster will inhibit the use of force in the future. It is time that Republicans start to make this case that the Democrats are the masters of this disaster they are making.

What is even more cynical about their push for a loss in Iraq is the fact that we are winning the war there now. The enemy has been virtually wiped out in Anbar province where he dominated the area a year ago and intelligence reports suggested it was a lost cause. Similar events are happening all over the country only occasionally interrupted by a spectacular piece of violence against non combatants.