Why We Must Succeed in Iraq

Why We Must Succeed in Iraq

I've been saying this all along. But Victor Hansen says it better, and he says it in a more widely read forum.

"So, too, a successful consensual government in Baghdad will serve as a glimpse of what life can be like amid the economic and political stagnation of the surrounding Arab world. More importantly, it will confront radical Islam with a competing ideology that possesses a far more revolutionary message than the Islamists' tired old culture of death that ruined Afghanistan and Iran, wrecked the economy of the West Bank, tore apart Algeria, ended the tourist industry of Egypt, brought international scorn on Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, turned the president of Malaysia into an international laughingstock, nearly made Pakistan an outlaw regime — and led to the reckoning after 9/11. Holdover Soviet-style Baathism didn't work; Islamic fascism was a failure; tribal dictatorship and monarchies are no better; Pan-Arabism was a cruel joke. The Arab world is running out of alternatives to democratic governments and free markets."


I don't care what Ted Kennedy says, opposing our work in Iraq is unpatriotic because success there will pay off for America every bit as much as our triumph over the Soviet Union. I don't believe Kennedy really wanted us to win that one either.