A few words on politics and Iraq

It's extremely easy for us to look back at Vietnam now and see the clear mistakes made by both Republican and Democratic administrations. Those administrations did not have the advantage of viewing everything as we can now in hindsight. History will judge this administration as well as the next - whether the next is 2005 or 2009 - in the same clarity of vision. I don't think either man, Kerry or Bush, can stand here and say they *will* do the job right. And truthfully, Vietnam is a very different situation than what we have now. It's probably not right for me to use that as an example but I think the point is still there.

My personal opinion is that I think it was right for us to go into Iraq. I don't care now nor did I ever care if there actually were weapons of mass destruction. The very idea of Saddam Hussein still being in power in Iraq today is very foreign to me - but very disturbing as well. All of us knew what he was capable of - and what he was doing to his own people while he was in power and what he would do given the chance. No one seems to question that. And there is no doubt, at least in my mind, that if he didn't have weapons of mass destruction, he would continue to pursue them as long as he had power there. I'm not for waiting until he ignites a world war by using them on Israel, his own Arab neighbors, his own people, or even - by a stretch - the United States. He spent considerable resources evading the weapons inspectors before and he would have continued to do so ad infinitum. Here is a link to the fun and games that were the Iraq weapons inspections 1997-2000: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Iraq_disarmament_crisis_timeline_1997-2000

Had we not gone into Iraq, I believe that Saddam Hussein would still be playing these games and might even be poised to utilize weapons of mass destruction had he not already done so. If not by now, certainly in the near future. It was only a matter of time. At some point some President was going to have to bite the political bullet and send troops to Iraq either in the wake of disaster or as a preemptive measure. I think it's naïve to assume otherwise.

I don't think it could have been legitimately expected for anyone besides the US to bear the brunt of the cost, both in dollars and in lives, of actually going into Iraq. The only difference would have been perhaps in the wake of Iraq actually using weapons of mass destruction due to world outcry against such things. And again - I don't think it's worth getting 'approval' from the global community by waiting to go into Iraq only after some major disaster like 9/11 or even much worse. I honestly believe that ONLY in that situation would there have been any kind of major support globally for actually going into Iraq to remove Saddam from power. So President Bush could have waited for UN this or that - but the outcome would have likely been pretty much the same.

Seriously, what would the UN bring to the table anyway? France still wouldn't have joined. Russia still wouldn't have joined. In fact - I imagine France and Russia would have continued to balk at *any* sort of action against Iraq unless Saddam did use weapons of mass destruction. I mean, what could they say then? So there *never* would have been a unilateral resolution handed down by the UN to carry out any kind of military action. So does that mean that we have no choice but to wait for Saddam to actually do something horrible enough that the UN had no choice to but to agree to an invasion? Besides, what would the UN have to offer that it wasn't already doing and how would things be different today if they did hand out approval to the US to invade? The answer is simple: either the US never goes into Iraq and continues to play games with the Hussein administration until he finally uses weapons of mass destruction; or the UN gives their approval and the US still goes in there paying for nearly everything and losing many, many lives.

So what about the actual job of removing Saddam from power? He's gone now. That part is done. But that was barely a challenge. The hard part is putting the country back on its feet - on its own feet. And there's no way around it - in order to be done right - it's going to cost a lot. And if the US doesn't bear most of that cost, then it doesn't get done. No other country is going to step up and take that risk - and let's be honest, the list of countries that even have the capability to do so is an extremely short one. Troops are going to have to be there for quite a while in order for things to be right. Bringing them home too soon could spell disaster for the fledgling Iraqi democracy. And it would be a huge dishonor those soldiers who've already fallen there for the end result to be another dictatorship because the new government crumbled in our wake. It's a disgrace to this entire country and indeed everything we stand for as a nation to allow politics to dictate what future the Iraqi people have. Regardless of whether or not you agree for the reasoning or not, we are there. And we need to be there to see this thing through to its completion. It needs to be done right.

It's been said that we need more boots on the ground in Iraq. Great. That would be cool but where are they going to come from? Russia? France? The UN? In pretty much any scenario that burden falls on the US. And we already have ourselves stretched pretty thin as it is. The military was not in a war stance at the end of the Clinton administration and would have taken many years to build back up to its Gulf War size. So do we implement the draft to build up the military quickly enough to get more boots on the ground? I really don't think Kerry or anyone else is willing to do that. Not to mention the cost. There are already complaints about how much this is costing us. How can you reduce cost and have more boots on the ground to do things right?

There are complaints against the Bush administration that I share with some of my left-wing friends but Iraq is definitely not one of them. His decision to invade Iraq may turn him into a one-term President. But thank God popularity doesn't make foreign policy.