American Appeasement in Iraq
The way to
avoid the dreaded "quagmire" is to stop apologizing for our presence in
Iraq, and to start forcefully asserting our principle of individual
freedom.
Voices on the left argue that Iraq will become a "quagmire" because of
U.S. "arrogance" and "unilateralism." They are actually half-right:
disaster may indeed be looming--but only because of a lack of
self-assertiveness by the United States. We are inviting failure in
Iraq, and in our overall war on terrorism, by mounting a campaign that
is hopelessly apologetic and appeasing.
The Iraqis have a
long history of despotism. But instead of forcefully changing their
political system, so that it no longer threatens the rights of anyone--
Iraqi or American--we are deferentially asking the Iraqis for
permission to proceed. Afraid to offend them, we are reluctant to
defend our interests and to uphold our values.
For example,
we did not appoint the members of Iraq's Governing Council based on
their commitment to freedom; instead, we sought ethnic and religious
"diversity" in order to placate the various tribal and political
factions that dominate Iraq. Among the 25 members are: the secretary of
the Iraqi Communist Party; the founder of the Kurdish Socialist Party;
a member of Iraq's Hezbollah; and a leader of the Supreme Council for
the Islamic Revolution-- a group, funded by and partly founded by Iran,
advocating an Islamic theocracy.
Is this the assemblage that is going to create a free Iraq?
To assuage the United Nations, we are asking for its aid in drafting a
new constitution for Iraq. Is it conceivable that this organization--
which helped keep Saddam Hussein in power and whose membership includes
the world's bloodiest tyrants-- can produce an ideological road map for
freedom?
On the military front, our soldiers face continuing
attacks in Iraq, but political considerations prevent us from trying to
fully disarm the populace. Attendees at funerals and weddings regularly
fire automatic weapons, as their means of "emotional expression." Our
military planners apparently believe that a methodical house-to-house
search for guns in Iraq would be too "intrusive."
We are
still at war, yet we allow Iraqis to engage in public demonstrations--
again, with automatic weapons in hand-- in support of Hussein. Some
openly cheer from the roadside as deadly remote-controlled bombs are
detonated against our military. None are arrested or stopped,
presumably because we don't want to be regarded as overly assertive.
This same, self-effacing policy is being practiced in Afghanistan,
where the problem of "offended local sensibilities"-- as a recent N.Y.
Times article describes it-- has led our policymakers to transform our
soldiers into goodwill ambassadors, "whose focus is less on capturing
terrorists than on winning public support."
Is it surprising that the Taliban now appears to be successfully regrouping?
In logic and in justice, there is only one means of "winning public
support," in Afghanistan or Iraq: eradicating every trace of the former
enslavers. If that is not sufficient, then the support is not worth
gaining. Our only concern should be toward those who value freedom
enough to recognize the inestimable value our troops have given them.
As to all the others--they need not like us, only fear us.
In Iraq we started by apologizing for our presence, when our invading
soldiers were ordered to jeopardize their lives rather than risk
harming civilians or damaging mosques. We have deposed Hussein, but we
are still apologizing. We are unwilling to ask Iraqis to bear the costs
of their liberation. We are endorsing the very statism we are supposed
to be overthrowing as we permit the Iraqi government to own the oil
supplies and to remain in the coercive OPEC cartel. We are begging the
United Nations to authorize multinational troops so that the American
visibility will diminish. This conciliatory attitude only emboldens the
enemy, thereby encouraging resistance and inviting a "quagmire."
Upon ousting the governments of Germany and Japan in World War II, we
did not proceed on tiptoe. We did not express regret at having to stop
traffic, search homes and shoot fleeing suspects. We were morally
certain-- certain that their system was wrong and ours right, certain
that their system posed a threat to us and needed to be eliminated. As
a result, the enemy was eventually demoralized, allowing freedom to
take root. The identical approach should be adopted now.
In
postwar Japan, it was Gen. Douglas MacArthur who unilaterally drafted a
new constitution --over the objections of many Japanese-- and who thus
paved the way for a radical shift from tyranny to liberty. Emulating
MacArthur, by imposing upon Iraq a U.S.-written constitution that
champions the principle of individual rights, would be an ideal means
of asserting our interests.
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Learn about Mr. Stolyarov's novel, Eden against the Colossus, here.Read Mr. Stolyarov's comprehensive treatise, A Rational Cosmology, explicating such terms as the universe, matter, space, time, sound, light, life, consciousness, and volition, here.