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| RUNNING OUT THE CLOCK |
| 2004-05-28 |
| IT’S easy to tell when terrorists and thugs are near defeat: They ask for a cease-fire. It’s just as simple to tell when the diplomats have overruled our military: We agree to the proposed cease-fire. And stop short of victory again. Despite President Bush’s assurances at the U.S. Army War College on Monday night, we still don’t have a detailed plan to get us past the June 30 transfer of power. But if we don’t have a strategy, our enemies — in Iraq, the greater Middle East and Europe — certainly do. From Muqtada al-Sadr to Jacques Chirac, they hope to run out the clock before we can win. Sadr’s insurrection turned disastrous for him. His shabby legions are broken or dead, his influence has fallen from minor to trivial status, and he could hear a slamming cell door in his future (maybe those photos from Abu Ghraib had an upside, after all). So, emulating the terrorists in Fallujah, he struck a deal to save himself from our troops. So much for our refusal to negotiate with terrorists. Our diplomats and bureaucrats are tumbling over each other to cut deals with those who kill our soldiers, slaughter civilians and hope to derail the future of Iraq. Congratulations, guys. Meanwhile, the pathological America-haters of Old Europe have returned to their pre-war efforts to frustrate our hopes by turning Iraq back over to bully-boys willing to cut deals with French and German companies — and who’ll drop any investigations into the oil-for-food scandal even quicker than we appear ready to do. Of course, China wants us to fail. No-brainer there. And Russia wants a sympathetic — authoritarian — government in Baghdad. But what about our French and German "friends," before whom Bush is on his knees begging for Security Council votes? The Germans are madly anti-American, but far too cowardly to oppose the United States on their own. The core of the problem is France. French hatred of America is equally pathological, but it’s also coldly calculated for maximum damage. Paris wants to dictate the terms of any new United Nations resolution regarding Iraq. It’s willing to wreck the hopes of 26 million people to spite Washington and make a couple of euros. The French want to design the world, but they can’t even build an airport terminal — indeed, the recent collapse of that brand-new, $90 million passenger terminal at Charles de Gaulle airport is a perfect metaphor for French policy. They’ve wrecked everything they’ve touched. Now they know exactly what to do in Iraq: Establish a firm deadline for the withdrawal of Coalition troops. What would such a deadline achieve? It would guarantee the terrorists and Baathist assassins that they only have to hang on, that the Americans and British will be gone and la belle France will ensure that those uppity Kurds and any Arabs foolish enough to believe in democracy and human rights will be served up on a platter to the Middle East’s latest consortium of murderers. The strategy of the terrorists in Fallujah, of Sadr’s ragtag murderers and of our French "allies" is exactly the same: Limit the number of quarters in the game, then call as many time-outs as necessary to let Team Terror recover whenever the Coalition offense threatens to score. The administration’s response? A ref from the United Nations. Guess who’s going to get called "out of bounds"? What happened to the decisive George W. Bush? The man who deposed a gruesome dictator? Who promised freedom to the Iraqi people? Where’s the president who had the courage to stand up to the bloodsoaked continent that gave us Auschwitz, Treblinka and that triumph of civilization, Vichy France? Where’s the Bush who believed in taking the War on Terror to our deadly enemies? Our president doesn’t resemble Bill Clinton, who surrendered before he fought. Nor does he resemble LBJ, befuddled by his neo-cons (sorry, I meant "whiz kids"). Above all, Bush resembles Woodrow Wilson, who rescued civilization from German barbarism, then found himself outmaneuvered by the Euro-gang at Versailles. Will Bush surrender to Europe, as his plenipotentiaries surrendered to the Baathists in Fallujah and now deny our Army its hard-earned victory against Sadr? Don’t the lost lives of our soldiers mean anything to him? Will we surrender all we’ve gained for a passing nod of support from the United Nations, an organization as vicious as it is corrupt and inept? (Thank God it is inept, or the viciousness would be far more worrisome.) Do we hand over the Kurds to the pan-Arabists? Do we let yesterday’s strongmen, from Mubarak to the Saudis, decide the future of Iraq? After all our promises? Has our president’s courage failed because he faces an electoral contest against a spineless man who believes in nothing? It’s painful enough to despair for Iraq. One begins to despair for America. In Robert Bolt’s magnificent (if historically inaccurate) play, "A Man For All Seasons," Thomas More confronts a bureaucrat who betrayed him in return for a provincial stewardship. More says, "Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . But for Wales!" Is Bush willing to betray the future of Iraq, the War on Terror, America’s security, and the sacrifice of our soldiers’ lives to win in November? By assigning greater importance to an election than to the war, Bush is apt to lose both. The winners will be the terrorists and the forces of repression. Even the French will lose, although they’re too blind to see it. The terrorists are coming for them, too, and can’t be bought off. God’s murderers won’t even allow them a new Vichy regime. Our war in Iraq is winnable, and the peace in Iraq is winnable. But you can’t win any game if you fold at half-time. Ralph Peters is the author of "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace." |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #7 You may have a point there Zen. The whole islamic sharia thing has been pretty effective and has withstood the test of time. But modernity is also a very powerful thing. I would have liked to see falluja finished up militarily. But what has been going on vs Tater seems to be brilliant. If falluja plays out it may also turn out ok. Falluja just seems messy. But what I'm hearing, thats what I do, the Iraqi campaign has been talked down as spiraling out of control for the last few months, but now I hear a more positive spin coming on. Ann Colter's take last night on O'Really about how well this campaign has gone makes more sense to me than the negitive spin. But then I read Rantburg. |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-05-28 2:35:38 PM |
| #6 Time is on our side. Sadr has it coming to him but whether it's us or the new Iraqi soverign leadership that does him in is irrelevant. Actually it is relevant... it would be better if it was the Iraqis, proving that they are indeed in control. The residents will start turning on the fallujah "mujahadeen" shortly due to their power grab and forced sharia law. They will be begging for the Iraqi governement to come in and take the mullahs out. While I agree with this gameplan in principle, it is incredibly optimistic. From our own better educated viewpoint such a scenario is blindingly obvious. To the mud-hut Iraqi people no such political gymnastics are apparent. Iraq's potential for reversion to theocracy is both probable and exceedingly dangerous for themselves and Middle East progress. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-05-28 2:02:43 PM |
| #5 Mike, exactly. |
| Posted by: Damn_Proud_American 2004-05-28 1:09:21 PM |
| #4 This "running out the clock" metaphor can be told with the opposite twist too. If we keep idling the bad guys until the elections, and if the elections then give momentum to democratic movements, then "running out the clock" will have been to our own advantage. |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-05-28 12:59:17 PM |
| #3 This guy isn't enough of a pragmatist. He takes things personally. Looking like we were defeated means nothing. Let our enemies cheer because they believe they've won a battle because they are to blind to see they we have in fact won the war. Time is on our side. Sadr has it coming to him but whether it's us or the new Iraqi soverign leadership that does him in is irrelevant. Actually it is relevant... it would be better if it was the Iraqis, proving that they are indeed in control. The residents will start turning on the fallujah "mujahadeen" shortly due to their power grab and forced sharia law. They will be begging for the Iraqi governement to come in and take the mullahs out. Time is on our side. Let's not get caught up in pride... it's all about winning. |
| Posted by: Damn_Proud_American 2004-05-28 12:31:16 PM |
| #2 While reading the beginning of the excerpt here before clicking on the link, I knew it just had to be Ralph Peters. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-05-28 12:26:30 PM |
| #1 I was reading this on Rantburg and listening to Rush and all of sudden Rush started to read this story!! Rantburg and the it's ranters are on the cutting edge!! |
| Posted by: John Long Hair 2004-05-28 12:20:30 PM |