The Consequences of Failure

Here’s the question.

What if we leave Iraq, right now? What if all the anti-war protestors get their way and every single American soldier (and the soldiers from all the other Coalition nations who we in our amazing selfishness seem to have completely forgotten) left Iraq tomorrow. What happens? What are the outcomes we can predict without having to gaze very deep into our crystal balls?

Victor Davis Hanson lists three outcomes I believe would be inevitable.

Three things are clear about the American effort in both Afghanistan and Iraq if we fail ( that’s what “redeployment” means).

First, both countries will revert to safe havens for terrorists, as they were in the past, whether comparable to the Taliban’s gift of sanctuary to al-Qaida or Saddam’s hosting of individual terrorists and opportunistic funding and support for Islamists, such as those who ensconced themselves in Kurdistan or those who planned the first World Trade Center bombing.

Second, democratization will be finished as a US policy other than in lofty but empty rhetoric. The Democrats’ opportunistic and constant shifting on the war will mean that when they return to power there will be no Republican support for anything like Clinton’s Balkan campaign, much less anything like a messy intervention in something like Darfur.

If they now criticize a Republican who wishes to foster democracy, who can take them seriously if they ever again critique realpolitik, when their new godheads are Jim Baker et al.

You can already see the effects of this retrenchment with Pakistan. Only a few principled Democrats question our laxity to Musharraf, who once again is postponing true elections, de facto is hiding bin Laden, stealthily promoting the Taliban—his ear pressed to the US Congress where he sums up that Iraq is lost and with it any pressure to democratize. Can’t someone plead with the dictator’s family members in the US for their relative to allow to his own over there what he sent his own over here to enjoy?

Third, no Westerner again will listen much to Middle East reformers. In their failure of self-criticism about the anti-democratic forces in Lebanon, Iraq, and the West Bank, they have lost all credibility. Yes, if we fail in Afghanistan and Iraq, the consensus will be not to pay attention to these liberalizing megaphones, who will in the end always privilege either pan Arab nationalism, or Islam, or anti-Western and anti-Israeli rhetoric than genuine support for constitutional democracy.

What will the anti-US policy, pro-Hezbollah, pro-Hamas protestors in Dearborn do, when they get their wish and the next government agrees to keep completely out of the Arab world, neither pressuring a Mubarak to reform nor extending the tab that is now way over $50 billion in cumulative Egyptian handouts?

And the next Saddam who murders his own (and there will be many), will do so in apparent freedom and with immunity, since no American President will dare intervene. I suppose our immigration policy could reflect that hands-off policy as well: please stay at home over there in the Middle East, pass on the great Satan, and solve your own problems without a meddlesome America that will only make things worse for you.

I’d add one more thing to the list. I believe if we fail in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is certain we will see another catastrophic terrorist attack here in the United States. Thousands of our friends and neighbors will die and our economy will take another terrible blow. There is no reason at all to believe that the Islamists, whose morale would be immeasurably boosted after defeating the civilized West, would be content with that victory. They would face no opposition outside of the United States and precious little inside our borders. Given their aggressive expansionism, they would be eager to press their advantage here, aided by groups such as CAIR, their agents who are already active inside the United States, and a nationwide media intent on ignoring the threat.

I’d rather not see that happen. The only way to lessen that likelihood and put the Islamists firmly on the defensive is to defeat them soundly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Category: Cool Columnists and Wicked Writers, Fighting the Islamists