All U.S. combat troops will be home for Christmas, President Obama promised again last Friday. When negotiations with the al-Malaki government to keep a few thousand U.S. troops there to train Iraqi forces failed, the president decided it was game over. The only U.S. presence that will remain will be Marines who guard the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and a few thousand civilian security guards to protect U.S. diplomats throughout the country.
The war with Iraq cost the lives of 4,400 U.S. service men and women, gravely injured tens of thousands, contributed more than $1 trillion to the deficit and did nothing to create the model democratic, free enterprise Iraq that was President George W. Bush’s idealistic dream.
Saddam Hussein was deposed and hanged. But the bitter fighting between the Sunnis and Shiites continues and civil war there is still a possibility.
There are bright spots in this dark picture. The apparatus for representative government exists. If the Iraqis decide to use it and govern themselves by laws, they can. At least they now have a choice.
For the U.S., the positives are legion. The killing of our troops will stop. At least one spigot on the treasury will be turned off.
Perhaps most important, Washington can now focus on winding down the war in Afghanistan and pushing Israel and Palestine into a two-state agreement while it supports the surge toward more representative government throughout the Arab world.
HISTORY WILL JUDGE whether our decision to attack Iraq was (a) justified and (b) wise in the long run. Contemporary scholars of prestige make both arguments.
Few, however, contend that the United States of America — beyond question the world’s dominant military power — should abdicate its role as referee and enforcer when rogue nations endanger others.
Moammar Gadhafi was killed Thursday because NATO airstrikes destroyed most of the convoy carrying him and others of his cadre as they tried to find safety and left him prey to the rebel forces. Without Britain, France and the U.S., the rebellion against Libya’s dictator may well have failed. And it was the United States that made the difference.
President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, who has been able to stay in power despite months of popular uprisings against his rule, will do all that he can to keep NATO from taking sides with the opposition forces there. That possibility, however, remains real if Assad continues to kill the unarmed protestors who threaten his rule.
In Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh so far has balked at a U.S.-backed demand issued Friday by the U. N. Security Council to step down and hand over power to a deputy before the demonstrations against his regime grow even more violent.
Saleh also must be contemplating the grisly details of Gadhafi’s final moments and feeling that accepting the offer of immunity has suddenly become attractive.
HERE IN THE U.S. where pundits insist that the only thing on the voters’ minds is the economy, these events tell a different story. The U.S. remains the biggest player, economically as well as militarily, on the world scene. A president of the United States who doesn’t have a good grounding in foreign affairs and world history could be an utter disaster.
Jobs, jobs, jobs? Sure. But peace, peace, peace, too. And freedom, freedom, freedom, as well. Not to mention individual rights and down with tyranny. It is, alas, a complex world out there. The leader of the United States should be able to deal with all of it.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
