Not A Good Day For Common Sense

Today is the anniversary of the beginning of the end for Saddam. Many of the peaceniks are using the opportunity to call for the complete withdrawl of troops from Iraq. They are making the usual claims: that the war has led to an increase in terrorism and that things are worse in Iraq than they had been during the reign of Saddam. There is also the group of kneejerk appeasers who opposed war for any reason, but I won't even begin to discuss them.

How can anyone honestly argue that Iraq with Saddam still in power could be better in any way, shape, or form than the current situation. Are there more mass graves being created? Are people being deliberately starved for poiltical gain? Are people being denied medicine than it stockpiled?

But what about the protests of the Iraqis, many will ask. They claim it to be proof positive that the Iraqi people don't want us there. I actually view the protests as a success. It is proof that the Iraqi people are starting to become more comfortable with us being there and that they are starting to understand what freedom is and that they actually have some. Does anyone really think that they would have been out protesting Saddam without fear of retribution?

The peaceniks will also point to Madrid and scream about how the invasion has made the world a more dangerous place.

Uh, uh. Don't think so. Know why Madrid happened? Read this column from the Washington Post. 3/11 happened not because of the invasion of Iraq, but because of European spinelessness. 3/11 happened because it could. The terrorists knew that there would be no real response to their action. They knew that there would be no swift retribution á la Afghanistan. They knew that the result would be on the order of a "solidarity clause" discussion rather than a retargeting of weapons.

3/11 happened because the European response was so predictible. The wringing of hands; the talk of addressing root causes. 3/11, not Iraq, has made terrorism more likely.

Now when confronted most of the anti-warriors will declare their support for the troops if only they were under UN command (we want to internationalize this operation after all, right?). UN peacekeeping operations make everything OK. Look, Kofi Annan is even suggesting that UN peacekeepers go in Burundi to help end their civil war. Surely that points to the righteousness of the peacekeeping operations.

So I got curious. I wondered how many peacekeeping operations has the UN entered into since its inception?

Turns out the answer is 55. As I read through the list, I only saw a couple of operations that could be called successes (UN Emergency Force I in 1956 to supervise the withdrawl of troops from the Suez and UN Emergency Force II to supervise the withdrawl of Egypt, Syria and Israel from the Sinai). I saw a number, including the first ever peacekeeping mission, that were still ongoing for decades. And there were also a number of spectacular failures, like the UN Truce Supervision Organization which has been monitoring the Arab-Israeli ceasefire since 1948 (they missed 1973 and the Palestinian terrorism), the UN Protection Force in former Yugoslavia - just think Srebenica, and the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda. Other missions like the Kashmir mission could be debateably called failures, but it is certainly less clear and definitely not a resounding success story.

Peacekeeping missions, as it turns out, are not even included as part of the UN mission. Dag Hammarskjöld described them as part of Article VI½. You know, I don't think that I've ever seen that Article in print anywhere....

When we were debating the idea of going into Iraq, President Bush did make it clear that this was not going to be a quickie in-and-out operation. At the time the peaceniks were accusing the US of wanting to go in, take Saddam out, and to leave a power vacuum in Iraq which could have made things worse.

But we stayed the course, and for that (among many things), they hate us. We are close to turning Iraq back over to the Iraqi people for the first time in decades. The road we have taken has been difficult and fraught with setbacks, but we are almost there. To pull out now would be a great disservice to the men and women in uniform who freed the Iraqis and to the Iraqis themselves. They would survive and at this point there would not be a complete vacuum. But the transition would not be as orderly and it would lose much of its import.

See the orderly transition of power from one group to another is a basic building block of a real, democratic government. It is also something that Iraq, after suffering the yoke of Saddam for 30+ years, is not used to.

Sometimes we have to lead by force. Sometimes we have to lead by example.

Common sense says that this is a time to hang in there, do things right, and set the right example for the Iraqi people, who despite their protestations, are looking to us for guidance.