The policy was wrong and the execution was wrong.
The policy was wrong not because we were mistaken about the existence of weapons of mass distruction, although we were. We were right and we continue to be right today to be concerned about the introduction into America of a weapon of mass distruction, atomic or germ or even chemical.
The policy was wrong because it was not fit for winning the war on terror. In fact, it proved to be counterproductive in waging the war on terror because we played right into the hands of Osama bin Laden and the Iranians. We impoverished ourselves at a time when America began its headlong rush toward the fiscal cliff. We forfeited allies, dismayed our friends, and embittered Muslims around the world to no purpose. We opened up Iraq to the Iranians and we have made a quagmire of Afghanistan. Strategically, our efforts have resulted in a breakdown of relations with Pakistan, a quagmire in Afghanistan, dither, muddle, and ineffectiveness against Iran and their reach for the bomb, Syria in flames, Egypt gone bad, Turkey moving from Democratic secularism to despotic sharia law, and Libya, well…
The invasion of Iraq was wrong in execution because we had no plan post invasion, no plan against guerrilla warfare, no plan for an endgame. Our failings of execution led the world to believe that we were not quite the superpower we pretended to be and come from that our strategic aims. Domestically, it helped assure the election of Barack Obama which is a disaster for American foreign policy.
We conducted an experiment in nationbuilding when everything in our history should have told us that we would fail. We regarded a yearning for democracy to be in the DNA of every human heart and we were wrong. We failed to understand that democracy requires a culture, a respect for the rule of law, a secularization of science, a respect for the individual and his right to life liberty and happiness as he chooses, in short, the kind of Anglo-Saxon mindset which animated our founding fathers in 1776 and which is heartbreakingly absent in the Muslim world.
We started two wars because 19 men with box cutters took over airplanes and crashed them into American buildings. Put yourself into the sandals of Osama bin Ladin's ghost and decide whether you like that trade.
We obviously must devise a new strategy to fight the war against terrorism and we can start by calling it a war against militant Islam. We would then be well advised to be extremely selective about where and when we deploy military force maintaining a priority toward conserving American resources, including financial resources, as well as American lives. Above all, we should be able to say that a military action in any given Middle Eastern hellhole directly relates to prohibiting terrorist cells from infiltrating America and killing Americans or at least we should be able to say that we are protecting allies whose existence acts as a buffer for us. You must decide for yourself whether Israel serves that purpose.
We should be very careful about writing a blank checks abroad and outsourcing the control of American foreign policy to foreign countries. We should review our relationship to Israel and consider whether it is in America's best interest to be in a perpetual worldwide struggle against 1.6 billion Muslims with a great deal of the world's oil on behalf of a tiny nation with virtually no oil.
We have to decide how and with what weapons we wish to fight this war. Do we use drones or boots on the ground? I vote for drones. Do we restore waterboarding, or do we risk losing an American city? I vote for waterboarding. Do we confine our intelligence efforts to snooping foreigners or do we keep our borders open and feel compelled to snoop on Americans? I vote for closing the border. Do we conclude that Muslims coming into America contain within them a dangerous minority which threatens the homeland, or do we abide by political correctness? I vote against political correctness. We should reconsider our immigration policies concerning Muslims.
Above all, we must get our fiscal house in order before it is too late if we are to preserve our military as our shield and if we are to preserve our economy as the engine which powers the Republic.
If these views make me inimical to the positions of neocons then I guess I am a paleo. Nevertheless, I support Lynn Cheney and her bid in Wyoming.
