"But why should it, when the hard hand of American war was not first completely felt — nor the jihadists utterly vanquished and discredited and any who supported them? Unless there is some element of fear, or at least the suggestion of consequences to come for recalcitrance, why should an Iraqi cease his easy support of Hezbollah, his anti-Semitism, or his cheap support for Islamist terrorists around the block? It would be as if we expected to end slavery outright in the Confederacy around 1862, or rid Germany of Nazis around 1943, or persuade the Japanese fascists to vote in 1944 — before such ideologies have been utterly defeated and the steep price for those who tolerated them paid in full."
Ive been saying this for a long while now. We missed the opportunity to come down on the whole region right after 9/11. The liberals were silent, the people whould have put up with the sacrifice involved. But we decided to make war on the cheap and are now paying for it.
In a nutshell:
"...jihadism could not imperil us were it not for the “moderates” who tolerate and appease it — while this is the very same group that we feel duty-bound to offer an alternative other than theocracy or dictatorship."
God Bless GWBush. I don't know how he does what he does, honestly!
yep. I bet if we knocked the $hit out of them, when they recovered some, they would find the Chicoms or some other enemy of America to be the "Great Satan." Then we could give diplomacy a chance.
No American President will give that up.
I think we are paying for the decision to make compassionate war. While I was watching TV during the "Shock and Awe Campaign" I noticed that bombs were falling on one side of the Euphrates while traffic was flowing normally on the other. The Baghdadis did not have to fear us becasue they knew we weren't targeting anyone but Saddam's administration.
They fear the insurgents more and so they support them.
There is no easy solution - there is always a cost for being the good guy.
Shalom.
Seriously, there are a good number of people on FR who can better articulate our policy in Iraq and our reasons for being there, better than Bush does.