Yesterday everybody on the right was flipping out over Jonah Goldberg's imitation of a surrender-monkey. Patterico said he even looked like a dignified monkey. I haven't had much time to ponder the implications of recent events in Iraq, but I'm more of the angle that mistakes were made rather than to say the war itself was a mistake.
In my geopolitical view of things having an American military presence in Iraq on a more or less permanent basis is a good idea. What we haven't heard recently is much stuff about the role Egyptians play in the terror game. In fact almost nobody talks about Egypt at all. But I recall specifically reading some things that convinced me that instability in Egypt was a major breeding ground for AQ recruits. And so going into the region I thought that American boots would be needed. It remains a significant part of my view that anytime the US is involved directly in military containment or conflict, that it is a far better option than the use of Israel as a proxy. So if there are wars to be fought by Arab nationalists or muslim extremists, better us than Israel, and that will continue to be the case so long as the global economy depends significantly on oil resources from the Middle East. Those interests are more or less permanent in the world as we know it.
My conclusions are fairly firm and they are that GWBush's arrogance to move on his own calendar rather than 'the world's calendar', has become an infected scab that gripers everywhere have been picking for 3 years now. So long as we are a democracy, there's no way of avoiding the repercussions of that. But claims that violently overthrowing the Baathist regime and painfully hand-cranking Iraq through the democracy building machine was not worth it are wrong. George W. Bush and the neocons were not wrong, repeat not wrong, nor was this initiative a mistake. What it has been, unquestionably is a very costly, and poorly strategized mission. We have been, thus far, an improper Empire. But at the other end of history, the US will be vindicated, because the creation of a free, democratic Iraq is worth it. The Iraqis know this more than anyone, and they also fundamentally understand that the disbanding of insurgent militias is in their best interest. How long will that take? I guess the Iraqi calendar doesn't coincide with the anti-war calendar. Tsk.
It is about time for a review of predictions about the war, and I'll get to that this weekend. I'll say this: US soldiers killed is just below the number of civilians killed on 9/11. For a war of occupation, the political clock is running out, just as I predicted. When we cross that line, my hunch is that the Bush Administration is going to be forced to float some rapid exit strategies. But I don't think Goldberg's premise of the entire war being a mistake is going to survive in the minds of anyone but his fellow monkeys.
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