December 29, 2005

The Successes of the U.S. in the Mid-East This Year

From Victor Davis Hanson:

So we have forgotten that most of us after 9/11 would never have imagined that the United States would remain untouched for over four years after that awful cloud of ash settled over the crater at the World Trade Center.

Now the horror of 9/11 and the sight of the doomed diving into the street fade. Gone mostly are the flags on the cars, and the orange and red alerts. The Democrats and the Left, in their amnesia, and as beneficiaries of the very policies they suddenly abhor, now mention al Qaeda very little and Islamic fascism hardly at all.

...Few stop to reflect how different a Pakistan is as a neutral rather than as the embryo of the Taliban, or a Libya without a nuclear-weapons program, or a Lebanon with Syrians in it, or an Iraq without Saddam and Afghanistan without Mullah Omar. That someone - mostly soldiers in the field and diplomats under the most trying of circumstances - accomplished all that is either unknown or forgotten as we ready ourselves for the next scandal.

Precisely because we are winning this war and have changed the contour of the Middle East, we expect even more - and ever more quickly, without cost in lives or treasure. So rather than stopping to praise and commemorate those who gave us our success, we can only rush ahead to destroy those who do not give us even more.

From Mark Steyn:

It was famously said that the Vietnam War was lost on television. In this instance, the Iraq War’s being lost only on television. In Iraq, it’s a tremendous victory. Indeed, it has the potential to be one of the most consequential, transformative victories of the modern age; but even if it doesn’t ever fulfill that potential, it’s still a huge success.  

What we've accomplished in Iraq -- freeing millions of people from a terrorist-supporting, brutally repressive dictator -- is likely to have favorable effects on the Mid-East, not only in the present, but for centuries.

It's astonishing how, even today, Liberals reading this will see that I've described Hussein as a "terrorist-supporting dictator" and scoff. As noted here previously, Hussein had a long history of supporting terrorism:

CIA Analysis, January 2003: Iraqi Support for Terrorism,* (p. 314 of Senate Intel Report):
“Iraq has a long history of supporting terrorism.”

CIA Analysis, January 2003—Iraqi Support for Terrorism, (p. 314 of Senate Intel Report):
“Iraq continues to be a safehaven, transit point, or operational node for groups and individuals who direct violence against the United States, Israel and other allies.”

Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report (p. 315):
“The CIA provided 78 reports, from multiple sources, [redacted] documenting instances in which the Iraqi regime either trained operatives for attacks or dispatched them to carry out attacks.”

Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report (p. 316):
“Iraq continued to participate in terrorist attacks throughout the 1990s.”

Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report (p. 316):
“From 1996 to 2003, the [Iraqi Intelligence Service] focused its terrorist activities on western interests, particularly against the U.S. and Israel.”

Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report (p. 316):
“Throughout 2002, the [Iraqi Intelligence Service] was becoming increasingly aggressive in planning attacks against U.S. interests. The CIA provided eight reports to support this assessment.”

Deposing Saddam and freeing the Iraqi people have made Americans safer.