Newt Gingrich - The War in Iraq
Summary
Congressman Gingrich has been generally supportive of the war in Iraq. He has strongly opposed attempts to set timetables for withdraw and compared such measures to legislating defeat.
Eleven Tests for the Iraq Study Group
In November of 2006, Congressman Gingrich released an article on the Human Events website noting eleven tests for the Baker-Hamilton Group. This group was also known as the Iraq Study group. When the report from the group was released, Congressman Gingrich called it a prescription for surrender.
Eleven Key Tests for the Baker-Hamilton Report
Will the Baker-Hamilton Commission make a real contribution in helping us win the war against the Fanatic wing of Islam? Or will it be simply one more establishment effort to hide defeat so the American political system can resume its comfortable insider games without having to solve real problems in the larger world?
Here are 11 key things to look for in the commission's report:
- Does the Commission Have a Vision for Success in the Larger War Against the Dictatorships and Fanatics Who Want to Destroy Us?
If Iraq were only a one-step process, the answer might be to leave. But the reality is that Iraq is a single campaign within a much bigger war and within a power struggle over both the evolution of Islam and the rise of dictatorships seeking nuclear and biological weapons to enable them to destroy America and her allies. If the Baker-Hamilton Commission does not take this into account, it is a dangerously misleading report.
- Does the Commission Recognize That the Second Campaign in Iraq Has Been a Failure?
This is the hardest thing for Washington-centric bureaucracies to accept. There was a very successful 23-day campaign to drive Saddam out of power. It used America's strengths, and it worked. The second campaign has been an abject failure. We and our Iraqi allies do not have control of Iraq. We cannot guarantee security. There is not enough economic activity to keep young males employed. If the Baker-Hamilton Commission cannot bring itself to recognize a defeat as a defeat, then it cannot recommend the scale of change that is needed to develop a potentially successful third campaign.
- Does the Commission Recognize the Scale of Change We Will Need to Adopt to Be Effective in a World of Enemies Willing to Kill Themselves in Order to Kill Us?
We need fundamental change in our military doctrine, training and structures, our intelligence capabilities and our integration of civilian and military activities. The instruments of American power simply do not work at the speed and detail needed to defeat the kind of enemies we are encountering. The American bureaucracies would rather claim the problem is too hard and leave, because being forced to change this deeply will be very painful and very controversial. Yet we have to learn to win.
Learning to win requires much more than changes in the military. It requires changes in how our intelligence, diplomatic, information and economic institutions work. It requires the development of an integrated approach in which all aspects of American power can be brought to bear to achieve victory. Furthermore, this strategy for victory has to be doubly powerful. For three years, we have failed to build an effective Iraqi government, and we now have a shattered local system with many players using violence in desperate bids to maximize their positions. The plan has to be powerful enough to succeed despite Iraqi weaknesses and not by relying on a clearly uncertain and unstable Iraqi political system.
- Does the Commission Describe the Consequences of Defeat in Iraq?
What would the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq look like? Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute recently offered this chilling picture:
"The pullback of U.S. forces to their bases will not reduce the sectarian conflict, which their presence did not generate -- it will increase it. Death squads on both sides will become more active. Large-scale ethnic and sectarian cleansing will begin as each side attempts to establish homogeneous enclaves where there are now mixed communities. Atrocities will mount, as they always do in ethnic cleansing operations. Iraqis who have cooperated with the Americans will be targeted by radicals on both sides. Some of them will try to flee with the American units. American troops will watch helplessly as death squads execute women and children. Pictures of this will play constantly on Al Jazeera. Prominent 'collaborators,' with whom our soldiers and leaders worked, will be publicly executed. Crowds of refugees could overwhelm not merely Iraq's neighbors but also the [Forward Operating Bases] themselves. Soldiers will have to hold off fearful, tearful, and dangerous mobs."
- Does the Commission Understand the Importance of Victory?
Winning is key. We are in a power struggle on a worldwide basis with dictators who want to defeat us (Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea) and with fanatic organizations that want to kill us (al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc). In a struggle like this, the goal has to be to win. Anything less than victory is very dangerous, because it allows our enemies to gather more capabilities and prepare for more dangerous campaigns. Time is not on our side. Time is on the side of those seeking nuclear and biological weapons to use against the civilized world.
- Does the Commission Define What It Means to Win, or Simply Find a Face-Saving Way to Lose?
Winning is very definable. Can we protect our friends and hurt our enemies? Are they more afraid of us, or are we more afraid of them? The recent Syrian assassination of a Lebanese Christian leader who was pro-Western is a signal that they are not afraid of us. The North Korean decisions to launch seven missiles on our Independence Day and to set off a nuclear weapon were signs they have contempt for our warnings. The statements of Ahmadinejad (the Iranian dictator) and Hugo Chavez (the Venezuelan dictator) indicate how confident they are.
Today, the enemy thinks they are winning, and our elites seem to be seeking face-saving cover behind which to accept defeat. Does the Baker-Hamilton Commission have a proposal for victory or a proposal for accepting defeat gracefully? Will it offer a diplomatic deal allowing us to pretend we are okay while our enemies gather strength?
- Does the Commission Acknowledge That Winning Requires Thinking Regionally and Even Globally?
In Afghanistan, we are engaged in an Afghanistan-Waziristan war in which our enemies retreat into Waziristan in Northwest Pakistan and re-arm, re-equip, retrain and rest before coming back into Afghanistan. We will never win that war by engaging only in Afghanistan. In Iraq, the problems may require much more direct confrontation with Iran and Syria. In Lebanon, it is impossible to create a stable democratic government and disarm Hezbollah as long as Syria and Iran are deeply involved in killing Lebanese leaders and supplying Hezbollah.
- Any Proposal to Ask Iran and Syria to Help Is a Sign of Defeat. Does the Commission Suggest This?
Iran and Syria are the wolves in the region. They are the primary trouble makers. You don't invite wolves into the kitchen to help with dinner or you become dinner. The State Department Report on Terrorism in April 2006 said: "Iran and Syria routinely provide unique safe haven, substantial resources and guidance to terrorist organizations." It went on to say: "Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism." It noted that in Iraq the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (an arm of the Iranian dictatorship) "was increasingly involved in supplying lethal assistance to Iraqi militant groups which destabilize Iraq."
How can the Baker Hamilton Commission seriously suggest that two dictatorships described like this are going to be "helpers" in achieving American goals in the Middle East?
- Does the Commission Believe We Can 'Do a Deal' With Iran?
The clear effort by the Iranians to acquire nuclear weapons and Ahmadinejad's assertion that it is easy to imagine a time in the near future when the United States and Israel have both disappeared should be adequate proof that the Iranian dictatorship is the active enemy of America. Couple that with the fact that the Iranians lied to the International Atomic Energy Agency for 18 years while trying to develop a nuclear weapon. Either this is a dangerous regime we need to fundamentally change, or it is a reasonable regime with which we can deal.
Presidential speeches and State Department documents clearly indicate it is a dangerous regime, yet there is a permanent Washington establishment desire to avoid conflict and confrontation by "doing a deal." In the 1930s, that model was called appeasement, not realism, and it led to a disaster. We need a Churchill not a Chamberlain policy for the Middle East.
- Does the Commission Believe We Are More Clever Than Our Enemies?
The al-Assad family has run Syria since 1971. Hafiz Assad arranged for his son Bashar to succeed him. This family and its Alewite supporters represent a small minority of the Syrian people, but they maintain a relentlessly tough internal dictatorship that keeps power in their hands. In some ways, there are parallels between Bashar Assad and Kim Jong Il -- they both maintain family dictatorships with the support of a brutal system of internal controls. After 35 years of defying the United States, there is no reason to believe our diplomats are more clever than their ruthlessly survivor-oriented systems. Negotiating with them is an invitation to be taken to the cleaners and to extend the power, prestige and influence of our mortal enemies in the region.
Recent talk of reaching out to Syria has been met by the assassination of a Lebanese Minister and the intensifying of the Hezbollah blackmail tactics in Lebanon. Weakness from America leads to greater aggression from our enemies. The Baker-Hamilton Commission should focus on how to contain or defeat Syria, not on how to rely on them for help.
- Does the Commission Recognize the Importance of Working With the Democratic Majorities on a Strategy for Victory?
The Democratic victory in the 2006 election should not be used as an excuse to do the wrong thing. The Democrats are now confronting the responsibility and burden of power. Given the right information about Iran, Syria and Iraq, there is every reason to believe a bipartisan majority can be formed in both the House and Senate for a rational strategy for victory. Opposition to continuing the failed second campaign should not be translated into opposition to an American victory.
The Bush Administration should reach out to moderate Democrats and forge a bipartisan agenda for victory and, by March 2007, pass a bipartisan resolution for victory in Iraq and for stopping Iranian efforts to get nuclear weapons. That will set the basis for appropriations to continue the effort. The passage of a solid bipartisan bill in March would send a signal to the world that Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of defeating terrorism and defending America. That will dramatically lower the morale and confidence of our enemies.These 11 steps would be a powerful basis on which to move forward in Iraq and in the world. What's more, they reflect the spirit of Gen. Washington when he chose "victory or death" as the motto of the campaign that led to the founding of America despite overwhelming odds.
Paths in Iraq
In January of 2007, Congressman Gingrich released an article on Iraq. The article notes the choices needed to be made in Iraq and the paths that should be pursued.
The Cost of Victory in Iraq -- And the Cost of Defeat
Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I outlined 18 key steps to victory in Iraq which you can read here.
But more fundamentally, the survival of America is dependent upon Americans' confronting directly how real the threat is, acknowledging how obvious the threat is and rejecting the timidity of our elites in trying to hide from it.
We are in a real war, and we are in a long war. In this context, victory in Iraq is vital. Just as the campaigns in Sicily and Guadalcanal were vital to American and Allied victory in World War II, the war in Iraq will set the course for the long war against the forces of fanatical Islam and their allies.
Two Very Hard Paths Forward in Iraq
America has a choice to make.
We can accept defeat in Iraq. But what those who advocate this have a responsibility to describe is what defeat means. Simply put, defeat in Iraq means accepting the fact that the enemies of freedom who are fighting us in Iraq -- evil men, vicious murderers and sadistic agents of atrocities -- will have defeated both the millions of Iraqis who voted for self-government and the American people and their government.
Our other difficult option is victory.
We can insist upon defeating the enemies of America, Israel and the Iraqi people. We can develop the strategies necessary to force victory despite the incompetence of the Iraqi government, the unreliability of Iraqi leaders and the interference of Syria and Iran on behalf of our enemies.
Both these paths are hard. Both involve great risk. Both have unknowable difficulties and will produce surprise events.
Not Doing Enough to Win, But Doing Too Much to Leave
Instead of confronting this difficult choice, today we are caught in an unsustainable middle ground.
We have a strategy that relies on the Iraqis' somehow magically improving their performance in a very short time period. Yet the argument for staying in Iraq is that it is a vital American interest. If we are seeking victory in Iraq because it is vital to America, then we need a strategy that will win even if our Iraqi allies are inadequate. We did not rely on the Free French to defeat Nazi Germany. We did not rely on the South Koreans to stop North Korea and China during the Korean War. When it mattered to America's vital interests, we accepted all the help we could get, but we made sure we had enough strength to win on our own if need be.
The Washington Bureaucracy Is the Biggest Obstacle to Winning in Iraq
I am painting a tough but realistic picture of our prospects for winning in Iraq and the wider war against fanatical Islam. And just like others who are critical of our efforts there, I have a responsibility to describe what I think we should be doing differently.
So what should we do?
I believe that the bureaucracy in Washington is the biggest obstacle to winning in Iraq. Only one aspect of our government bureaucracy has been effective there, that is the combat element of American military power. Our greatest failures have been in non-combat power: intelligence, diplomacy, economic aid, information operations, and civilian support operations. Failures in these areas are among the major reasons we have done so badly in Iraq.
Changing this state of affairs will be difficult. But, if we start now, victory is still possible in Iraq. The President could start today by appointing a retired four star general or admiral to be his deputy chief of staff in charge of implementing operations in Iraq across the different bureaucracies on a daily basis. And then we need to really start thinking outside the box, like creating an Iraqi Jobs Corps to gainfully employ young Iraqi males (something Mayor Rudy Giuliani and I have jointly proposed). Another idea is to give American commanders leverage with local communities by giving them the capability to spend money on local activities. Finally, we must not only tell Iran and Syria that there will be consequences if they continue to interfere in Iraqi self-government, there must be consequences.
The Consequences of Defeat
On May 7, 2007 Congressman Gingrich appeared on Hannity and Colmes and spoke about the consequences of defeat in Iraq. He opposes a deadline for withdrawing from Iraq.
The Left Wing Wants Defeat
On July 31, 2007 Congressman Gingrich appeared on Fox News and compared the US leaving in Vietnam to the US possibly leaving Iraq. He states that doing so is legislating defeat.
Missing Options in Iraq
In September of 2007, Congressman Gingrich issued an article for Human Events noting his views that there are more options to the war in Iraq than staying the course and returning home. He views the war in Iraq as a portion of the larger war on terror and radical islam.
What's Missing in Our National Debate About 'The War'
Next week will be the sixth anniversary of the enemy attack on the United States on 9/11. Six years ago, more than 3,000 innocent civilians were murdered by an evil barbaric force, an irreconcilable wing of Islam that seeks to repress women, eliminate religious freedom and punish personal liberty.
For six years, we have been at war on a worldwide basis with a movement funded largely by Saudi Arabian and Iranian sources.
For six years, we have failed to confront the scale of our enemy, the direct threat of nuclear and biological weapons if possessed by that enemy, and the scale and nature of the strategy needed to win the larger war with that enemy.
Next week, Gen. David Petraeus, who did a brilliant job in his two previous tours of Iraq and is the best counterinsurgency Army general America has, will issue his report on how the "surge" is working in Iraq.
And yet next week, our elites will continue to hide in the smaller argument about Iraq and avoid the larger argument about the global war.
When the analysis and debate on that report begins, there will be an important option missing.
The 'Stay the Course' Camp Versus the 'Lose Quickly' Camp
The debate over the Petraeus Report will rapidly be divided into two predictable camps.
There will be a "stay the course" camp advocating doing more of what we are already doing, hanging on and hoping for the best. This will be led by President Bush and echoed by his most loyal supporters in the Republican Party.
There will be a "let's lose quickly to end the American casualties" camp that will reject the Petraeus Report. This camp will note that we have failed to achieve a promised land of peace and stability in Iraq, and therefore, we should legislate defeat in the United States Congress rather than allow Gen. Petraeus to continue his efforts to engage Iraq to help defeat the enemy.
The Missing Option: A War-Winning Strategy
What will be missing in this debate is a third choice: "a war-winning strategy."
The great tragedy of the six years since 9/11 is that we have not had a national debate about the scale of our opponents, the depth of their hatred for our way of life and the very real threat that they will acquire nuclear and biological weapons. With the former, they may kill hundreds of thousands of Americans in our cities. With the latter, millions of Americans could die in a deliberate attack.
There is no debate about the potential for a second holocaust in which millions die if Israel is overwhelmed with nuclear weapons or if the missiles Hezbollah fires from Southern Lebanon are launched with chemical warheads or if a coalition of terrorist forces backed by Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia simply wear down the Israeli will to resist.
Iraq and Afghanistan Are Campaigns Within the Larger War
Imagine that Lincoln had tried to assess Antietam and Gettysburg without thinking about the larger war for the preservation of the Union.
Imagine that FDR had tried to assess Pearl Harbor or Guadalcanal or Kasserine Pass without looking at the larger war with Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy.
Clearly, any battle report which focused only on Iwo Jima or Guadalcanal or the Battle of the Bulge would have been so negative that many Americans would have wanted to quit the war.
Yet, in World War II, Americans understood that they were involved in a larger life-and-death struggle for the very survival of their civilization. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill knew they had to rally the American and British people to a hard, violent war with tyranny, and they brilliantly described the necessity of defending what they called "our Christian civilization" against Paganism and totalitarianism.
Because the American and British people understood what was at stake and because they believed there was a larger strategy for victory, they were prepared to endure defeats, frustrations and casualties to get to victory.
Once we accept that we are in a larger war, the assessment of Iraq and Afghanistan changes and the options available to win in both campaigns changes.
The Tragedy of Next Week's Debate
The tragedy is that next week there will be a debate between "staying the course" and "legislating defeat."
Both will be wrong.
Legislating defeat is more wrong than simply staying the course. Yet, staying the course is wholly inadequate to the long-term challenge of winning the larger war.
By focusing the country on a stay-the-course-versus-legislated-defeat choice, we have left no space for a dialogue about how to win the war.
Legislating Defeat Will Be Tragically Wrong, a Major Victory for Our Enemies and a Major Defeat for the United States
Let me be absolutely clear: I am unalterably opposed to legislating defeat.
And from talking to thousands of you across the country, including those in our armed forces, I know that the American people are opposed to defeat as well.
We know that defeat in Iraq will be a disaster for America, for the Iraqi people and for the cause of freedom and the rule of law.
If the American Congress legislates defeat, it will have taken on its shoulders the burden of politically defeating the United States at a time when it is impossible for our enemies to militarily defeat us.
If the "Reid-Pelosi Defeat America" legislation passes, every terrorist group on the planet will rejoice.
If the leftwing, pro-defeat activists celebrate a victory over Gen. Petraeus and President Bush, they will be joined in their celebration by every anti-American group around the world.
Legislating defeat should not be an acceptable option for any American who cares about our national security and who wants to defeat the enemy who attacked us on 9/11.
Staying the Course Is Inadequate
Yet as wrong as legislating defeat is, the present strategy of staying the course is simply not good enough.
As long as Northwest Pakistan (Waziristan) is a sanctuary, the Taliban can never be defeated.
As long as we have failed to create a better economy in which growing and processing drugs is no longer the best way to earn a living, Afghanistan will never be safe.
As long as Iran is allowed to ship weapons into Iraq, we will never fully bring stability to Iraq.
As long as Syria is allowed to serve as a transit point for foreign terrorists coming into Iraq, we will never fully defeat the insurgent forces.
As long as Saudi sources finance the spread of Wahhabism across the planet and the Wahhabists continue to advocate Jihad and martyrdom, the flow of new terrorist recruits willing to die will continue.
As long as the current dictatorship runs Iran and works every day to create nuclear weapons and to sustain terrorists groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the professional state-sponsored terrorists of the Iranian Guard units, our civilization will not be safe.
We Are Faced With a Large Worldwide Threat, and We Need a Large Worldwide Strategy for Victory
The greatest need in American policy today is for a strategy to win the larger war.
A strategy for a larger war requires a much more thorough statement of the scale of our enemies and their preparations.
A strategy for a larger war will involve some very difficult and, at times, frightening conversations about who is helping our enemies and what it may take to cut off that aid.
Confronting the Real War on its worldwide terms will require fundamental changes in national security, homeland security, budgets and preparations.
Setting out to win the larger war will require a new tempo and new rhythm for our bureaucracies and new determination to insist on real changes both in America and abroad.
My speech at AEI September 10 at 10:00 a.m. ET will outline the scale of changes required to win the real war.
Anticipating the Patraeus Report
We already know from a variety of sources, including interviews with Gen. Petraeus, what his report will contain.
Gen. Petraeus will report that things have improved, that we are a long way from winning but we are gaining ground, and that we need more time and more patience. The report will indicate that the military situation in Iraq is improving faster than the political situation but that both are promising.
However, we should be prepared for the probability that the enemy has spent the last several months planning and preparing to launch devastating attacks to coincide with the release of the report.
Our enemies understand how Washington works, and they understand how the media work. They increasingly plan the timing of their attacks in an effort to undermine the resolve of our politicians and our public by perfecting their influence of the war coverage in our news media.
If the enemy fails to attack during the debate over the report, it will be a modest help to Gen. Petraeus and President Bush.
If the enemy does succeed in a series of deadly attacks during the debate over the report, those attacks will be seized upon by the American news media and the pro-defeat left as proof that legislating defeat is the right solution.
Who Do You Trust? Gen. Petraeus or Gen. Pelosi?
No matter what happens that week, given a choice between the self-appointed political generals of Capitol Hill and the professional soldiers and Marines who have dedicated their lives to studying the art of war, it is a lot safer bet to believe in Gen. Petraeus' analysis than Gen. Pelosi's.
This upcoming debate is going to be the most serious effort to legislate the defeat of America in a generation.
No one should underestimate what is at stake. Please tune in to my speech September 10, and let your representatives know that we've had enough debating defeat. It's time for a serious discussion of what it takes for victory.
The Iraqi Government
On September 21, 2007 Congressman Gingrich spoke at the American Enterprise Institute and stated that the Iraq government was not to blame for inaction in Iraq. He notes that their government is moving faster than the US government did in forming the union here.
Five Years After the War Began
On the five year anniversary of the war in Iraq, Congressman Gingrich wrote an article for Human Events where he discussed the need to continue the war and compared it to previous wars in the US the many people did not feel were worth the cost to the nation.
The Iraq War Is a Battle in the Larger War against the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam
So where are we today, five years after we watched cheering crowds topple the statue of Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad?
As I warned in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute last fall, Iraq is just one battle in the global war against Islamic extremists. And the debate over success or failure in Iraq is crowding out a larger examination of what it will take for America to prevail in this real war.
The United States is in a long struggle with a vicious, determined enemy in the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam. This Irreconcilable Wing, what some have called Islamic Fascism, is a small minority of Muslims -- 8 percent by one estimate. Still, this means a jihadist recruiting pool of over 100,000,000 people. This is a determined, hardened movement willing to kill innocent civilians -- including women and children -- and to engage in deliberately horrifying and brutal acts in order to impose its will through terrorism.
An American Faction That Would Prefer Defeat to Continued Struggle
Afghanistan and Iraq are two of the great battlefields of this struggle between freedom and modernity on the one side and terrorism and religious dictatorship on the other. Neither battle has been won. Both are still contests in which violent radicals seek to defeat America and her allies.
Here at home there is a faction that would prefer defeat to continued struggle.
This is nothing new.
There were a number of Americans who tired of the Revolutionary War and were prepared to surrender to the British Empire and resume their role as colonists. They thought freedom was simply too expensive.
"We Here Highly Resolve That These Dead Shall Not Have Died In Vain"
There were a number of people who tired of "Lincoln's War" and were prepared to dissolve the Union and allow the South to secede. They were the people Lincoln was rejecting in his Gettysburg Address (which I have attached below as a reminder of how Americans honor those who have given the fullest sacrifice so they will not have died in vain).
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate -- we cannot hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
There were many Americans who believe the slogan "better red than dead." From Henry Wallace's 1948 Progressive Party campaign to the very end of the Cold War there were people prepared to give away American security and freedom to appease the Soviet Union.
In that tradition the North Vietnamese had no better allies than the American Left and the demonstrations against the American effort to defeat communism in Southeast Asia.
Careers Invested in Bad News about America and Bad News about the War
Now once again we have those who are tired of the fight, afraid of the costs, and eager to appease our enemies.
As you listen to General Petraeus' testimony tomorrow, remember that he is testifying to a Congress in which a significant number of people will actually be saddened if America wins. All too many Congressmen and Senators (and sadly too many editorial writers) have invested their careers in bad news about America and bad news about the war. They will be opposed to reports of progress and they will be opposed to any suggestion that, with determination, America can win.
Success Is Being Achieved in Iraq, and Victory is Possible
Despite the determined negativity of those who are invested in defeat in Iraq, the news from there is good.
As Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) pointed out yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, General Petraeus will testify in Washington this week "having led one of the most remarkably successful military operations in American history. His antiwar critics, meanwhile, face a crisis of credibility -- having confidently predicted the failure of the surge, and been proven decidedly wrong."
And my colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, Frederick Kagan, has a new report out that states confidently in its opening sentences:
The United States now has the opportunity to achieve its fundamental objectives in Iraq through the establishment of a peaceful, stable, secular, democratic state and a reliable ally in the struggle against both Sunni and Shiite terrorism. Such an accomplishment would allow the United States to begin to reorient its position in the Middle East from one that relies on antidemocratic states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia to one based on a strong democratic partner whose citizens have explicitly rejected al Qaeda and terrorism in general.
Sponsored and Cosponsored Legislation
This representative has not been identified as sponsoring or cosponsoring significant legislation related to this title.