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Dear Mr. Hiatt:

On Wednesday, March 22,(2006) your paper writes in an editorial, quoting from the President's News Conference on March 21:

"The enemy has said it's just a matter of time before the U.S loses its nerve and withdraws from Iraq.  And their objective for driving us out of Iraq is to have a place from which to launch their campaign to overthrow moderate governments in the Middle East, as well as to continue attacking places like the United States."

First, you know (or should), that; a) I am a far bigger hawk on fighting terrorism than I believe the administration is; b) I agreed with and understood the larger vision with respect to Iraq prior to the war; yet c) on balance, I thought without more international cooperation, strategically, we perhaps should have put our resources elsewhere because, "if we don't succeed, we will have expended billions, lost lives, perhaps enabled terrorist recruiting, and potentially see Iraq fall into civil war and possibly create what very clearly does not exist in Iraq now [i.e., prior to the military action], that is, a breeding ground for international terrorism."

That said, after the action, I am still not sure if I was correct. The vision is potentially very important.

Yet it seems to me that the President, now, three years later, makes my very same argument. "And their objective for driving us out of Iraq is to have a place from which to launch their campaign to overthrow moderate governments.....and continue attacking...the U.S."  And, if this is the case, whose fault is that?

Moving forward, If our presence can increase the chances for success, of course, then it is vital that we stay (and rather than paring down troops, I'm not so sure that we shouldn't get enough in there to get the job done already, provide security, provide the training that is needed, and get it done, as we should have from the get go, as already argued). [Note: it is critical that any large scale increase in troop size, be accompanied by a broad, aggressive, international education campaign, that emphasizes that we are in Iraq protecting the Iraq government, while we assist the Iraq army in becoming self sufficent, from the anti Iraq insurgency within, and are increasing our short term committment to make sure this gets accomplished for the benefit of the Iraqi people, free from dictatorship, to become completely self governing as is their inherent right. But this should have been done from the get go, as well].

But it seems to me that the idea that we stay because of idiotic language by some insurgents about us losing our nerve is almost preposterous.  It also appears the insurgents have other issues, and there is the (as yet unresolved?) question as to what affect our presence is having, logically or illogically, upon the insurgency itself. 

But again, these things have to be secondary to the main objectives. These are a) first and foremost doing whatever it takes [without sacrificing the principles that America was founded up] to capture and eliminate terrorists, particularly those responsible for Sept. 11, so that we at least know first and foremost, with 100% certainty that at least those responsible for that brutal attack, will never attack us again, b) coming up with a long term plan for mitigating fanatical anti-Westerm Islamic extremism (which I grant you, Iraq, relatively secular nation that it might once have been aside, is still potentially a part of in the long run), and, c) eliminating or securing currently unsecured fissile and WMD type biological materials. Iraq, if it works, again, is a part of one of those, but have we otherwise, in focusing so heavily on Iraq, lost sight of the bigger picture?

 

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