Iraq and the Democratic Victory: Now What?

In the midst of every defeat comes an opportunity and it is true leaders who rise up recognize this and use it to their full advantage. The Democratic coup in the House and by all signs the Senate is a profound rebuke against the perceived direction of the Republican Party as well as the Bush Administration. The people have spoken, and they want change….we have to accept that and grasp the opportunity they have given us. Most pundits place the election firmly as a referendum against the Iraq War. Does this mean that the majority of the American people want an immediate withdrawal from Iraq? Absolutely not, as a matter of fact only a thin minority of Americans support a withdrawal strategy. Americans want to win the fight in Iraq and do not think that current administration policy is the right approach at doing so. You know what? They are right and they are right on three fronts. First, I have always said that President Bush has done an abysmal job of clearly articulating a victory strategy in Iraq. When a President elects to send the sons and daughters of other people across the world to sacrifice their lives, he is obligated to the American people to explain why they were sent. As the world’s most formidable military, 90% of our war fighting strategy should include publicly engaging and “selling” the war to the American public…our boys and girls are perfectly capable of winning any fight they encounter, it is the duty of the Commander in Chief to fight the war at home. For a Harvard MBA, President Bush certainly gets an “F” in marketing. Second, strategically our military is not fighting to win. We are the most capable fighting force in the history of mankind, we need to unleash our power on our enemies. The goal in Iraq is simple: administer a savage defeat to the insurgency and systematically incapacitate them. Our soldiers and marines are forced to play touch football with an enemy who is tackling them. What does this mean? Kill Moqtada Al Sadr, destroy the militias, clean out the Sunni Triangle, level insurgent hotbeds like Sadr City or Ramadi. We are at war with an enemy who recognizes it more than we do. The number one goal in Iraq is unconditional victory through unrestricted force. This is the only language that the Arabs understand. Finally, as Middle Eastern scholar Bernard Lewis has illustrated time and time again, democracy is just not a familiar concept to the Islamic world. We should worry less about imposing our form of government on a culture who might not readily accept it, rather we need to work with them to find a solution that fits them. This might mean dividing the country in Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite provinces….it might mean supporting a military style dictatorship…or it might mean supporting a peaceful Islamic ruler. It is rather arrogant to assume that we can force feed democracy to a country who has never experienced it before. Either way it is up to the Iraqi people, not those in Washington. If we stick to a goal of total victory, the violence will not factor into whatever decision-making the Iraqis must undertake. Regardless of who is running Capitol Hill, we need to start acting like the proud Americans we once were and finally win this thing once and for all as it is never too late to become the second Greatest Generation.