My Pet Jawa: We Won the First Iraq War; Now We Need To Win the Second

Rusty concedes that the first war in Iraq -- the one to depose Saddam Hussein (not the Gulf War, we're not talking about that) -- may have been ill advised.

But we won that war, he argues. The war against the Baathists was successful.

The new war -- a consequence of the first, but nevertheless distinguishable from it -- is against Al Qaeda and sympathetic Pan-Arabist zealots.

The first war may or may not have been wisely undertaken. But that is irrelevant as that war is over and has been for some time. The current war is against Al Qaeda and other terrorists, enemies that Barack Obama conceds himself we should fight if they're in Iraq.

Well, that conditional is actually not a conditional; they are in Iraq and doing what Al Qaeda and terrorists always do. So it seems even the radical lefty Barack Obama concedes the pressing need to fight and win the current war.

We must begin to speak of two Iraq wars. The two wars conception is more precise. It describes what has happened and what is happening in Iraq more fully than speaking of the war. It clarifies many of the debates surrounding the present war as well as allows us to conceptually think more clearly.

Further, the only way to convince war skeptics that winning the present war in Iraq is in our national interests is to give them the linguistic tools for being able to conceive of it as separate from the first war, even if it flows from it.

The First Iraq War may have been "optional", as many of the critics say; but the Second Iraq war is not. We must win it. The price of victory may be high, but the price of defeat is higher.

Again, I'm proudly an Obamaite on this question: If Al Qaeda terrorists are present in Iraq and seeking to hurt American interests by creating a terrorist state in Iraq, we must fight and kill them, and send the rest back to their home countries humiliated, disillusioned, and hopefully missing eyes and limbs and hope, to provide a living object lesson in the perils of confronting the US.

I agree with him wholehearted. If this is the case, we must win the war.

This is the case, so let's get this thing won and then bring our boys home in victory.

Interesting take from Rusty; much recommended.

posted by Ace at 12:02 PM

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