What If We Retreat Now?

The big question on the war right now is whether or not we should see the mission in Iraq through to a successful completion, meaning getting Iraq's new government off the ground. What's missing from the debate on this question is what happens if we quit now?

Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe addresses this question last week: "If US troops leave prematurely, the Iraqi government is likely to collapse, which could trigger violence on a far deadlier scale than Iraq is experiencing now. Iran's malignant influence will intensify, and with it the likelihood of intensified Sunni-Shiite conflict, and even a nuclear arms race, across the Middle East. Anti-American terrorists and fanatics worldwide will be emboldened. Iraq would emerge, in Senator John McCain's words, 'as a Wild West for terrorists, similar to Afghanistan before 9/11.' Once again -- as in Vietnam, in Lebanon, in Somalia -- the United States would have proven the weaker horse, unwilling to see a fight through to the finish."

He points out the similarities to the war in Vietnam, which anti-war types love to bring up. Okay, let's take a look at that. In March of 1975, despite President Ford's warning that 'the horror and the tragedy that we see on television' would only grow worse if the U.S. pulled out, Congress ended military aid to Cambodia. Then-Representative Christopher Dodd of Connecticut said: "The greatest gift our country can give to the Cambodian people is peace, not guns." The New York Times reported: "Indochina Without Americans: For Most, A Better Life." What happened after we left? The Khmer Rouge exterminated two million Cambodians through starvation, torture, and outright murder.

Jacoby says that the miscalculations of the U.S. could perhaps be blamed on the fact that we didn't know what Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge was capable of, but that is certainly not the case for Al Qaeda and other radical Islamic jihadists: "Beheadings. Suicide bombings. Lynchings. Child murder. Chlorine gas attacks. Bali. Madrid. 7/7. 9/11." He finishes by saying we're in a war with barbarians who proclaim their love of death and revel in the slaughter of innocents.

Frank Gaffney, a former defense policy expert in the Reagan administration, agrees: "if you fail, it will fall to your children and your grandchildren to fight this war. And trust me -- if totalitarians have taught us anything in history, it is that it gets harder to contend with them, let alone defeat them, as time goes on."

When the generals on the ground say they just need some more time, let's believe them and give it to them.

We don't have any excuse for not understanding what will happen if we retreat from Iraq - these terrorists have showed us exactly what they will do if they are not stopped. If you don't recall, just do a Google search on Daniel Pearl or any of the other Americans that have been brutally tortured and/or murdered by these thugs. If we retreat, the Middle East will explode in violence, likely dragging much of the rest of the world with it. This is our generation's watershed moment, and we need to step up to the plate. Our military is hitting the ball out of the park every day, so we need to keep supporting them and let them finish their mission.

There's my two cents.