by Ken Bell

Writing early last week in the Boston Globe, failed former presidential candidate George McGovern and leftist congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) insisted that America must ”Withdraw From Iraq”. Their rationale isn’t substantially different from that of congressmen Abercrombie and Kucinich outlined in the earlier article “Surrender Artists” (May 30). For example, they repeatedly invoke the “occupation”: “. . . many of our policymakers seem resigned to an open-ended occupation. . . . We know from our own history that armies of occupation are seldom welcome . . . . under our occupation the violence will continue. We also know that our occupation is one of the chief reasons for hatred of the United States, not only in the Arab world but elsewhere.”
But there is no occupation. As Foreign Minister for the sovereign state of Iraq Hoshyar Zebari pointed out in a recent interview with Jay Nordlinger of National Review, American and allied forces in Iraq “are no longer occupying forces. They are legal, mandated by [U.N. Resolution] 1546.” Iraq has a legal, sovereign, elected government. And they desperately want us to stay. As mentioned in in the post “Riposte to Advocates of Surrender” earlier this month (June 2), when Foreign Minister Zebari met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice he sought “the continued engagement” of United States forces in Iraq. Why? Because, as he explained we are winning – “we are getting very close” to success, and “we are confident that we will make it” – and also because we could still lose. As even the two McGoverns blithely admit, “there are no guarantees that militarily withdrawing from Iraq would contribute to stability or would not result in chaos.”
Or worse. Clifford D. May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies asks “What If We Don’t Win?” and considers the consequences. “What would be the consequence of an American defeat in Iraq?
“It surely would mean a blood bath as the Ba'athist insurgents and al-Qaeda terrorists settled scores and demonstrated – as an object lesson for others – the price that must be paid for collaborating with American infidels.” A blood bath it must be noted very likely the one that followed in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos when George McGovern got his way the last time.
May continues, “Iraqi terrorist training camps would no doubt be re-opened. Refurbishing Salman Pak, for example, not only would humiliate America but, more practically, could turn out skilled replacements for those combatants lost during the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns”: more terrorists, better trained terrorists, and more confident terrorists.
It gets worse. “On a conceptual level, it would now be apparent that America’s flight from Beirut after the slaughter of its Marines in 1983, its hasty withdrawal from Somalia ten years later, its refusal to hold any terrorist nation, dictator or group responsible for the first World Trade Center bombing – these were not flukes or mistakes but points in a trend line. It would confirm the belief that the West is in decline and that a superior force is destined to prevail – exactly what both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have long predicted.
“Al-Qaeda, Saddam loyalists, agents of the Iranian mullahs – whichever group or alliance of groups emerged on top in Iraq would build on their success. Before long we could expect an ‘insurgency’ in Kuwait: the assassination of a few key figures, some beheadings and suicide bombings. The wave would continue into Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and beyond. Who would stop it? How would they stop it?
“With expanding territory, population and resources, including vast oil wealth, the leaders of the new totalitarian confederation or empire – or caliphate – could manipulate the world's economy to its benefit and to the detriment of those few nations who might dare obstruct their ascendance. Nuclear, biological and chemical weapons would soon be theirs. They'd want them only for peaceful purposes, of course; and for deterrence.
“Before long, the dream of both Saddam and bin Laden would be realized. There would be an oil-rich, nuclear-armed new superpower, a true rival to the decadent and divided West. Quietly, it would empower ‘non-state actors,’ AKA, terrorist groups.
“In Europe, radical Islamists would become increasingly demanding. They’d find European leaders surprisingly accommodating. Americans, by contrast, would be obstreperous and try to better seal their borders. Such efforts would only delay the inevitable. Chances are that, eventually, a nuclear weapon or germ bomb would be detonated in some American population center. World leaders would express sympathy. But what could be done? Investigate who had supplied it to whom? Ask the United Nations to impose sanctions? Retaliate against the civilian populations of Baghdad and Tehran?”
Defeat in Iraq would be far more costly than defeat in Vietnam ever was.
Alternatively, as the Washington Times’ Rowan Scarborough wrote last month in ”War in Iraq Looks Like Last Stand for al Qaeda”, “the war in Iraq is increasingly looking more like a showdown with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda followers than a battle primarily against Saddam Hussein loyalists.
“The shift is making the fight a focal point of the U.S. global war against Islamic terrorists and one that might dictate whether the U.S. wins or loses, said a senior official and an outside expert.
“‘If they fail in Iraq, Osama and his whole crew are finished,’ said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, a military author and analyst.”
“‘In the Muslim world and extremist world, this fight for Iraq is their key battle,’ said Gen. McInerney. ‘If they lose it, they lose the war. And so the imams are inciting young people, not particular well-educated, to head to Iraq. Most are going through Syria via Damascus.
‘This is why Iraq is such a fundamental part of the global war on terrorism. When we finally defeat Muslim extremists, it will be the battle in Iraq that defeats them.’”
We cannot let the advocates of surrender and defeat win the “victory.”
As Clifford D. May observes, “this enemy is different. This war is different. This time, America has to win. Failure is not an option.”