Year three

THE American-led invasion of Afghanistan was so quick and crushing--scarcely had R. W. Apple written the word "quagmire" than the Taliban fell--that many supporters of the Iraq War expected a similar sweep. American and British troops rolled up the Tigris-Euphrates valley to Baghdad in three weeks, but the hunt for Saddam and his sons, and the struggle against Baathist and al-Qaeda terrorists (as well as, at times, freelance Sunni and Shiite extremists), has prolonged the war to three years. More than 2,300 Americans have paid the highest price.

Three years is an eternity in our ADD era, and long by the standards of American wars. Appomattox came four years after Ft. Sumter, Tokyo Bay three years and nine months after Pearl Harbor. But many wars, including the Cold War, have taken decades. At the beginning of the Iraq War, NR recalled Trotsky, who observed that a man wishing an easy life picked the wrong century to be born in. This is not an argument for blank checks or fighting without metrics, merely a call for realism, and patience.

If we had not invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam in 2003, what would the world look like? He would have slipped out of the regime of sanctions--the status quo simply could not be maintained--and gone full speed ahead with WMD. As his science adviser told the Iraqi Survey Group, "Saddam's primary concern was retaining a cadre of skilled scientists to facilitate reconstitution of WMD programs after sanctions were lifted." If he could slip germs to terrorists, we would have a gaudier 9/11.

What would be the consequences of the quick and chastened pullout that Democrats, and some self-chastened conservatives, want now? Donald Rumsfeld, in an anniversary op-ed, compared them to "handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis," or asking "Eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination." Aretreat would delight Iran and Syria, inspire anti-Americans in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, and teach radicals, like the Muslim Brotherhood, to take the path of terror.

What is the outlook for success? Behind the grim daily headlines, there have been two pieces of important good news this year. Iraq has not tipped into chaos. Ayad Allawi, the secular Shiite, thinks it has. "If this is not civil war," he told the BBC, "then God knows what civil war is." Come to Gettysburg, we'll show you. In fact, although sectarian violence has risen, Shiites and Sunni Arabs have not flown at each other's throats. Meanwhile the Iraqi army is coming into shape, conducting more operations, and taking more casualties. This is not some fortuitous event. We took the Iraqi army apart to de-Baathify it, then rushed it into combat too soon. The Pentagon stepped back, rethought, and retrained. Armies are a source of political power in the Middle East, though almost all of them are joke armies, capable only of bullying civilians. Turkey built a real army after World War I, however, and perhaps Iraq can do the same.

If Iraq is to be a success, its politics will have to succeed. The clans and creeds that could tear each other apart can hold each other up if they decide that half a loaf is better than hell. The rest of the Bush administration will be spent giving them that chance.

COPYRIGHT 2006 National Review, Inc.
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