Hilary is complaining that the Iraqi politicians can’t seem to work together and pass meaningful legislation aimed at reconciling the country’s factions and fairly appropriating revenues and benefits. Sounds sort of like this country, with 230+ years behind it. Yet she, and her ilk demand the Iraqis force a utopia in only 4.
If the war for Iraqi Freedom is so wrong, so mismanaged, so misguided, so un-winnable and so unpopular and if we are doing more harm than good, then the Dems are immoral and politically stupid if they don’t end it immediately. They have that power, Bush can’t veto a bill they don’t put up for a vote. All they have to do is refuse to fund the war, put up funds ear-marked for withdrawal, and they would force the president’s hand.
Why don’t they? Because they realize that, the pacifist, leftist, and Bush-hating posters in this thread not-withstanding, that the American public does not want to surrender.
Yes, the war is hard. Yes, lives are lost, property damaged. Things like this are hard, brutal, destructive and very difficult to manage. I believe Bush has at last found his Grant in Patraeus, and the Iraqi government is realizing they need to come together and start making progress (they formed a new ruling coalition this week). It took this country almost 100 years after the ratification of the Constitution to work out our problems, and 100 more to reconcile the problems from the Civil War, so its a little bit disingenuous for Bush’s critics to insist we succeed in Iraq in just a few short years.
Iraq, and most of the Middle East, have no experience nor cultural roots in democracy, unlike the West. No ancient Greek democracy, no Roman Senate, no Magna Carta, no Enlightenment. We’re battling tribalism, lack of education, religious zealotry, factionalism, plus the pernicious influence of Al-Qaeda, although mercifully Iraqis of all stripes seem to have realized Al-Qaeda must be stomped out, and we’re doing that.
Its presumptuous to complain about the struggles of the Iraqi government. Our own government has quite a few problems reconciling bills and issues, its a bit hypocritical for Hillary et al to complain about Maliki and Co. not getting it together and passing their benchmarks on a timetable. Anyone remember Pelosi’s “First 100 Hours”? Anyone care to guess how many of her programs passed? One, minimum wage, and that was tacked onto the war funding bill.
And you can complain “well, that’s cuz of the Republicans”. Damn straight. Government is about compromise and sometimes confrontation, not always cooperation. To properly represent your electorate sometimes you take positions that gum up the works in Congress. This is a good thing. Not everything should pass. And Iraq has its factions and disparate interests just as the US does. These things take time, I am glad and proud we have a steadfast president who has the patience and guts to stand up to all the criticism he’s weathered, he’ll prevail in the end, and history will judge him one of the greats, I believe. He has ushered in, for the first time, an era where there is hope for the Middle East and Central Asia. Democracy is irrevocably rooted there now, and can only grow as time goes by, especially as other Arabs note how Iraqis get to vote and pick their leadership, unlike Egypt, Syria, Iran, etc. etc.
The next generation will bring about great changes in that troubled part of the world. No president, prime minister nor diplomat has ever had a real plan for modernizing and pacifying the backward and violent Mid-East. Bush does, and he’s implemented it, and like it or not, its working.
I think that’s what galls the leftists the most, like the crow they had to eat after bashing Reagan for decades for his “demonizing” of the USSR, instead of the failed policy of detente.
And GWB has discarded the policy of subsidizing tyrants in the name of stability. He is a radical, a visionary and a revolutionary. I believe he is right and his view will prevail. Apparently, the Dems in Congress suspect as much themselves, and that is why they don’t just shut down the war.
They don’t want to be on the wrong side of history AGAIN.