Is Iraq the Right Battlefield?

On yesterday's O'Reilly Factor, when questioning Obama, Bill O'Reilly proclaimed that he believed that history would judge Iraq to be the wrong battlefield. This is frankly a common narrative and when that most Americans agree with. I would find myself in th minority in arguing that Iraq was then, is now, and continues to be the right battlefield. In fact, I believe that the Iraq is the exact right battlefield that for four terrible years was fought with the wrong strategy. This wrong strategy created the embedded perception that the war was wrong.

The perception that Iraq is the wrong battlefield comes from the brutal, deadly, and frustrating four years in which the country followed Donald Rumsfeld into the abyss. By not recognizing that the country immediately devolved into a low grade insurgency, the coalition allowed that low grade insurgency to devolve into an intense and high grade insurgency. After four years, the public at large totally turned on the war, and even with overwhelming success it is unlikely it will ever be looked at favorably. Yet, the dramatic turnaround that the surge has created makes me wonder what would have happened had the strategy been implemented immediately and what this would have done to public opinion.

The second reason that many consider Iraq the wrong battlefield is because WMD's weren't discovered. While this is essentially true, what the world has learned is that Saddam always intended to attain WMD's. He retained the technology, and most importantly, he continually lied, subverted, and thumbed his nose at the world. Even if the world knew that in fact he had no WMD's, not confronting him on multiple UN violations, seventeen in all, would have allowed a tyrant to thumb his nose at the world over and over with impugnity. This would have signaled to all other tyrants that they too can do as they want with impugnity. In the immediate aftermath of the war, Mr. Qaddafi suddenly had a change of heart and decided to open up and destroy his WMD stockpile. It is naive and partisan to suggest these two events were not related.

Third, critics of the war point out that Saddam Hussein and Iran were enemies, and the two regimes balanced each other out. This is a foolish thought. Two evil tyrannical regimes both with ties to terrorists don't cancel each other out. They create a situation ready to explode at any moment. It's true that Iran grew in strength while we struggled in Iraq, but that is precisely because we struggled. Now that we are succeeding our weakness can turn into strength just as quickly. Critics will argue that the Iraqi government is nothing more than an Iranian puppet. That is nonsense. Iraqi politics is very complicated and Maliki's insistence on going after the Sadrites in Basrah shows that he is no one's puppet.

In fact, the best way to negotiate from a position of strength with Iran is to first succeed in Iraq. By doing so, the Iranians know that not only is the U.S. willing to take on the task of removing their government if necessary, but that we have the will to finish the job. Furthermore, the worst thing for the tyranical Iranian government is a functioning democracy on their border.

Now, let's examine some of the reasons for invading Iraq. Syria, Iraq, and Iran can be found on a map as standing side by side with Iraq in the middle. At the time of the invasion, each of the three were terrorist sponsoring and enabling nations. The three of them funded, trained and sponsored such groups as Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Abu Sayyaf, etc. Saddam Hussein himself, was a terrorist sponsoring free agent working with and training terrorist groups of all stripes like Hamas, Hezbollah, Abu Sayyaf, etc. Here we were fighting a GWOT and yet three terrorist enablers stood side by side. It would simply be impossible to win this war and keep the map as it was. Since Iraq was placed in the middle, it made it the most strategic, geographically. Now, both the terrorist sponsoring Syria and the terrorist sponsoring Iran have a democratic neighbor.

When Saddam Hussein was defeated in the first Gulf War, he agreed to a set of the conditions with the United Nations. These conditions held a caveat that any violation would lead to a resumption of war. He then went on to systematically violate those conditions over and over with impugnity. By the time Saddam Hussein violated Resolution 1441, he had violated seventeen United Nations resolutions and not once was he held to account. This is a vital point because if tyrants are allowed to thumb their nose at the world with impugnity, this leads to geopolitical chaos. How can we make any progress with regimes like Syria, Iran, North Korea, et al if they see Saddam doing as he pleases with impugnity.

The Bush doctrine believes that terrorism is a struggle against freedom and Democracy. That's exactly how he has battled it. Now, both Afghanistan and Iraq are on their way to being functioning democracies in an area where only Israel is a true democracy. There are literally hundreds of newspapers functioning in Iraq within a structure of free press. Millions of ordinary citizens have blogs in Iraq. Dozens of free television and radio media function in Iraq. None of these things were allowed under Saddam Hussein. The best way to counter the hateful ideology of terrorists is to bring it out in the open challenge and debate it. That's what functioning democracies allow.

Finally, while we see what the failed strategy wraught, one thing we can never know is what would have happened had Saddam been left in place. What would Saddam had done to try and create chaos in Afghanistan and make life more difficult for our troops? What terrorist groups would he have gotten into bed with to create even more chaos? What sort of trouble would Saddam have caused to put even more upward pressure on gas prices? None of these questions will ever need to be answered because he is no longer around. It's easy to criticize mistakes. It's not as easy to project the potential mistakes avoided. By removing Saddam we also removed all sorts of variables that are difficult to predict.