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For all the cheering and the relief over the prospect of leaving the nightmare of Iraq, there is a dark side. It is not a "get out of jail free" card. Mark Steyn hits that note pretty hard with his high-testosterone prose:
After these years of failure, we seem to be without any credible remedy for the situation, having lost the upper hand. Although we presumably would like to leave Iraq with a real chance to maintain a progressive, non-militant political order, it is certainly sensible to just want to stop the hemorrhaging of American servicemen, especially when it does not look like we are getting anything for the terrible loss.
xXx
For all the cheering and the relief over the prospect of leaving the nightmare of Iraq, there is a dark side. It is not a "get out of jail free" card. Mark Steyn hits that note pretty hard with his high-testosterone prose:
As it is, we're in a very dark place right now. It has been a long time since America unambiguously won a war, and to choose to lose Iraq would be an act of such parochial self-indulgence that the American moment would not endure, and would not deserve to. Europe is becoming semi-Muslim, Third World basket-case states are going nuclear, and, for all that 40 percent of planetary military spending, America can't muster the will to take on pipsqueak enemies. We think we can just call off the game early, and go back home and watch TV.That is the way the Muslim radical militants have read past American set-backs, and I do not see any reason why they will not see this as a big celebratory triumph over the Great Satan. But that was the argument for going in in controlling force to effect conclusive order at the outset, if America was to go in at all.
It doesn't work like that. Whatever it started out as, Iraq is a test of American seriousness. And, if the Great Satan can't win in Vietnam or Iraq, where can it win? That's how China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Venezuela and a whole lot of others look at it. "These Colors Don't Run" is a fine T-shirt slogan, but in reality these colors have spent 40 years running from the jungles of Southeast Asia, the helicopters in the Persian desert, the streets of Mogadishu. ... To add the sands of Mesopotamia to the list will be an act of weakness from which America will never recover.
After these years of failure, we seem to be without any credible remedy for the situation, having lost the upper hand. Although we presumably would like to leave Iraq with a real chance to maintain a progressive, non-militant political order, it is certainly sensible to just want to stop the hemorrhaging of American servicemen, especially when it does not look like we are getting anything for the terrible loss.
