Iraq
My goal would be to bring closure to the situation in Iraq. By that I mean being smart enough to protect the victories we’ve already won. Keeping our military in Iraq too long will make us less safe at home, not more. Here’s why: Our military forces have accomplished what they were sent to accomplish; they removed Saddam Hussein from power, thus eliminating any chance of his regime being a threat to the U.S. Iraq has a new government because of the security provided by American forces.
To reduce Iraq to a single factor, namely the presence or absence of U.S. military forces, ignores the larger problems there. The Iraqis have had four years to get their government and security forces together. There are problems in the Iraqi government, but they are Iraqi problems and they need Iraqi solutions; this includes dealing with insurgency. I don’t support keeping our combat forces in harms way to do Iraqi jobs for them, especially when keeping our forces in Iraq hinders any progress they can make. I served in Iraq and I’ve seen this firsthand.
Our entire policy in Iraq has to be viewed within the larger context of our overall policy towards the Middle East. We’ve given the Iraqis a chance at democracy; if we keep our forces in Iraq indefinitely then most Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East will conclude that we planned all along to rule Iraq ourselves and that democracy was just a pretense for invasion. You can pick up any Arabic newspaper today and see the threads from this line of thought weaving themselves together. Such widespread views will nurture the ideology of terrorism and provide terrorist groups with new recruits. In other words, keeping our military in Iraq too long will make us less safe at home, not more. If on the other hand we show the world we’re serious enough about a democratic Iraq to let the Iraqis handle things themselves, our credibility and our security will improve dramatically. The current administration and its supporters lack the expertise and the courage to institute such a sorely needed policy change.
Afghanistan is a different challenge than Iraq, but I’d strongly favor sending significant forces from Iraq to Afghanistan to finish off the Taliban resistance there. Remember, the Taliban, unlike Iraq, had a direct link to the attacks of September 11th since they housed and supported Al-Qaeda.
