Should The U.S. Pull Out Of Iraq?

What to say to someone who thinks the U.S. ought to pull out of Iraq

A knee-jerk anti-war attitude is a kind of mind-virus and it is dangerous. With enough promiscuous carriers of this virus, national strength is diminished. Halfway measures and empty gestures then take the place of resolute and effective action, as they have many times in the past in response to terrorist attacks. The result is something we've seen already: September 11th. But you can act as a kind of antibody to the virus in your everyday conversations:

Virus Carrier (VC): We ought to just pull out of Iraq. Let them sort it out for themselves.

Sane Antibody (SA): If you were the President, what would you do about Islamic terrorism? (This is always a good place to start. Put them on the defensive. Allow them to come up with answers they haven't thought through. This in itself can make them at least less willing to put their virus into the memosphere in the future.)

VC: Well, I wouldn't have gone into Iraq in the first place.

SA: That's not much of an answer. That's what you wouldn't do, but it has already been done. So let's say you became president right now. What would you do about Islamic terrorism?

VC: I would pull the U.S. out of Iraq right away.

SA: What do you think would happen in Iraq if you did that?

VC: Who cares? That's their destiny. They should be allowed to work it out on their own without interference.

SA: We should care because a sizable minority of Muslims are militant and would quickly take over the governance of Iraq and build an Islamic state, establishing Sharia law (Islamic law).

Islamists (Islamic fundamentalists) are highly motivated to seize power — literally willing to die for the cause. And they would be given (and are already being given) money and weapons by nearby Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran. So that's who would very likely gain control of the government if the U.S. pulled out now.

The fledgling democracy in Iraq doesn't have the security forces yet capable of defending itself. So if we stopped "interfering," only those Islamist forces would be interfering.

Islamists want to follow the Koran to the letter. That's the difference between a Muslim and an Islamist. The majority of Muslims are "moderates" which means they would like to modify the teachings of Mohammad so they can remain a Muslim yet live in a modern democracy with human rights and freedom.

Islamists, on the other hand, are determined to follow Mohammed's teachings to the letter. And Mohammad said if you are a faithful Muslim, you must make constant war with non-Muslims (and moderate Muslims) until the whole world submits to Islam.

VC: But like you said, most of them don't believe that way.

SA: But if even only one percent believe that way (and it is probably much more than that), we're talking about ten million Muslims worldwide willing to kill and/or die to make it happen. This kind of fanaticism and commitment is powerful and effective. If the U.S. pulls out now, the fanatics would almost certainly seize control of the government. This is a near-consensus prediction of every expert on the subject. The Islamists would assassinate leaders and blow things up, and they would not stop — no matter how long it took — until they seized power.

According to Islamic tradition, the world is divided into two spheres: The House of Islam, and the House of War. Look at all the conflicts in the world and you will find almost all of them are Islamists fighting with someone, trying to gain control of a government or at least making it very difficult for the existing government to function.

It is not just Islamic countries attacking or harassing non-Muslim countries. Many of the conflicts are Islamists of one country attacking moderate Muslims of the same country.

In Egypt for example, the Islamists have been fighting against the democratic government there — a government that has been trying for a long time to have a democracy and modify their laws so they are not strictly Sharia (Islamic law). They're trying to add more human rights and rights for women and the Islamists are blowing things up and assassinating people to make sure this does not happen.

VC: Why?

SA: Because it is against Sharia law. There is only one legitimate government according to the Islamists. It is Allah's government. A man-made government (for example, a democracy) is incompatible with Sharia law — so the Islamists feel that democracies must be fought against until they are destroyed. If you are a "true believer," if you are to follow the Koran to the letter, this is what you must do whether you like it or not, according to the Prophet Mohammad.

That's why it would be foolish for the U.S. to just leave things alone and let things work out on their own. The Islamists will NOT leave things alone. The committed fanatics would take over, build up their military machine, and take over more and more countries. They would consolidate their power. They would form an Islamist Empire. That is their stated goal and they are totally committed to it. Leave it alone and the problem will keep getting worse.

VC: But part of the problem is that the United States has already interfered so much in the Middle East (usually on the wrong side and only to selfishly protect our oily interests) that now they all hate our guts.

SA: In the past, many U.S. administrations followed the Cold War foreign relations policy of "containment" which meant that we befriended anyone who would help us contain the threat of communistic expansion or the Islamist threat. So the U.S. aided Islamists in their fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, even though we knew Islamists are dangerous. The Taliban seized control of the government when the war was over.

The containment policy may or may not have been a good idea at the time, but one thing is for sure: It was immoral. The leaders of the free world were helping dictators stay in power. Not always, but even once is too often. The only legitimate government is one established by the will of the people. Dictators and anyone seizing a government by force would, in an ideal world, be as internationally outlawed as slavery.

LA: Wait a minute. Are you admitting the U.S. has been doing bad things in the Middle East?

SA: Absolutely. Previous administrations. And that's one of the good things about the Bush administration. They have changed the U.S. foreign policy. Not only is it now against foreign policy to aid a dictator, but it is now part of official U.S. foreign policy that the U.S. has an obligation to help people establish democracies.

VC: But why help? Why not let them do it on their own?

SA: Because when a government rules with an iron fist, it is almost impossible for the population to rise up and overthrow that government on their own. They have no guns, no rights of assembly. They can't get together with each other to rally or organize. The government controls the media. Anyone writing something disagreeable to the government is imprisoned or worse.

Other democracies could and should help. Especially the U.S. It is the only remaining superpower and should use that power for good — to help democracies get off the ground, to protect them from Islamists until a democratic government can establish security forces of its own.

Democracy is ultimately the long-term answer to the question, "What can be done to make Islamic terrorists weaker?" Democracies do not provide fertile ground for growing, training, or funding terrorist organizations.

LA: But some of the terrorists, like the ones recently in London, were Londoners.

SA: Yes, supported and trained by Islamic states. Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and until a few years ago, Afghanistan and Iraq, all gave money, support, training, and safe haven to any Muslims anywhere who were willing to strike a blow at the infidels (non-Muslims). Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are still doing it.

If those governments, which were not voted in by the free will of the people, were replaced by democracies, the huge funds and training facilities would shrivel and disappear, leaving Islamists isolated and unsupported. They'd have to get regular jobs. They'd have to enter society. And they might find better things to do with their time. If not, they would be much easier to find and capture.

VC: But I'm still against the war because Bush lied to us to get us into the war.

SA: The notion that Bush lied is probably not true. If he was misleading (and what politician is not misleading sometimes), it wasn't nearly to the extent that the anti-Bush propaganda has asserted. It is not cut-and-dried what happened. There is some good evidence that during the waiting period (before the Iraq invasion actually started), many WMDs (weapons of mass destruction, including Sarin gas and warheads) were smuggled out of Iraq into Syria. At the time, the political party ruling Iraq was the Ba'ath party, with Saddam at the top, and that is also the party that ruled and still rules Syria.

The United Nations also had 17 UN resolutions on record that Saddam violated. And the oil-for-food program wasn't working. It was making Saddam richer and making his people poorer.

Iraq was clearly a danger to his own people and to other countries. Saddam was an aggressive dictator who paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers to blow up Israeli civilians. There were also many indirect ties from Saddam to al-Qaeda, and some people who with inside information say there were direct ties. You don't hear much about these because of the political bias of most mainstream media.

Iraq was definitely a safe haven and source of financial support for Islamic terrorists — that is a fact. The number of ties to al-Qaeda specifically is in dispute and is largely irrelevant because this is a war on terrorism, not just al-Qaeda.

VC: The only reason the U.S. fought this war was for oil. Soldiers are fighting and dying for oil.

SA: So where is all this oil? I wish we'd at least take a little oil so gas prices could come down. But no. Not only are we not taking Iraq's oil, the U.S. is spending billions of dollars to help the country. The U.S. should probably demand some oil in payment but that's not going to happen.

VC: Well, Bush and his cronies didn't plan the post-war period very well and it has cost many lives.

SA: On the contrary, before the invasion even started, the Bush administration, with the consultation of the best intelligence and war experts in the country, drafted a 700-page plan for dealing with the post-war period. Even in their public statements at the time, Rumsfeld and Bush said quite clearly that establishing a democracy would be difficult and would take time.

The 700-page plan allotted seven years for the first major phase. The plan has been adapted to the circumstances, but most of their objectives have so far occurred ahead of schedule.

They have made some mistakes, of course. They have had to modify their tactics as new information became available. Even the way the invasion was conducted was new: By design, it was sudden and relied on speed, special forces reconnaissance, and advanced technology.

On the one hand this meant the war was won quickly and with few casualties, which was a major goal. But what they now know is that a slower war would probably have allowed towns to be completely taken, one after the other, and might have helped prevent the kind of resistance pockets they encountered after the war ended. That information will be put to use in the future.

VC: But the war with Iraq didn't achieve the goal it was supposed to achieve, which was supposedly to defeat terrorism. There is more terrorism now than there was before the war.

SA: In the short term, yes, that might be true. It depends on whose statistics you look at. Some show a decline in terrorist acts worldwide, and there has not been a single terrorist act on U.S. soil since the war began, and if you remember, that was a major concern before the invasion began. Many people thought there would be lots of terrorist acts in the U.S. once the war started.

A positive outcome that may have excellent long-term prospects is a large recent survey showing that support for terrorism has declined significantly in Muslim countries.

But that is all about the short-term. This project is much bigger than most people realize, mainly because Bush and his administration are lousy at public relations. The project is much bigger and the plans involve a much longer period of time than you could glean from mainstream news sources.

Let's start with what is happening now. Where is all the resistance in Iraq coming from? Part of it is, of course, the remnants of the Ba'ath party, which was the ruling party in Iraq since 1968. Understandably enough, they didn't like being ousted and they seek revenge, and/or they want to regain their lost dominance.

But much more importantly, three Islamic countries (Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia) are smuggling money, guns, and soldiers into Iraq to try to prevent a democracy from getting off the ground.

To an Islamist, the achievement of a democracy in Iraq would be a disaster. The Islamists' goal is to get the whole world to submit to Islam, by force if necessary (this is not anti-Muslim propaganda; the Islamists themselves are quite explicit in describing their goals).

A budding democracy in a major Muslim country means two things, both of them bad for nearby Islamic countries: First, this new government is definitely not going to follow Sharia law to the letter, so it is a "man-made" government, voted in by majority votes. Islamists consider moderate Muslims to be apostates. An apostate is someone who has renounced Islam. The punishment for apostasy is death, according to the Islamists.

The second bad thing (to the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran) about a democratic country right in the middle of the Middle East is that the populations of their own countries will likely demand democracy for themselves more insistently than ever before (and of course the U.S. may even help).

So the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran have a very serious stake in preventing — by every means available — a democracy from getting off the ground in Iraq. So they are fighting it tooth and nail. That's where almost all the resistance is coming from. It is not a general resistance to the U.S. "occupation." The majority of Iraqis don't think of the U.S. soldiers as an occupying force. They think of them as a temporary police force and they're grateful for them.

Of course, the Islamists are fighting against the only superpower in the world. As long as the people of the U.S. maintain their determination to finish the job, it will be accomplished, and the people in Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran will start demanding democracy for themselves, and when those countries are democratic, Islamic terrorism will be enormously reduced all over the world.

This is a long term and audacious plan, but truly a solution likely to succeed and not a temporary band-aid or empty gesture, which is what previous administrations have tried.

Ideally, we wouldn't have Islamists on this planet. But we do. It would be nice if it just went away on its own. But it shows no sign of doing that. If nothing is done about it, the problem will only continue to get worse. The best long-term solution is to support democracy. Not just giving it lip service, but really.

Democracies need help getting started when there is already a repressive government in place — a government that doesn't have a free press. The only people with weapons in those countries are the rulers and their henchmen. Under those conditions — no matter how much the majority may desire democracy — it is almost impossible for them to make it happen on their own.

But with some help from western democracies, fledgling democracies can get off the ground. As they do, Islamic terrorists will lose their safe havens and support. In the meantime, to maintain the political will to finish what we've started, this project needs your active support. Help educate the people around you. Those people may be voters.

VC: I hate it that the U.S. imposes its culture on the rest of the world.

SA: What do you mean?

VC: Democracy is an American invention.

SA: No, it isn't. But even if it was, the fact is that most of the people in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc., want freedom. They would prefer their governments didn't run their media. They would prefer the freedom to criticize their government without being jailed or killed. The women would prefer to have human rights.

MOST of the people in those countries want to live in a free country. We're not imposing democracy. We're allowing it. We're acting as a police force, holding off the potential dictators who are desperately trying to sieze the government until a democratic government can take root.

The Iraqis have voted in their own people. They have had free elections, and even though the terrorists threatened to kill anyone who voted, they had a better turnout for their national election than the United States usually has! They WANT freedom. This is not being imposed on them against their will.

The Islamists are the ones objecting. And their resistance to the newly forming democracy isn't nearly as bad as it seems because of the nature of media distortion.