The American Spectator

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(Page 4 of 12)

Martin Tirrell br> 'Nam 67-68 br> Lisbon, New Hampshire /p> p> Just saw Mr. Babbin on Kudlow, you sir have my vote for President of this once Great Country. br> -- Perry Behrendt /p> p> Jed Babbin replies: br> Mr. Gingrich, saying that we'd passed through two stages in Iraq (the military stage throwing out Saddam and the democracy-building stage), declaimed that we could not proceed to a third stage until the Bush administration declared the second stage a failure: "If the military, the White House and State Department continue to avoid the word 'failure,' how can you bring about a third stage?" he asked. The Boston Globe reported that Gingrich believed that this presidential statement was a precondition to "develop[ing] a strategy to leave the country successfully." /p>

The problems with Mr. Gingrich's statement are many and varied. How, for starters, would anyone who wants to win the war against Islamofascism formulate the desired end state as to "leave the country successfully"? In order to leave Iraq "successfully" we'd have to give up on the idea of (a) creating democracy there; and (b) more importantly, destroying the threat of Islamofascism by destroying the Syrian and Iranian regimes. Second, would he believe that the president could gather support among voters and Congressional Democrats for anything other than withdrawal by making that admission? No one in Congress, and too few voters, are willing to devote the many years it would take, in the best of circumstances (which don't exist, of course), to build Iraq to the point it could defend and govern itself.

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