Why We Must Stay in Iraq

So we fool ourselves if we think that peace is the natural order of things, and that it follows organically from the cessation of hostilities. It does not. Leave Iraq and expect far worse tribal chaos and Islamic terrorism than in Mogadishu or Lebanon; finish the task and there is the real chance for something like present-day Turkey or the current calm of federated Kurdistan.

Have we forgotten that Iraq before the invasion was not just another frightening Middle East autocracy like Syria or Libya, but a country in shambles -- not, as some will say, because of international sanctions, but thanks to one of the worst regimes on the planet, with a horrific record of genocide at home and regional aggression abroad? As the heart of the ancient caliphate, Iraq symbolized the worst aspects of pan-Arab nationalism and posed the most daunting obstacle for any change in the Middle East. Thus al Qaedists and ex-Baathists alike are desperate to drive us out. They grasp that should a democratic Iraq emerge, then the era of both Islamic theocracies and fascist autocracies elsewhere in the region may also be doomed.

Our presence in Iraq is one of the most principled efforts in a sometimes checkered history of U.S. foreign policy. Yes, there is infighting among the Kurds, the Shiites and the Sunnis, but this is precisely because Saddam Hussein pitted the sects against each other for 30 years in order to subjugate them, while we are now trying to unite them so that they might govern themselves. The United States has elevated the formerly despised and exploited Shiites and Kurds to equal status with the Sunnis, their former rulers. And from our own history we know that such massive structural reform is always messy, dangerous -- and humane.

So, too, with other changes. It is hard to imagine that Syria would have withdrawn from Lebanon without American resolve in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Nor would either Pakistan's A.Q. Khan or Libya's Moammar Gaddafi have given up on plans to nuclearize the Middle East. Saddam's demise put pressure on HosniMubarak to entertain the possibility of democratic reform in Egypt. These upheavals are, in the short term, controversial and volatile developments whose ultimate success hinges only on continued American resolve in Iraq.

There is no other solution to either Islamic terrorism of the sort that hit us on Sept. 11, 2001, nor the sort of state fascism that caused the first Gulf War, than the Bush administration's easily caricatured effort to work for a third democratic choice beyond either dictatorship or theocracy. We know that not because of pre-9/11 neocon pipedreams of "remaking the Middle East," but because for decades we tried almost everything else in vain -- from backing monarchs in the Gulf who pumped oil and dictators in Pakistan and Egypt who promised order, to "containing" murderous autocrats like Saddam and ignoring tyrannous theocrats like the Taliban.

Yes, the administration must account to the American people for the radically humanitarian sacrifices of American lives we are making on behalf of the freedom of Kurds and Shiites. It must remind us that we are engaging murderers of a sort not seen since the Waffen SS and the suicide killers off Okinawa. And it must tell us that victory is our only option and explain in detail how and why we are winning.

The New York Times recently deplored the public's ignorance of American heroes in Iraq. In fact, there are thousands of them. But in their eagerness to view Iraq through the fogged lens of Vietnam, the media themselves are largely responsible for the public's shameful lack of interest.

A few days ago, while the networks were transfixed by Cindy Sheehan (or was it Aruba?), the United States military, in conjunction with Iraqi forces, was driving out jihadists from Mosul -- where the terrorists are being arrested and killed in droves. Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla of the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, who had worked for months to create an atmosphere of mutual understanding on the city's streets, was severely wounded as he led his men to clear out a terrorist hideaway. The jihadist who shot him -- who had recently been released from Abu Ghraib -- was not killed, but arrested and given medical care by U.S. surgeons.

Not long before he was wounded, Lt. Col. Kurilla had delivered a eulogy for three of his own fallen men. Posted on a military Web site, it showed that he, far better than most of us, knows why America is there:

"You see -- there are 26 million people in Iraq whose freedom we are fighting for, against terrorists and insurgents that want a return to power and oppression, or worse, a state of fundamentalist tyranny. Some of whom we fight are international terrorists who hate the fact that in our way of life we can choose who will govern us, the method in which we worship, and the myriad other freedoms we have. We are fighting so that these fanatical terrorists do not enter the sacred ground of our country and we have to fight them in our own backyard."

Amen.

Author's e-mail:

author@victorhanson.com

Victor Davis Hanson is a military historian at

Stanford University's Hoover Institution and the author of the forthcoming "A War Like No Other" (Random House).