A Different Model for Iraq

In 2006, President Bush leads a much more skeptical, more networked nation that, though enraged by the events of 9/11, is less inclined to obey than in 1950. The administration's record of unifying the country and of justifying the war is questionable, to put it charitably, but lost in the dither over missing weapons of mass destruction and terrorist links is the recognition of the chance to midwife the birth of a reasonably democratic and secular nation embedded in the Middle East.

In fact, there is no other good option for the United States. An Iraq in anarchy would destabilize this vital region, put control of the world's oil supplies within reach of radical Islamists and possibly involve the United States in a wider war under less advantageous circumstances. Few would have thought in the summer of 1950, or even after the armistice in 1953, that American troops would still be on the Korean peninsula in 2006, and it is doubtful that any American president or presidential candidate would have campaigned on that plank in 1952 or 1956. Likewise, no candidate seeking national office will say, this year or next, that U.S. troops will be needed in some capacity to support the Iraqi government in 2010, 2020 or beyond. But that is likely the price that must be paid for Iraq to survive as a modern state.

Americans also famously want to see some return on investment, and our return for improving the lot of the Iraqi people will eventually be a more stable Middle East, rising in a decade or so out of the sink of the present self-destructive radicalism. A young Iraqi man may someday turn to an American visiting Baghdad and say, as a young Korean man in Seoul said to me, "When you get home and meet a veteran of the war here, tell them we remember what they did for us. We will never forget."

bkillebrew@sprintmail.com

Robert Killebrew is a retired Army infantry colonel who writes and speaks frequently on defense and national security issues.