Iraq Must Not Fall
By Michael D. EvansNearly 9 million American soldiers from all service branches served in Vietnam during the 16 years of that conflict; slightly more than 58,000 were killed and 153,000 were wounded. This is perhaps the most important reason why, with all due respect to President George W. Bush, Vietnam is not Iraq.
Unlike Vietnam, the conflict in Iraq does have the potential either to lead to a removal of some of the worst threats to mankind – or to place the world in even greater danger. This is because Vietnam was basically a local conflict, while Iraq is the focus of a growing confrontation between the forces of light and the forces of darkness.
It is important to remember that the conflict in Iraq began with the removal of a bloodthirsty, warmongering dictator and expanded into a noble attempt to forge a democracy out of the brutalized wreck of a country he left behind. This would be a tall order for the world's only remaining superpower, even if it were not handicapped by some of the most dangerous threats in the Middle East.
| “"It's time for America to abandon defeatist nostalgia about Vietnam and concentrate on winning democracy's life or death challenge against the Islamofascists of the 21st century."” |
Unlucky for the United States, the Iraqi battleground is crowded with other players besides the local Shi'ites and Sunnis. The leading terrorist state on the planet happens to be a neighbor, and it is bent on subverting Iraq and taking control. For a while the Iranians were doing this by infiltrating religious pilgrims and businessmen; today their Revolutionary Guards are openly training Iraqi militiamen to murder American troops with the weapons they supply.
Iran is also supporting the al-Qaida branch in Iraq, which is allied to the Taliban that is trying to make a comeback in Afghanistan – also by killing Americans. Iraq is at the center of a cauldron of Islamofascism that is being stirred up relentlessly by a country that is doing everything it can to manufacture nuclear weapons. Don't forget to stir into this cauldron the temptation of Iraq's vast oil and gas reserves.
What would it mean to leave this pot simmering on the stove and cut and run? For one thing, the mullahs of Teheran would probably interpret it as a green light to finish extracting their plutonium and fashion it into warheads for their Shihab ICBMs that can already reach virtually all the capitals of Europe. Meanwhile, they would finish taking over their neighbor and rename it the Revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iraq.
It is not hard to imagine that Iranian subversion would next target America's Sunni allies in the region: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states. Don't forget the oil.
Far more frightening is how Afghanistan might crumble under a new assault by a newly strengthened al-Qaida and Taliban. If Afghanistan's shaky neighbor Pakistan, already a nuclear power, falls to the Taliban and al-Qaida, the people who brought us 9/11 will have the Bomb. Who is going to protect the world from 100 million Shi'ites with a nuclear umbrella – UN peacekeepers?
Iran's client state Syria would resume its takeover of Lebanon, where Iran's proxy Hizbullah would once again have free rein to attack Israel – which has anyways been marked for annihilation by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While awaiting the nuclear countdown, Iran's proxy Hamas would use its Iranian-supplied arms to escalate its war against the Jewish state.
Would the refugees from the Iraqi conflict find shelter in Europe? Not likely, with all that oil and gas at stake. Traditionally, of course, the Europeans have been ready to fight to the last American soldier to protect their comfortable way of life.
It's time for America to abandon defeatist nostalgia about Vietnam and concentrate on winning democracy's life or death challenge against the Islamofascists of the 21st century, just as it led the world to victory against the fascists of the last century. This is the battle the US must win – for itself no less than the rest of the world.
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