Staying The Course On Iraq

I watch as W's poll numbers drop and I can see why they are.

There seems to be a growing discontent over the thing in Iraq.

When W asked for $87 billion to support U.S. operations in Iraq, the Demos were like sharks circling a wounded mackerel.

And that resonates with a public that is weary of the whole Iraq thing.

Well, I have advice for those Democrats. Vote no. Vote to deny the funding.

Don't just complain about it to the American people. Democratic senators have shown us just how easy it is to filibuster.

They were able to scuttle nominations to the federal judiciary.

Certainly they can put the brakes on the Iraq funding request.

But you know what? They will never do that. They will complain about it. They will say it's wrong. They will use the phrase "on the backs of the American taxpayer."

They will talk about the wealthy 1 percent and tax cuts and deficits.

But in the end it will pass, and the Democrats will blame it all on W and the Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

Just more fodder for the political cannon that is the runup to the 2004 election.

That's a difficult situation to be in, isn't it?

The worst thing that could happen, if you are a Democrat, is that the war on terror would suddenly be over.

Like if Saddam turned himself in and all his Baath party loyalists laid down their rifles and burned their explosives.

Like if Osama turned himself in and all his followers quit trying to blow stuff up.

And then, what if the economy really took off and manufacturers invested lots of capital and hired lots of workers?

How horrible would a world like that be?

Back before the Iraqi war, I said that the United States shouldn't go to war without the U.N.'s blessing.

I still feel that way. I wish we would have waited. I think, eventually, Saddam would have annoyed even the French and there would have been a strong resolution of support, like when Saddam invaded Kuwait.

But after we went ahead and invaded Iraq without a U.N. resolution and with limited support from U.N. nations, I felt compelled to support the U.S. position.

I believed then - and I still believe now - that the world is a better place without Saddam in power.

And even today, I feel compelled to support the U.S. position in Iraq.

You know what really irks me is to hear Democrat presidential candidates blather on about how we never should have gone to war in Iraq.

And then when you look at their votes on the resolution to authorize the war, lo and behold, it was "yea."

It was "yea" back then because it was popular back then. Now it's "nay" because that's what's popular now.

I think that's sad.

We even had a columnist in this newspaper this week apologizing for apologizing about his stand on Iraq.

First, he was against the war. Then he apologized for being against the war when it was going well. This week he apologized for ever having supported the war.

That's just ludicrous.

Sure, in a perfect world there would be no dictators like Saddam.

There would be no terrorists bent on the destruction of America.

But the world isn't perfect.

It would have been nice if our government had never felt compelled to go to war with Iraq.

But it did.

And make no mistake.

It wasn't just W who wanted to go to war. It wasn't just Republicans. There was widespread bipartisan support for the war.

Now, of course, it's easy to point fingers and play the blame game.

Frankly, all things considered, I think the Iraq think is going pretty well.

I mean really, what did anyone expect? Did we expect that we could establish a sovereign, democratic government overnight?

Did we expect to rebuild decades of neglected infrastructure in a couple weeks?

Perhaps we could have planned better for the aftermath of the war, but no one had a crystal ball.

No one - Democrat or Republican - envisioned Saddam loyalists blending into the population during the war to later emerge as guerrillas, firing RPGs at our troops, blowing up electric transformers and torching oil pipelines.

But the thing that annoys me most is that the critics of the situation in Iraq offer absolutely no solutions. No alternatives.

That's because - at this point in the game - there is no better course than to stay the course.

What would war critics have us do? Pull the plug on funding for the war? Pull the troops out of Iraq? Give the country back to Saddam and his followers? Pull in our horns in the war on terrorism?

It's one thing to have been against the war on Iraq. It's quite another to have supported the war when it was popular and bash it when it's not.

I think what we need to do now is fully support our troops so they can get the job done and get home.