January 25, 2005

Victor Davis Hanson has written an important essay explaining that it was our very use of military force to liberate and then bring democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq that has opened up our options to live in a freer and more peaceful world without the use (or maybe even the threat) of more military action.
Has Iraq Weakened Us?

I urge you to read the whole thing, but here's the particularly important concluding paragraph:

The removal of the Taliban and the election of Hamid Karzai were of historic importance. So too was the end of the Saddam Hussein mafia, and so, following the present long ordeal, will be the Iraqi elections. Without a doubt, Saddam’s Iraq was the most challenging of all the Middle East rogue regimes. The next step, reforming or changing the governments in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran demands its own flexible strategy and its own proper diplomatic and military calculus. But, contrary to the imagining of critics, the post-Iraq reformation of the Middle East will not necessarily have to be accomplished by the invasion of tens of thousands of American troops. Other remedies may well suit our national and humanitarian interests—strategies opened up, ironically, by our previous determination to use our ground forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as by our will to see the process through to its end, without hesitation, apology, or compromise.

Don't let it escape your attention that Hanson also stresses that military withdrawal from Iraq, such as certain Dimocrats are whining for now, would be disastrous and would "un-do" all that we and our allies have accomplished in the region and send the Middle East, along with the rest of us, into a new Dark Ages of IslamoFacist murder and tyranny.