Moral, Just - Andrew Sullivan,

Moral, Just - Andrew Sullivan, on why the war in Iraq was a just one.

Much worth reading here, but I loved this clip:

"But all the evidence in Iraq points to something else: an extraordinarily successful war followed by slow but measurable progress in putting back together again a brutalized and fractured country. Think back for a moment to what we once feared might happen in the aftermath of a war to depose Saddam. Here are some of the predictions, cited last week by Paul Wolfowitz: civil war; destroyed oil wells; environmental catastrophe; famine; a refugee crisis; and the possibility of cleaning up after chemical and biological attacks. None of this happened - in large part because of the astonishingly innovative and swift war plan. The most staggering result is that Kurds, Shia and Sunnis are still on board for a united, democratic country. But instead of reporting on this achievement, the press, which in large part opposed the war in the first place, has done all it can to turn this success into a 'quagmire.'

Nothing you haven't heard before on the blogosphere, or on talk radio.

But the message bears repeating, because there are still plenty of people out there who just don't get it yet, and won't hear it from the major media.

Yes, there are obvious problems. The electricity grid has proven hard to get back and running again;

And not, it should be noted, because of American malfeasance or incompetence, or Baathist resistance. Like with every totalitarian dictatorship, the things that work, do so because of either fear or, essentially, verbal tradition. Which was what kept the old Iraqi power system going.

Without the Baathist administrators in power - no power. We have to start, almost literally, from square one. It'll be worth it in the long run - to everyone but the Times and the BBC.

...the capitulation of the Baathist thugs in the war means that many dead-enders are still at large and doing all they can to inflict damage in American troops in order to weaken resolve in the U.S.; we over-estimated the need for troops and under-estimated the need for trained policemen in the aftermath of conflict; we were too slow to recruit Iraqis for internal security forces; and so on. These are all forgivable mistakes. But they are all remediable; and steps are being taken to ensure that obvious problems are tackled and resolved. "

Two months since the end of the war. The left is baying at the moon at problems that are not only part of the normal friction of rebuilding post-totalitarian countries - they are comparable to the difficulties we faced in rebuilding Germany and Japan, after allowing for the different contexts of the times.

Posted by Mitch at July 28, 2003 03:23 AM