As I read through Michael J. Totten: Terror and Victory, I kept nodding my head in agreement. Michael is one of my favorites, a site I check daily. He is also a liberal with a strong sense that our war on Jihadists must be carried through to the end. I applaud him for his intellectual integrity. He understands, far better than most who have a knee-jerk reaction one way or another on the topic.
My point here is that the pessimists among us were guaranteed to declare regime-change in Iraq counterproductive and/or a quagmire no matter what actually happened short of an instantaneous transformation of Mesopotamia into Belize.
In addition, he has some very knowlegeable commenters. And if the list isn’t too long, I linger to read them as well. One really caught my attention on this post. It was written by Samuel Freedman, and I asked his permission to post his comments here for all my readers who may not make it to Michael’s blog (although you should).
As a Jew I give much thanks to who I consider our first Jewish President George Bush (African Americans can have Clinton and Teresa). In truth Bush could have put a stop to this had he carried the mentality of a Carter. The right in Israel may have sought to proceed despite such lack of support but many more moderate minded Israelis that have backed Sharon would have weakened at the knees without our support.
Mr. Pessimist has never won a war, Mr. Resolute has. All of our Presidents that have presided over critical victories have two things in common. First, they all (Washington, Lincoln, etc) were declared losers early on. Second they all had high goals that trump the pessimism and discouragment others heap on them. I listened to Dubya at the UN and by golly if he didn