The Impending Success In the War Against Islamo-Fascists

Commentary by Greg Lewis / TheRant.US
January 31, 2005

It is truly remarkable, to my way of thinking, that The New York Times, despite the fact that there are hundreds of accomplished writers out there, finds it impossible to find even one who represents a political position in opposition to the neo-Communist leftist politics the paper espouses so virulently. Indeed, its opposition to George W. Bush and the war in Iraq is reminiscent of the job the leftist media did in engineering our pullout from Vietnam some 30 years ago. The devastation to the South Vietnamese people that resulted from our abandoning that commitment was horrific, and it rests in no small measure on the shoulders of Walter Cronkite and others, especially at the Grey Lady, of his ilk.

In particular, the Times has come out in support of withdrawing our troops in no small measure because it will be difficult to change the culture of murder and terrorism out of which the "insurgency" arises. But there are historical examples of precisely such culture changes in the past century which are analogous to the hoped-for change that we are trying to effect in Iraq.

In particular we can cite the imperialist German Nazis and Japanese of WWII, who — after they were defeated in an epic struggle, and after long occupations by Allied (but particularly U.S.) troops, and after America provided the resources for these countries to rebuild their infrastructures and their economies — have become, despite Germany's recent skittish recalcitrance, our democratic allies and significant players in the world capitalist economy. South Korea is another example of a country which benefited from our military and economic intervention and which has a booming capitalist economy.

There are significant parallels in the present worldwide struggle against Islamists to the situation during and after WWII. While we can't know with certainty if the current U.S. strategy of attempting to introduce democracy into Iraq will achieve its intended aim — to, as I see it, bring a powerful Middle Eastern country into the community of world democracies and thus demonstrate to other countries and peoples of the region the unimaginable benefits of democratic rule and participation in the world free-market economy, in the hope that Iraq's democratic revolution will spur similar governmental changes in other Arab countries — the fact is that it seems to me the only strategy to pursue at this juncture...short of our committing massive genocidal atrocities on the populations of Islamist-sympathetic countries such as Iran. That is not likely to happen absent utterly stupid and unthinkable nuclear provocation by a renegade regime such as that of Iran or South Korea.

We are fighting the war against Islamo-Fascism, and I think we're actually, bleating protestations of the libs notwithstanding, fighting it in an admirably focused and economical way. Our incursion into Iraq, coupled with the incipient electoral successes in Afghanistan, give me to believe that, while we might well wish for a more aggressive and brutal campaign against Islamist monsters around the world, the path we're pursuing is in fact very aggressive and is the only one likely, assuming it succeeds, to turn political heads and achieve the desired impact around the world.

From what I hear — again despite the Times' insistence to the contrary — despite European leaders' unwillingness to admit that Islamists present a real and present (not to say future) threat to their countries' continued existence as recognizable western democracies, the buzz on the Continent is shifting. Although there are still few Euro political or journalistic leaders actually publicizing this incipient shift in opinion and policy, nonetheless (again, as I get it) the realization of the utter existential threat that Islamist freaks pose is beginning to sink in across the Pond.

Furthermore, if the frequently tone-deaf Bush administration can manage to put out better diplomatic feelers, read more accurately the shifting mood among many of our apparently oppositional allies, and proffer more appropriate diplomatic advances, it is entirely possible — especially if, within the next year or so, it becomes clear that the situation in Iraq has turned a corner — that the current U.S. administration will be able to achieve important diplomatic success by capitalizing on the increasingly obvious truth that radical Islam is not going to disappear as a threat to the west's way of life unless we, in the words of Martin Sheen in "Apocalypse Now," terminate with extreme prejudice. (Sorry for quoting this unregenerate lib actor; the line is too good to eschew.)

We need to put all our energy and resources behind the successful resolution of the current U.S. policy in Iraq. To my mind it is the one single strategy that, if it works, might possibly begin a cultural/economic change in the Middle East similar to the one we managed to engineer in defeated adversaries Germany and Japan after World War II.