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Our Enemies in Iraq

A very recent CBS News poll says that 59% of Americans support the move by the House of Representative this week to insert a withdrawal timetable into the supplemental bill providing funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course President Bush is quite upset with this particular piece of legislation:

…”The consequences of imposing such a specific and random date of withdrawal would be disastrous,” Mr. Bush said in a speech at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association meeting. “Our enemies in Iraq would simply have to mark their calendars. They’d spend the months ahead plotting how to use their new safe haven once we were to leave.”

That’s the part I’m always most curious about. What exactly is different about “our enemies” in Iraq relative to “our enemies” in Syria, Lebanon, or Palestine? “Our enemies” have safe havens in each of those last three countries, and we’re still alive to talk about it. Hamas has a majority representation in the Palestinian parliament, which they won through a free democratic election. How are the events that might go down in Iraq any different?

President Bush seems to think that we can kill terrorism. We can kill terrorists, but we certainly cannot kill terrorism. We will have enemies all over the world no matter how long we stay in Iraq. People hate us. We just have to get used to it. It’s not a reason to spend thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars to immerse ourselves in a civil war that trivially affects, and most likely does not affect at all, our national security.

If President Bush was being honest with himself and the American people, he would say that he personally cares about our war in Iraq so much because he knows his legacy is intimately entwined with the war’s result. Well, nearing a half-decade of combat, it’s pretty clear to most Americans what the war’s result will be. And I just don’t see the reason to continue to sacrifice the lives of so many brave, young Americans on a cause that means so little to our national interest.