The Real Problem in Iraq?

I am enjoying my time away with my family. However, sometimes, I need my political fix. During one such time, I found this article from The Art of Peace. David discusses a few points I have talked about in previous post. At the end, he says that he hopes I respond to this because a few of my original post are now deep in the archive. As fate would have it, his post is now in his archive as well. I thought that vacation time would be the perfect time to respond to his post.

I have stated a few times on my blog that the Democrats are bordering on treason with some of their rhetoric. I honestly feel that in their desire to defeat a President who can’t be re-elected, they would rather loose the war in Iraq than give any credit to President Bush. I cite the recent votes for Surrender by Democrats in both the House and Senate as evidence of their desire to beat Bush. David makes the argument on his site that if the country would be better off leaving Iraq, maybe it isn’t really treason but something closer to insight.

David points out that we will probably need to be in Iraq for many generations to come if we are going to truly do the job we have laid out that needs to be done. I agree with David. I believe under the right circumstances, we may be able to remove a large portion of our force from Iraq within the next two to three years. However, we will probably need some force in Iraq and the Middle East to help Iraq for the next ten to twenty years.

David says if Americans aren’t ready for that type of occupation, “…it is because George W. Bush continually told people things would be easier and quicker than they could reasonably have been expected to be.” I disagree with David. President Bush has stated time and time again that the War on Terror is going to be long and difficult. In some speeches he has said that this will be a war that the next President will have to fight as well. I believe the reason people want us out of Iraq and may not be prepared for what we have to do in Iraq is only partly the Democrats fault. The real problem is that we as Americans want results now. We aren’t patient, and we believe that any war should be wrapped up in a few months.

This attitude is more dangerous than anything the Democrats have done. We as Americans must either change our attitude or accept the fact that we are no longer a Superpower. A Superpower is only a superpower if it can project its power throughout the world. If we truly are a “Paper Tiger” as bin Laden has said, if we don’t have the attention span to go the distance for a democratic alley, then we have bigger problems as a nation than who our President is our which party is in power.