Unlike a great many others, in this paper and around the world, I have refrained from publishing any comments on the progress of the war, preferring to give it a few weeks. Now that events seem to have slowed, I feel safe making some observations. First of all, every single doomsday prediction made by anti-war advocates of all types has been proven wrong. Iraq did not unleash chemical weapons on Israel. American forces did not underestimate the strength of their opponents, overextend themselves or commit too few troops to the effort. War did not destabilize the world economy but rather prompted a massive rally in financial markets from New York to Hong Kong, even lifting equity prices in Frankfurt and Paris.
Once assured that Saddam was finished, the Iraqi people did indeed welcome American troops as liberators. Photographs have been published of Kurds kissing pictures of George Bush, and jubilant Iraqis everywhere striking Saddam's statues and portraits with their shoes, a supreme insult in the Iraqi world. It seems that a higher percentage of Hopkins students than Iraqi citizens opposed the war.
On the eve of war, Jeremy Tully noted in these pages that the U.S. bombing campaign intended to bring about a result similar to Hiroshima. The Pentagon, of course, meant a rapid collapse of the opposition, which is exactly what they got. Tully, however, interpreted this to mean that the United States would seek to inflict hundreds of thousands of casualties, and wrote a long and sad column about how awful this all was. As it turns out, the highest estimates of civilian casualties put them just over a thousand. While each one of these deaths is a tragedy, is this really Hiroshima? Not quite. The closest thing to Hiroshima to happen in the Middle East is probably Hussein's use of chemical weapons on hundreds of thousands of Kurds in 1988.
Of course, as of this writing, no chemical weapons have been found in Iraq. I have little doubt that U.S. forces will them eventually. To those who continue to buy the line of Saddam's deceased propaganda machine and insist that they never existed, I might ask why they believe Iraqi troops went into battle with chemical warfare equipment. Because they thought we might use VX gas? Please.
The only reason we might not find such weapons is if they are in Syria. And here at last the anti-war camp has found a place to project its anxiety. The war was supposed to be a Vietnam-style blunder exposing the hubris of America's cowboy foreign policy. It turned out to be among the most successful military offensives of all time. You might think this would provide an opportunity for those who were so completely wrong to reflect, or perhaps at least to shut their mouths for a week or so and try to learn something from current events. Instead, they have kicked doomsday down the road a bit. The Iraqis might be happy now, but just wait until America screws up their post-war government. And that idiot Bush is already threatening Syria! If we go to war with them, that might turn out to be the disaster we were sort of hoping for in Iraq!
By far the most amusing for me has been the renewed hand wringing over North Korea. Six weeks ago, North Korea was the country every liberal seemed to think we should invade. Why aren't we going to war with North Korea? They're such a big threat! They're building nuclear weapons, and even proliferating missiles!
Well, it is dawning on some that we just might go to war with North Korea. Kim Jong Il, for instance, has gone underground and hasn't been seen since the March 19 "decapitation" bombing of Saddam's compound. In the past few days, North Korea has begun making concessions, offering to discuss the issue in a multilateral forum, which they previously had refused. The new president of South Korea, Roh Moo Hyun, told the Washington Post in a recent interview that the success of the war on Iraq has prompted Pyongyang to soften its stance. "I'm sure they are very much terrified ... petrified by the Iraqi war," he told the paper.
The success of the war in Iraq means that we probably won't have to go to war with North Korea. The credible threat of force may be enough to achieve our goals there. Likewise in Syria and Iran, democratic unrest may eventually take down those two odious regimes, spurned by a free and prosperous Iraq across their borders. Or perhaps the nay-sayers will finally be right about something. Given their track record for the past couple years, though, my bets are on George W. Anyone care to misunderestimate him one more time?
Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The News-Letter.