Progress In Iraq Continues...

[MMMMMM]

...despite the terrorists, and the ankle-biters and hecklers.

The foreign terrorists in Iraq appear to be losing traction and capability; the remnant Saddamite insurgents have toned things down somewhat; the Iraqi voter turnout was greater than previously; the Sunni minority approved the Constitution; Iraqis appear now to be more united against the terrorists and the insurgents; and generally speaking, things are looking up quite a bit over there. Yet you'd hardly know it if you only listen to those for whom success in Iraq would shake their world views and preconceived opinions.

There will likely be some attempted flurries of attacks around the upcoming trials of Saddam and cronies, and the free elections in December.

After that, I wonder who will lose the greater power and traction first? Will it be the lunatic and desperate terrorist insurgents in Iraq, or the earnest but misguided leftist critics overseas? My guess would be the terrorists.


"Sticking It to the "Insurgents"
By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 17, 2005


When the history of freedom in the Middle East is written, this weekend’s vote on the Iraqi constitution may be remembered as a watershed moment. High voter turnout, widespread participation (and approval) by the Sunni minority, and an increasingly effective Iraqi police force all demonstrate a nation struggling toward a democratic, pluralistic future. This is the latest milepost that the Iraqi people are charting a course independent of the mostly foreign-born “insurgents” using their homeland to wage jihad against the Great Satan that purchased their nation’s liberation with its own blood – and once again, as in January’s election, the American Left is only seen attempting to minimize and delegitimize their national sovereignty.


The mainstream media have aided this process, downplaying the importance of Saturday’s vote. This time,10 million people – some two-thirds of Iraq’s eligible voters – went to the polls, a significant increase from 58 percent in January’s historic election. This did not keep the New York Times from emphasizing an alleged downturn in voters. The spike in participation came amidst the nation’s Sunni voters, who realized they had diminished their importance in a the new democracy by boycotting the previous elections. The new Iraqi constitution makes the former Ba’athist tyranny an official “democratic, federal, representative republic.” To be defeated, two-thirds of the voters in at least three of Iraq’s 18 governates had to reject the treaty, a move that gave Sunnis veto power over the document – a power most Sunnis apparently chose not to exercise. As of this writing in the early hours of Monday morning, preliminary returns showed the constitution sweeping all but two heavily Sunni “governates” (provinces). At this time, official are reporting that more than three-quarters of voters in the Sunni-rich province of Nineveh approved the constitution.


Sunnis showed an enthusiastic acceptance of this newfound freedom. Jabar Ahmad Ismail, a 75-year-old Sunni pensioner, told reporters the constitution “gives me hope in God, and in my fellow men,” before calling terrorists “infidels.” Iraqis recalled the intoxicating lure of self-determination during this election. Another voter described the second real Iraqi election in decades thus: “It’s like a party.”


A party with a rather undiscriminating guest list. Among those eligible to vote was any detainee who had not yet been placed on trial – including Saddam Hussein. U.S. forces, whom the terrorists and the Left portray as brual “occupiers,” set up voting booths in the “gulag” known as Abu Ghraib prison. (How long before Maxine Waters adopts this as a precedent for her pet project of giving the franchise to American felons?)


Otherwise, by all media accounts, American troops were nearly “invisible,” leaving the job of securing the election in the capable hands of Iraq’s 200,0000 indigenous police and footsoldiers – a force the New York Times admits is daily growing in numbers and aptitude. In some areas, Sunnis protected polls from jihadist violence.


It is the Sunni reaction that most threatens al-Qaeda’s designs for the nation. The recently published letter between Ayman Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi confirms what many analysts have long known: Al-Qaeda hopes to secure a beachhead in the Sunni triangle, drive the “Yankees” out of Iraq, then re-establish the caliphate in Iraq before expanding into the broader Mideast. Yes, some Sunnis oppose the constitution on religious grounds. (One Sunni voter said flatly, “It's forbidden to vote yes, because it contradicts Islamic law.”) However, most have cast their votes on political grounds – and have opted for freedom. Thus, terrorists attacked three Sunni parties that endorsed the constitution last Friday.


A religio-political organization like al-Qaeda, populated by True Believers, can only be diminished in three ways: killing its members, permanently disrupting its chain-of-command, and spoiling its recruitment appeal by rendering it ineffective. The Bush administration has been busily accomplishing all three.


Previous American sweeps have killed or captured the vast majority of al-Qaeda’s leadership. Just weeks ago, Pakistani military spokesman, Major General Shaukat Sultan, reported that Osama bin Laden is trapped in the mountains, accompanied by perhaps “dozens” of followers. So isolated is the Saudi scion that his messages take months to be couriered to their destination. In his letter, Zawahiri admonishes his lieutenant that he is losing the media war among fellow Muslims, before begging him for a few hundred thousand dollars.


Now Iraq is rebuffing his organization’s plans to establish an Islamofacist theocracy. The strategic importance of this ratification has not been lost on world leaders. Condoleeza Rice pointedly told “Meet the Press” yesterday, “You defeat an insurgency politically as well as militarily. It will take time, [but] an insurgency cannot ultimately survive without a political base.” President Bush stated on Saturday: “Today's vote deals a severe blow to the ambitions of the terrorists. A clear message to the world that the people of Iraq will decide the future of their country through peaceful elections, not violent insurgency.” Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari called this constitution “a sign of civilization” and “a new birth.”


Yet this vote has not deprived al-Qaeda of its ultimatehope: that peaceniks will eventually cause Uncle Sam to withdraw from Iraq, just as GIs “ran and left their agents” in Vietnam on orders from a Democratic Congress. However, an engaged, democratic, and self-sufficient Iraq would deprive Zawahiri of the base-of-operations of which he fantasizes.


The coverage of the leftist, “mainstream” media must have given him hope. The Washington Post devolved into tabloid sensationalism, using a cover story putatively about how the Iraqi people ratified the constitution to recycle Sunni conspiracy theories:


“I believe they will rig the results and announce the success of the referendum, but our monitors reported to us that more than 80 percent of the voters in three governorates have said no to this draft,” Saleh Mutlaq, a spokesman for the Sunnis' National Dialogue Council, told reporters at a news conference…“This constitution is a menace to the unity and stability of Iraq, and we shall have no legal or legitimate means in order to defeat it.”


The left-wing blog the Daily Kos also hinted there may be substance behind Sunni charges of U.S. corruption in a post that concludes, “It matters what the Sunni think.” [sic.]


Other leftists share the Sunnis’ and terrorists’ disappointment. “This thing is an enormous fiasco,” said Juan Cole, who believe Sunni opposition “really undermines [the constitution’s] legitimacy, and this result guarantees the guerrilla war will go on.” Cole, a Middle East Studies “scholar” at the University of Michigan, believes President Bush launched Operation Iraqi Freedom to give Ariel Sharon cover to steal more Arab land.


On the eve of the vote, Ted Kennedy lambasted President Bush for not spelling out an exit plan, claiming Bush “pushed victory further from our reach.” John Kerry likewise blamed him for creating “a terrorist mess in Iraq that didn't exist before the invasion.” Writing for Z magazine, far-leftist Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies described the new constitution as a “text largely crafted and imposed by U.S. occupation authorities and their Iraqi dependents, and thus lacking in legal or political legitimacy.” This recalls Kerry’s words that the January vote possessed only “a kind of legitimacy.”


Thanks to the Bush administration, Iraq is establishing itself as a bulwark of democratic freedom, step-by-faltering-step. This move would insulate that nation against terrorism – which is precisely why the terrorists are fighting so hard: they recognize they are losing. A decisive loss in Iraq could, at a minimum, force al-Qaeda to change tactics; it may prove the decisive battle that dries up its appeal as a tool of terrorism (until its successor emerges). Apart from these considerations, Iraq’s chrysalis, from authoritarian fascist state to autonomous republic, should be applauded by every friend of freedom on its own merits. In the face of the most stunning political metamorphosis since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the politically motivated Left can only rage against a president it hates by lashing out at a people he has freed."

edited:I'll offer one additional comment: the last sentence of the article strikes me as a bit overdone, and the author might harp on similar themes throughout the body of the article a bit too much. Yet overall I think the article contains many good points about Iraq and progress made.

It also somehow does seem the Left is especially against not only the war, but often appears almost to be against any good news from Iraq which might derail their preconceived notions of how things are, uh, supposed to work. Maybe that's a cynical view on my part, but it rings true in my opinion: not for every member of the Left, of course, but for a great many. Psychologically speaking, these persons appear to welcome bad news out of Iraq and appear resistant to good news, because bad news would reinforce their preconceived notions whereas much good news would present a serious challenge to the integrity of those ideas.

Comments or observations, anyone?

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=19863