All Fred Barnes wants is a bit of gratitude. He outlines all the difficulties of Iraq, the traps, the pitfalls, and the inevitability of eroding US influence. He does not think we will win in Iraq but knows at least one professional who he respects who holds that success is possible.
The problem that galls him is Iraqi ingratitude. I'll take it, and with pleasure, if the payment for that ingratitude is stable Functioning Core membership. Barnes is taking his eyes off the prize. It isn't gratitude or good feeling that the US and the rest of the coalition is playing for, but the conversion of Iraq into a Core state and the conversion of all its neighbors into, at the very least, border states where their people will constantly look over the border and see that, for people just like them, success is possible, tyranny is not inevitable, and the autarky of the Non-Integrating Gap is the recipe for ruin.
Everybody likes to be liked. I'll take ingratitude and a society of proud, honest men who can stand on their own two feet and help their brothers find freedom without a never ending parade of US interventions.
Posted by TMLutas at March 27, 2004 11:14 PM