Spring 2016—Winning Wars And Ending Wars: The Difference Between Life And Death

At the end of last week, I finished working as a long-term substitute teacher at Westlake High School in Saratoga Springs, Utah. I had worked there for about three months, and part of my duties included teaching 6 classes of United States history; because my stewardship of the classes came nearer the end of the school year, the material I covered focused primarily on US history from the start of the Cold War and on into the present day.

For my students’ final unit of study for the year, I made an unusual choice. I decided to teach them about US foreign policy during the post-Cold War era, and about how Islamic terrorism has dominated that foreign policy since at least the events of September 11^th, 2001.

When I gave my students their final test of the year, I included a short essay question which essentially required them to share their informed opinions concerning the president of the United States and his first duty as the protector of our nation. I asked students to explain what kind of president our country should have when it comes to keeping our citizens safe from the attacks of Islamic extremists who seek to violently overthrow America’s peace, power, and prosperity. Should the United States elect presidents like George W. Bush, who believe that the United States can only win the War on Terror by taking the fight to the terrorists on their home turf? Or should the United States elect presidents like Barack Obama, who believe the United States military does more harm than good whenever it is sent to combat terrorism in places like Afghanistan and Iraq?

I believe the answers to such questions are simple, and after spending almost 16 years observing the foreign policies and leadership styles of both Presidents Bush and Obama, I can unhesitatingly argue that aggressive presidents like George W. Bush—presidents who believe in the innate goodness of America’s presence on the world stage—are exactly what the US needs in order to effectively carry on the fight against Islamic extremism to a victorious conclusion.

President George W. Bush once said that the United States of America did not choose to enter the 21st century with our foreign policy dominated by the War on Terror—rather, the war waged against us by Islamic radicalism was chosen for us. From the start of that war, George W. Bush’s doctrine of preemption and democratization has been given unfair treatment; radical Islam is not an invention of some nebulous neoconservative clique—it is a real threat to world peace.

Regardless of how much time has passed since the events of September 11th, 2001, most Americans appear to remain confused and bewildered and utterly incapable of understanding or articulating the significance of the War on Terror. Luckily, when the terrorists attacked us on that tragic day, we were led by a president who was courageous enough to realize that American foreign policy would have to be changed dramatically if we were to fight this new enemy effectively. I praise President Bush for making these changes; after all, he too was taken by surprise when the planes hit their targets on that September morning.

Beginning in the early 1970s and covering the administrations of presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, the United States unintentionally emboldened Islamic terrorists by failing to act against dozens of attacks, kidnappings, and murders; the war with Islamic terrorism started long before 9/11 and, unfortunately, was a one-sided ordeal for almost three whole decades before that fateful day when the planes crashed into the Twin Towers.

President Bush changed all that. Truly, he is the only American president who has bravely confronted Islamic terrorism for what it is and altered American strategy accordingly. These alterations came to be known among academics as the “Bush Doctrine.”

The Bush Doctrine represented the drastic change of worldview that took place within George W. Bush the man as well as in his administration after the events of September 11th. Here are the main points of the Bush Doctrine:

1.      In a vigorous break from the past, terrorism would be faced with moral absolutism and handled on a war footing.

2.      Uncooperative state sponsors of terrorism would be treated as enemies and would be subject to invasion and regime change.

3.      Invasion and regime change would be preemptive if necessary.

4.      Any U.S. support of a Palestinian state would take place only if leaders like Yasser Arafat were given the boot and replaced by Islamic leaders who respected democracy, free markets, and measures against terrorist violence.

The Bush Doctrine represented a major repudiation of past presidential policies and was much more aggressive and forceful—and necessarily so, in my opinion.

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was an appropriate fulfillment of the Bush Doctrine, and I believe that it was a sound strategic decision to send the troops in.

When the United States invaded Iraq after securing Afghanistan from the hands of the Taliban, the mainstream media rose up to give a voice to the radical anti-war crowd, making the din seem much louder than it deserved to be and ascribing an uncalled-for sense of immorality to the Bush administration’s justifications for the invasion. Isolationists like Pat Buchanan and Noam Chomsky attempted to use the war in Iraq to stir up their own popularity and restore credit to their marginalized beliefs of “the world is bad for America” and “America is bad for the world,” respectively. Liberal internationalists like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton opposed the war in Iraq because they correctly saw the implementation of the Bush Doctrine as a clear threat to their own foreign policy ideals; for them, the Bush Doctrine invalidated the post-Vietnam refrain that said all conflicts must be settled through negotiation and treaties. Others would oppose the Iraq War because it invalidated their precious belief that stability is the most important factor in world politics; on the contrary, George W. Bush made it an explicit goal to destabilize the Middle East in favor of a new wave of democratic opportunity—something for which I think he deserves great credit.

Criticism of the Iraq War was not limited to just one side of the political spectrum. Many conservatives blamed President Bush for abandoning his own doctrine during the later years of his presidency. However, any perceived straying from the Bush Doctrine by the Bush administration happened because George W. Bush, as a good politician, knew which battles he could fight and when he could fight them without losing complete support for the War on Terror. A majority of Bush’s imperfections in implementing his own foreign policy were due to realities in the field and political pressures at home and abroad. None of this can take away from the fact that, because of President Bush, the Middle East status quo has been unfrozen forever. The region’s pact with Saddam Hussein’s brand of tyranny was broken, and any subsequent foul-ups (think of ISIS) do not detract from the original nobility of the American cause in Iraq.

The most powerful defense of the Bush Doctrine actually comes from the unwitting help of Barack Obama. After trashing the Bush Doctrine in the lead-up to the 2008 election, President Barack Obama actually expanded the policies of Bush’s War on Terror because he realized that there truly is no safe alternative. I feel that George W. Bush will eventually be judged as a great president because of the doctrine that bears his name. As we look into the years and decades ahead, we must realize that the struggle against Islamic extremism will be a long conflict in the same tradition as the Cold War. Unfortunately, the resolve among American political leaders to win this fight is currently questionable. As Western Europe continues to get conquered by political correctness from within, America will increasingly find itself alone in the fight. As we go into national elections, we must always keep in mind that Americans—both the ordinary citizens and the leadership class—no longer agree on what the events of September 11th, 2001 actually signified. Because the narrative of the Bush Doctrine has been lost in the cacophony of noise that is the politics of democracy, Americans no longer agree on what needs to be done to combat Islamic terrorism. If Americans value their own safety, they had better regain a sense of understanding the lessons and legacy of President Bush’s War on Terror. I, for one, support the version of the story that led to the Bush Doctrine and the accompanying invasion of Iraq.

In the vast field of international affairs, Saddam Hussein was easily considered to be Public Enemy Number One from 1990 and on up to the day Osama bin Laden first became a household name. Even after American citizens first heard about bin Laden and our new al-Qaeda enemies, Saddam Hussein continued to loom large in the background of the new War on Terror. The dictator of Iraq brought the Iraq War on himself by refusing to submit to the new international order President George W. Bush was rightly attempting to initiate.

The 2003 war in Iraq, like its predecessor in the previous decade, was a reasonable and justified response to aggression against the United States, its allies, and their interests. Saddam had proven himself to be a major threat to Middle Eastern regional peace ever since his attack on Kuwait in the early ‘90s, and because of him, Iraq had been at the forefront of anti-American rhetoric and geo-political maneuvering for well over ten years. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, prior to 9/11, was an unrepentant threat to the world order established by the United States and its allies in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse; after the Twin Towers came down, Saddam Hussein actually exacerbated tensions by publicly praising the 9/11 hijackers and by thumbing his nose at both the UN and the United States when they requested that Saddam submit to inspections and restrictions of his alleged weapons of mass destruction programs.

In other words, by the time Coalition troops were driving down the Baghdad road, Saddam Hussein—through his violent and threatening rhetoric and his defiance towards UN diplomatic resolutions and weapons inspections—had done more than enough to justify an armed invasion of his country. Of all the murderous dictators who ever defied the international community in the post-Cold War era, Saddam was definitely the worst, and he was asking for it by his refusal to toe the line in the new and dangerous era of terroristic violence.

Why was it crucial for dictators like Saddam Hussein to toe the line? President Bush made it very clear in his post-9/11 speeches that the United States and the rest of the civilized world could not risk the potential hand-off of weapons of mass destruction from the likes of Saddam Hussein to the likes of Osama bin Laden. Hence the reason why preemptive strikes, invasions, and regime changes were key to the new Bush Doctrine.

But did Saddam Hussein really have weapons of mass destruction in his possession? Unquestioningly, yes. It is a proven fact that Saddam Hussein pursued nuclear weapons as far back as the early 1980s. It is a proven fact that he employed chemical weapons against the Iranians and even against his own people in the late 1980s and early ‘90s.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq to end Saddam Hussein’s possession of WMDs was justified and initially very popular. It was justified because most Western intelligence agencies and every major player in the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations had been warning about Iraq’s WMD threat for years. It was justified because Saddam Hussein did indeed have WMDs. That is a proven fact. He used them in the 1980s against the Iranians and Kurds in multiple documented incidents. By the time we invaded Iraq, Saddam had indeed dismantled his weapons into their constituent parts and ingredients, but that does not mean he didn’t have weapons in the first place. The invasion of Iraq was justified because Saddam Hussein was a dangerous and expansionist tyrant who publicly supported and cheered the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He had pursued and obtained and used WMDs in the past and it was entirely reasonable to suspect that he would pursue, obtain, and use them again. President Bush made a public pledge to move against all nations which gave support and encouragement to terrorist organizations and which sought to obtain and use WMDs in defiance of the international order. In invading Iraq, Bush’s administration merely fulfilled its own promises.

And what did the American people think of that promise? The invasion of Iraq was initially very popular. President Bush spent an entire year giving speeches to the American people asking them to support the invasion before any troops moved in. Opinion polls from the pre-war period show that Americans overwhelmingly supported the idea of deposing Hussein. Dozens of countries supported and actually took part in the invasion. Democrats in Congress were forced by the overwhelming powers of public opinion to vote in favor of the military intervention resolution.

In fact, Democrats had historically been some of the biggest proponents of American military intervention in Iraq. Democrats like John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Jay Rockefeller, Nancy Pelosi, and Bill Clinton all warned about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs and the threat they posed to international peace. Incredibly, regime change in Iraq was actually passed into law in the United States back when Bill Clinton was president in the 1990s!

While Saddam Hussein’s Iraq seems to have not had any stockpiles of ready-to-go WMDs by 2003, there was enough buzz among Western intelligence agencies prior to the U.S.-led invasion to warrant the Bush administration’s concern. More importantly, plenty of evidence has been uncovered proving that Saddam was in the process of obtaining, planning on obtaining, or waiting to obtain weapons technology forbidden to him by international sanctions. It is highly likely that Saddam Hussein’s pursuit of WMDs—a proven fact during the 1980s and early 1990s—was merely placed on hold for strategic reasons. Saddam was just waiting for the opportune moment to resume those programs and probably sincerely believed that the U.S. would never actually invade (after all, American troops had stopped short of regime change in Iraq back in 1991). Although no actual weapons stockpiles were found in post-invasion Iraq, plenty of dual-use components and parts for weapons were located and catalogued. To say that Saddam Hussein simply did not have WMDs confuses the issue and ignores the complexities of the global proliferation threat. It ignores the frightening ease with which dictators like Saddam can get their hands on weapons of incredible destructive capability.

Is there much difference between a murderer who keeps a well-oiled, polished, and loaded gun in his house on the one hand, and a murderer who keeps an old gun barrel in one room of his house, the stock in another room, the rifle scope in another, the bullets in still another room, and all the other parts of the gun in scattered locations throughout his home? I say there is not much difference at all, especially if we are talking about that murderer’s potential to commit future atrocities. In a time when even the slightest hint of collaboration between a figure like Saddam Hussein and a dangerous terrorist like Osama bin Laden could result in thousands if not millions of innocent lives lost, I believe the justification of preemptively invading Iraq becomes abundantly clear.

Deposing Saddam Hussein had multiple positive benefits for the United States, its allies, the people of Iraq, and those interested in world peace. The United States was able to eliminate a threatening menace to its interests in the Middle East; it was also able to eliminate a potential armorer of Islamic terrorists. Additionally, the people of Iraq were freed from a dictator who literally murdered, raped, and plundered his own out of sheer greed, pleasure, and thirst for power.

From a purely geostrategic standpoint, the invasion of Iraq made a whole lot of sense. It gave the United States a powerful military presence right next door to the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran; combined with the coalition troops stationed in Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq allowed the United States to exert real military pressure on the Iranians from both the west and the east.

The successful invasion of Iraq paid off in other more indirect ways. Because of the rapid military success of the 2003 invasion, the United States was able to completely or significantly neutralize two dangerous military dictatorships for the price of one. Because of what happened to Saddam Hussein, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi—a known sponsor of terrorism since the 1980s—actually chose to willingly accelerate the surrender of his WMD program to international inspections. This led to Libya renouncing its possession of WMDs and decommissioning its chemical and nuclear weapons programs. It seems clear that the Iraq War frightened Gaddafi into rethinking his own geo-political strategies in a manner that favored the United States and its allies. This pattern was repeated in other countries across the Middle East and Africa.

The cause was just. The motivations were sound. The results were overwhelmingly positive. Iraqi citizens were, for a time, safe again. Thug regimes in Libya, Syria, and Sudan were cowed into submission and actually worked with the U.S. to prosecute the War on Terror. Iran was put on notice that the U.S. would move aggressively in both Iraq and Afghanistan, allowing the U.S. to demonstrate to the regime in Tehran that we weren’t pushovers to be messed with.

The military invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam’s regime were quick and relatively bloodless. The subsequent occupation of Iraq and the fight against the Iraqi insurgency were definitely less so. Elements within the Bush administration were convinced that the occupation of Iraq could be a clean and easy affair, with insurgents being quickly and neatly eradicated by smart bombs, smart drones, and by limited numbers of actual U.S. troops on the ground.

These hopes were misplaced and ignored some of the key realities of war. The Iraqi insurgency would prove to be a more formidable foe than anyone in the “smart warfare” camp expected. The Bush administration made many, many mistakes in the way it initially handled the Iraqi insurgency. It promised the American people a quick victory when it should have known better, when it should have known that occupations are rarely quick and easy. Occupations sometimes require a generation or two of troop presence to actually be considered successful.

Everybody whines about the loss of life in Iraq. Quite frankly, the loss of life in the Iraq War was relatively minimal when you look at the history of warfare. The victories we secured were real, substantive, and meaningful. Were mistakes made? Yes. Were there tough times? Yes. But in the end, I believe the Bush administration got its act together and made the right choices in the end. These right choices were most successfully manifested in the actions that collectively became known as “the Surge.” The troop surge in Iraq worked like a charm. It worked because the Bush administration finally recognized that there are no shortcuts when it comes to occupying a former enemy territory. By the end of the Bush presidency, the American strategy in Iraq was finally working…you just wouldn’t have known it had you tuned in to watch the evening news on CNN.

History has proven that President Bush’s decision to surge forces into Iraq and adopt a counterinsurgency strategy really worked. This all stands in stark contrast to the Obama administration’s actions. When President Obama took office in January 2009, al-Qaeda in Iraq had been defeated. Iraq was a stable nation moving toward true democracy, an American ally in the heart of the Middle East. But President Obama failed to understand that Iraq’s security, sovereignty, and stability were fragile. It is a tragedy that he abandoned Iraq, sacrificing the gains secured by American blood and treasure.

President Obama’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq is one of the worst and most tragic examples of how one man in the Oval Office can ruin an entire generation of American effort and sacrifice. Ignoring the recommendations of nearly every major military expert and official, President Obama “ended” the war in Iraq and brought U.S. troops home without any regard to whether or not our forces had actually achieved victory, without any regard to the security situation of Iraq or its sovereignty as an independent ally. Because of Obama, all that our country sacrificed to invade and secure Iraq was thrown away; the path was cleared for an al-Qaeda resurgence, the meddling of Iran, and the growth and rapid spread of ISIS.

At the beginning of Obama’s presidency, al-Qaeda was nearly extinct. Now, al-Qaeda has not only made a comeback in Africa and the Gulf States, but has birthed an even more demonic ideological offshoot organization. ISIS now exists as a state on the geo-political map, a country literally run by and established for the purpose of exporting terrorists.

At the beginning of Obama’s presidency, we were just beginning to see stability return to Iraq. Now, Iraq can barely contain the threat posed by ISIS. Worst of all, the Iraqis have to rely on their enemies in Iran for protection against terror. The Iraqis literally have to rely on state sponsors of terror to protect themselves from other terrorists. Why? Because President Obama declared a premature victory in their country and pulled American troops out long before it was wise to do so. Iraq is in the mess it’s in today because President Obama cared more about scoring political points at home than about doing what was best for Iraq and the Middle East as a region.

It sickens me to hear people saying that the soldiers—American and allied—who gave their lives in Iraq were fighting for a morally corrupt cause. Just because our current political leaders refused to see the occupation of Iraq through to what could have been a long-lasting victory does not mean the original cause of deposing Saddam and securing the Iraqi weapons and armament industry from the terrorists wasn’t worthy on its own merits. The invasion of Iraq was a moment of greatness in U.S. history. And just because so many people abandoned that moment of greatness the minute a little opposition and difficulty set in does not mean that I will forget why the U.S did what it did.

The United States was right to go into Iraq when it did, the way it did, and for the reasons it proclaimed with idealistic clarity and geo-strategic vision. I am proud of the men and women of all the allied nations who went and fought and served in Iraq, who went and helped rebuild the country in the face of such dangerous insurgent forces that threatened to tear the country apart. And I am proud of President George W. Bush, a man who allowed the events of September 11th, 2001 to change him in a way that inspired him to move aggressively against the enemies of peace and freedom.

Before her death just a few years ago, Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, was fond of explaining to her devoted fans and supporters that international affairs are ultimately based upon the aggressive use of military power and political resolve. This cold view of reality, she explained, was tempered and softened by the hope that free peoples usually elect leaders who will use that military power and political resolve in relatively virtuous ways. President Bush never apologized for his use of military power in Iraq, and he never ceased from proclaiming that his use of power in Iraq was virtuous and right, and neither will I. The world is a better place without monsters like Saddam Hussein running countries and ruling large populations of terrorized subjects. The world is a better place because of brave leaders like President Bush, leaders who are willing to do what’s right even when doing so quickly becomes unpopular. I’m glad President Bush stayed the course in Iraq, and I only wish we had more leaders like that to look forward to in the future. Only time will tell.

It’s important that we start electing more leaders who are willing to aggressively carry on the War on Terror. The fight against Islamic extremism is going to be much like the fight against Soviet communism; it may take generations for the United States and its allies to finally convince enough of the world’s Muslims that groups like the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS do not present viable futures for the Islamic civilization. It may take decades to convince the worldwide community of Muslims that using violence against the West will only lead to destruction and death for both sides of such an unnecessary conflict. The task is daunting but not impossible. After all, worldwide communism was eventually discredited back in the miraculous year of 1989; all it required was for two or three generations of Americans to stay the course and remain committed to victory. In this way, the United States of America won the war against communism, and it can do the same thing again in the war against Islamic radicals.

We need to start electing better presidents. After 8 years of Barack Obama, the United States military is in desperate shape, our foreign policy is dominated by retreat and shame, and our country is losing the respect and trust of our allies in almost every region of the globe. For Barack Obama, the United States of America has NOT been a force for good on the world stage. For Obama, a smaller American presence in world affairs is a good thing. For Obama, a smaller American presence in world affairs means that the peoples of the earth who have allegedly been long oppressed by American domination are now finally free to express themselves and determine their futures without that cursed Yankee influence.

For Barack Obama, the United States of America needs to back down from its long list of commitments across the planet—especially its military commitments.

From the very beginning of his presidency, Barack Obama has done everything he can to “turn the page” on the unjust wars launched by President Bush. He has pursued this unwise policy even in the face of persistent military threats that have denied him his precious and politically-motivated dream of removing all American troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. In both those countries, groups like the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS have made disturbing comebacks. These terrible and violent groups have not been diminished; on the contrary, they have thrived under Obama’s unrealistic policy of ending wars before they are truly won.

Last October, when speaking about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and the military comebacks of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS (all three groups now have a foothold in that troubled country), Barack Obama admitted that the small number of US troops in the country will not be enough to win the fight against Islamic radicals. “By now, it should be clear to the Taliban and all who oppose Afghanistan’s progress, the only real way to achieve the full drawdown of US and foreign troops from Afghanistan is through a lasting political settlement with the Afghan government,” Obama said.

For President Obama, negotiation is always the preferred option—even when it means compromising with people who get their kicks from beheading innocent civilians.

For President Obama, ending wars is more important than winning wars.

In my opinion, this is the only interpretation of Obama’s own rhetoric that makes any sense. Obama believes it is more important to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and pull out our troops than for our forces to actually secure a legitimate military victory. He apparently believes that such victories are impossible, even after all the progress that was made in both Afghanistan and Iraq under the previous presidential administration.

President Obama seems to have no problem with labeling our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as “victories” even when the realities on the ground in both locations defy anybody’s logical conception of what true victory looks like.

This is not the kind of leadership our nation needs from the man in the Oval Office. This is not the kind of leadership America needs if we expect to be victorious in our long fight against Islamic extremism.

As this last school year ended and I graded my students’ final tests, I was a little encouraged to see that most of my students argued that America does, in fact, need more aggressive presidents in our future. And while many of the students expressed frustration and anger over actions taken by BOTH the Obama and Bush administrations, I was at least grateful to see a little effort on the part of my students to seriously consider these important national security concerns. Ultimately, the fate of our country lies in the hands of voters, and I hope that the rising generations will start to realize—as President George W. Bush did—that America’s war against Islamic extremism was not something we chose for ourselves, and it is not something that is going to go away on its own accord. In the future, I hope more Americans will follow my students’ examples and become concerned and invested in our country’s political process. It is not too far-fetched for me to say that the way Americans cast their ballots in future presidential elections may be the difference one day between saving or losing hundreds and perhaps thousands of innocent lives. Indeed, I personally believe that if Americans elect more presidents like Barack Obama, the terrorists will be emboldened and people will die. If Americans continue to insist upon leaders like Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and John Kerry, the loss of innocent life will only increase as America’s enemies are moved to action by America’s inaction.

The choice is up to us, and I sincerely hope and pray that we choose the right way. In general, history has proven that the world wins when America wins. When push comes to shove and military action is required, we need our American presidents to stay committed to victory in the truest sense of the word.

We need to start winning wars, and not just ending wars; the difference between those two is truly a matter of life and death.

--Christopher Peterson, May 30^th, 2016