Lessons Learned from Presidents Past

Is George Bush’s surge in Iraq working? Is the Iraq War winnable? Should we have invaded Iraq in the first place?

In columns published in The Washington Post last week, liberal Michael Kinsley and conservative Charles Krauthammer paint very different pictures of the situation in Iraq. Kinsley’s “Defining Victory Downward” states it bluntly: the surge has not succeeded in achieving its stated goals, and the ill-conceived war is winnable only if you define winning in the most generous of terms. Krauthammer’s “Democrats Dug In For Retreat” is just as blunt: the surge is the centerpiece of considerable progress in Iraq, where the US can achieve crucial foreign policy goals if only liberal Democrats like Kinsley don’t succeed in derailing that progress.

Somewhere between Kinsley and Krauthammer lies the truth, and the tragedy, of this war. Kinsley and the left are correct in believing we never should have invaded Iraq; Krauthammer and the right are correct in believing we can and must win there.

Invading Iraq has led to hundreds of thousands of casualties, millions of refugees, an empowered Iran, a destabilized Middle East, a discredited America, and an inflamed Muslim world more prone to extremism. But leaving Iraq prematurely would be at least as disastrous, and immoral, as invading prematurely was: more casualties, more refugees, greater Iranian influence, a more destabilized region, and a discredited America even more vulnerable to terrorism.

George Bush combines the worst attributes of two presidents with global ambitions, namely, the humanist idealism of Woodrow Wilson and the nationalist bellicosity of Teddy Roosevelt.

If only President Bush’s world-changing ambitions had been tempered by realism and humility.

When leaving office, two more presidents made clear what their experience in the office had taught them. George Washington warned against foreign entanglements, and Thomas Jefferson against unseemly concentrations of power in the hands of one man.

Newsprism.com