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John McCain: "We cannot walk away gracefully from defeat in this war."
Excerpted from the speech delivered on the floor of the U.S. Senate July 10, 2007; emphasis added.The Committee has come up with the money to support our troops, and I have no doubt that the full Senate will follow step. Money and policy statements, however, are not all that is required at this moment in our nations history. Courage is required, Mr. President. Not the great courage exhibited by the brave men and women fighting today in Iraq and Afghanistan, but a smaller measure, the courage necessary to put our countrys interests before every personal or political consideration. In this light I would like to discuss Americas involvement in Iraq. The final reinforcements needed to implement General Petraeus new counter-insurgency strategy arrived several weeks ago, and last week I had the opportunity to visit these troops in theatre. From what I saw and heard while there, I believe that our military, in cooperation with the Iraqi security forces, is making progress in a number of areas. Id like to outline some of their efforts, not to argue that these areas have suddenly become safe they have not but to illustrate the progress that our military has achieved under General Petraeuss new strategy. The most dramatic advances have been made in Anbar Province, a region that last year was widely believed to be lost to al Qaeda. After an offensive by U.S. and Iraqi troops cleaned al Qaeda fighters out of Ramadi and other areas of western Anbar, the provinces tribal sheikhs broke formally with the terrorists and joined the coalition side. Ramadi, which just months ago stood as Iraqs most dangerous city, is now one of its safest. In February, attacks in Ramadi averaged between 30 and 35; now many days see no attacks at all no gunfire, no IEDs, and no suicide bombings. In Falluja, Iraqi police have established numerous stations and have divided the city into gated districts, leading to a decline in violence. Local intelligence tips have proliferated in the province, thousands of men are signing up for the police and army, and the locals are taking the fight to al Qaeda. U.S. commanders in Anbar attest that all 18 major tribes in the province are now on board with the security plan, and they expect that a year from now the Iraqi army and police could have total control of security in Ramadi. At that point, they project, we could safely draw down American forces in the area. The Anbar model is one that our military is attempting to replicate in other parts of Iraq, with some real successes. . . . I offer these observations, Mr. President, not in order to present a rosy scenario of the challenges we continue to face in Iraq. As last weekends horrific bombing in Salahuddin Province illustrates so graphically, the threats to Iraqi stability have not gone away. Nor are they likely to go away in the near future, and our brave men and women in Iraq will continue to face great challenges. What I do believe, however, is that, while the mission to bring a degree of security to Iraq, and to Baghdad and its environs in particular, in order to establish the necessary precondition for political and economic progress while that mission is still in its early stages, the progress our military has made should encourage all of us. . . . Now that the military effort in Iraq is showing some signs of progress, the space is opening for political progress. Yet rather than seizing the opportunity, the government of Prime Minister Maliki is not functioning as it must. We see little evidence of reconciliation and little progress toward meeting the benchmarks laid out by the President. The Iraqi government can function; the question is whether it will. . . . In taking such steps, we must recognize that no lasting political settlement can grow out of a U.S. withdrawal. On the contrary, a withdrawal must grow out of a political solution, a solution made possible by the imposition of security by coalition and Iraqi forces. Secretary Kissinger is absolutely correct when he states that precipitate withdrawal would produce a disaster, one that would not end the war but shift it to other areas, like Lebanon or Jordan or Saudi Arabia, produce greater violence among Iraqi factions, and embolden radical Islamists around the world. Let us keep in the front of our minds the likely consequences of premature withdrawal from Iraq. Many of my colleagues would like to believe that, should any of the various amendments forcing a withdrawal become law, it would mark the end of this long effort. They are wrong. Should the Congress force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, it would mark a new beginning, the start of a new, more dangerous, and more arduous effort to contain the forces unleashed by our disengagement. . . . If we leave Iraq prematurely, jihadists around the world will interpret the withdrawal as their great victory against our great power. Their movement thrives in an atmosphere of perceived victory; we saw this in the surge of men and money flowing to al Qaeda following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. If they defeat the United States in Iraq, they will believe that anything is possible, that history is on their side, that they really can bring their terrible rule to lands the world over. Recall the plan laid out in a letter from Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, before his death. That plan is to take shape in four stages: establish a caliphate in Iraq, extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq, clash with Israel none of which shall commence until the completion of stage one: expel the Americans from Iraq. Mr. President, the terrorists are in this war to win it. The question is: Are we? Withdrawing before there is a stable and legitimate Iraqi authority would turn Iraq into a failed state and a terrorist sanctuary, in the heart of the Middle East. We have seen a failed state emerge after U.S. disengagement once before, and it cost us terribly. In pre-9/11 Afghanistan, terrorists found sanctuary to train and plan attacks with impunity. We know that today there are terrorists in Iraq who are planning attacks against Americans. We cannot make this fatal mistake twice. . . . I know that senators are tired of this war: tired of the mounting death toll, tired of the many mistakes we have made in this war and the great efforts it requires to reverse them, tired of the wars politicization and the degree to which it has become embroiled in partisan struggles and election strategies. I understand this fatigue, and yet I maintain that we, as elected leaders with a duty to our people and the security of their nation, cannot let fatigue dictate our policies. The soldiers I met last week have no illusions about the sacrifices necessary to achieve their mission. On July 4th I had the great privilege to be present as 588 troops reenlisted in the military and another 161 were naturalized as U.S. citizens. Those men and women, taking the oaths of enlistment and citizenship in the center of Saddams al Faw Palace, they understand the many hardships made in our name. They have completed tour after tour, away from their families, risking everything everything for the security of this country. They do so because they understand that, however great the costs of this war, the costs are immeasurably greater still if we abandon it prematurely. All they ask is that we support them in their noble mission. I wish we had planned to fight this war correctly the first time, but we can no more turn back the clock to 2003 than we can wish away the consequences of defeat by imposing some artificial deadline for withdrawal. Last week in Iraq, I met the bravest men and women our country has to offer, and not one of them told me that it was time to go, or that the cause is lost. They are frustrated with the Iraqi governments lack of progress. They are buffeted by the winds of partisanship in Washington, talking today of surges and tomorrow of withdrawal, voting to confirm General Petraeus and then voting for a course that guarantees defeat. But in the end, they know that the war in Iraq is part of a larger struggle, a war of moderation and stability against the forces of violence and extremism. They recognize that if we simply pack up and leave, the war does not end. It merely gets harder. I am no particular fan of John McCain. I admire him for his service in Vietnam and his courage facing his struggles as a POW. On the other hand, "campaign finance reform" is a load of unconstitutional nonsense, he's a little full of himself (a common disease in the Senate), and on some issues he's been a little too quick to say what the dominant opinion elite want to hear. (Those of you for whom immigration is a hot button issue have other reasons to be disappointed in him, I know.) He's not my first choice in the primaries. But. He gets it. On the One Big Thing, he gets it. He understands that there's a war on and we need to win it. He appreciates that the bad guys are bad guys, and bad guys need to be defeated--not appeased, not negotiated with, not ignored, not minimized, not treated as a political opportunity, but defeated--and when faced with a choice between doing the right thing and the easy thing, he wants to do the right thing. Compare and contrast with the linguini-spined wet-finger-to-the-wind follow-the-poll-numbers types (*cough* Lugar! *cough* Hillary! *cough*), and the ones who are eager to give the terrorists a victory if it means more Democrats get elected. God bless him. Posted by: Mike 2007-07-11 |
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