Babbin vs. Lowry

Jed Babbin and Rich Lowry are both right and wrong as well. Babbin’s Endgame Conservatives know that our War on Terrorism and Islamic-Totalitarianism will not and cannot end until we take the battle to our enemies not only in Iraq, but beyond to Iran and Syria as well. Lowry’s ‘to hell with them Hawks’ are correct that Republicans of all stripes must remain steadfast behind our President’ efforts to democratize Iraq. Endgame Conservatives mistakenly believe that this conflict or any, modern-day conflict can be prosecuted with WWII type force or abandon. ‘To hell with ‘em Hawks’ who think that bringing Democracy to Iraq alone will cause the “Arab Street” in Iran and Syria to rise up and demand the same for themselves, are equally mistaken.

Contrary to Babbin’s contention, the nascent Iraqi democracy IS the center of gravity in this war and the determinative factor of victory or defeat of the larger war. Much to the chagrin of Endgame Conservatives, the geo-political realities of the 21rst Century will not allow the World’s only Superpower to attack Iran, much less Syria, without provocation or an elongated period of international censure and warning. When that time finally arrives, only a strong, self-sufficient and free Iraq will be able to withstand the influx of refugees and political pressures the collapsing Sunni Baathist and Fundamentalist Islamic Shiite regimes will place on their neighbor.

From the beginning of time, the Tigress and Euphrates rivers met at the center of the known world. The Garden of Eden was ground zero then and it remains so today. Twentieth Century Iraq was artificially cobbled together to create a buffer state at the geographic confluence of the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish clans. The sectarian tension we see in Iraq today will surely become exacerbated from both the East and the West when the U.S. does affect regime change in Iran and Syria as part of the Global War on Terror. President Bush was right and remains right in seeing a stable democratic Iraq as the centerpiece to successfully defeating and destroying Radical Islam throughout the broader Middle East.

The real question is not whether one should be a Lowry Republican or a Babbin Republican, but rather how to elect even more Republicans to Congress, so our President will have sufficient political support to see Iraq through and then turn up the heat on these other countries that harbor and support terrorist organizations. Once our military objectives are achieved, it’s the creation of Democracies that will keep these countries from falling back once we leave. Perhaps the Wilsonian policy quagmire we see in Iraq will not be replicated in other Arab countries that are predominantly either Sunni, Shia or Kurd, where the opportunity for insurgents to pit tribe against tribe, clan against clan do not exist to the same degree as they do in the historic center of gravity for Islam, Iraq.