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The Contract with America's Heroes
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Searching for Victory in Iraq: Why the Baker-Hamilton Commission
Ought to Visit Mount Vernon by Newt
Gingrich (more by this author) Posted
11/27/2006 ET The Sunday
before Thanksgiving, Callista and I took some friends to Mount Vernon to see the
new education center. It is an amazing tribute to George Washington and the
creation of America. We watched a
movie about George Washington's crossing the Delaware on Christmas Eve and
surprising the Hessians (German mercenaries) on Christmas Day in Trenton. As I
watched, I was struck by the amazing difference between the attitude of the
Father of our Country and the current attitudes in the city that bears his name. Gen.
Washington had a long and painful summer and autumn of defeat in 1776. His
American Army had been defeated across New York -- in Brooklyn, Manhattan and
White Plains -- and then driven across New Jersey and forced to flee across the
Delaware River into Pennsylvania. Washington's Night Crossing: 'Victory or Death' Washington's
forces had dwindled until he had only about 4,000 effective soldiers left. There
were another 6,000 men present, but they were so sick they were unable to go
into battle. Faced with
declining morale, rising desertions, the collapse of political will in the
country at large and a sense of despair, Washington decided to gamble everything
on a surprise attack. It would require a night crossing of an icy river against
a formidable professional opponent. But the most
telling sign of Washington's mood as he embarked on the mission was his choice
of a password. His men said "victory or death" to identify themselves. What if There Had Been a Baker-Hamilton Commission
Advising Gen. Washington? That night
crossing, immortalized in paintings of Washington's standing in the boat as
Marblehead Fishermen rowed him across the ice-strewn river, led to an amazing
victory on Christmas Day. That victory led to a surge in American morale and a
doubling in the size of the American forces under Washington within two weeks.
And that gave Washington the strength to win a second surprise victory at
Princeton. In two weeks,
Washington had gone from defeated, hopeless bungler to victorious American hero
and personification of the American Cause. Imagine there
had been a Baker-Hamilton Commission -- the group charged with assessing our
options in Iraq -- advising Washington that cold Christmas Eve. What
"practical, realistic" advice would they have given him? Eleven Key Tests for the Baker-Hamilton Report Will the Baker-Hamilton Commission make a real contribution in
helping us win the war against the Fanatic wing of Islam? Or will it be simply
one more establishment effort to hide defeat so the American political system
can resume its comfortable insider games without having to solve real problems
in the larger world? Here are 11 key things to look for in the commission's
report: If Iraq were only a one-step process, the answer might be to leave.
But the reality is that Iraq is a single campaign within a much bigger war and
within a power struggle over both the evolution of Islam and the rise of
dictatorships seeking nuclear and biological weapons to enable them to destroy
America and her allies. If the Baker-Hamilton Commission does not take this into
account, it is a dangerously misleading report. This is the hardest thing for Washington-centric bureaucracies to
accept. There was a very successful 23-day campaign to drive Saddam out of
power. It used America's strengths, and it worked. The second campaign has been
an abject failure. We and our Iraqi allies do not have control of Iraq. We
cannot guarantee security. There is not enough economic activity to keep young
males employed. If the Baker-Hamilton Commission cannot bring itself to
recognize a defeat as a defeat, then it cannot recommend the scale of change
that is needed to develop a potentially successful third campaign. We need fundamental change in our military doctrine, training and
structures, our intelligence capabilities and our integration of civilian and
military activities. The instruments of American power simply do not work at the
speed and detail needed to defeat the kind of enemies we are encountering. The
American bureaucracies would rather claim the problem is too hard and leave,
because being forced to change this deeply will be very painful and very
controversial. Yet we have to learn to win. Learning to win requires much more than changes in the military. It
requires changes in how our intelligence, diplomatic, information and economic
institutions work. It requires the development of an integrated approach in
which all aspects of American power can be brought to bear to achieve victory.
Furthermore, this strategy for victory has to be doubly powerful. For three
years, we have failed to build an effective Iraqi government, and we now have a
shattered local system with many players using violence in desperate bids to
maximize their positions. The plan has to be powerful enough to succeed despite
Iraqi weaknesses and not by relying on a clearly uncertain and unstable Iraqi
political system. What would the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq look like?
Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute recently offered this
chilling picture: "The pullback of U.S. forces to their bases will not reduce
the sectarian conflict, which their presence did not generate -- it will
increase it. Death squads on both sides will become more active. Large-scale
ethnic and sectarian cleansing will begin as each side attempts to establish
homogeneous enclaves where there are now mixed communities. Atrocities will
mount, as they always do in ethnic cleansing operations. Iraqis who have
cooperated with the Americans will be targeted by radicals on both sides. Some
of them will try to flee with the American units. American troops will watch
helplessly as death squads execute women and children. Pictures of this will
play constantly on Al Jazeera. Prominent 'collaborators,' with whom our soldiers
and leaders worked, will be publicly executed. Crowds of refugees could
overwhelm not merely Iraq's neighbors but also the [Forward Operating Bases]
themselves. Soldiers will have to hold off fearful, tearful, and dangerous
mobs." Winning is key. We are in a power struggle on a worldwide basis
with dictators who want to defeat us (Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea)
and with fanatic organizations that want to kill us (al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas,
etc). In a struggle like this, the goal has to be to win. Anything less than
victory is very dangerous, because it allows our enemies to gather more
capabilities and prepare for more dangerous campaigns. Time is not on our side.
Time is on the side of those seeking nuclear and biological weapons to use
against the civilized world. Winning is very definable. Can we protect our friends and hurt our
enemies? Are they more afraid of us, or are we more afraid of them? The recent
Syrian assassination of a Lebanese Christian leader who was pro-Western is a
signal that they are not afraid of us. The North Korean decisions to launch
seven missiles on our Independence Day and to set off a nuclear weapon were
signs they have contempt for our warnings. The statements of Ahmadinejad (the
Iranian dictator) and Hugo Chavez (the Venezuelan dictator) indicate how
confident they are. Today, the enemy thinks they are winning, and our elites seem to be
seeking face-saving cover behind which to accept defeat. Does the Baker-Hamilton
Commission have a proposal for victory or a proposal for accepting defeat
gracefully? Will it offer a diplomatic deal allowing us to pretend we are okay
while our enemies gather strength? Thinking Regionally and
Even Globally?
In Afghanistan, we are engaged in an Afghanistan-Waziristan war in
which our enemies retreat into Waziristan in Northwest Pakistan and re-arm,
re-equip, retrain and rest before coming back into Afghanistan. We will never
win that war by engaging only in Afghanistan. In Iraq, the problems may require
much more direct confrontation with Iran and Syria. In Lebanon, it is impossible
to create a stable democratic government and disarm Hezbollah as long as Syria
and Iran are deeply involved in killing Lebanese leaders and supplying Hezbollah. Iran and Syria are the wolves in the region. They are the primary
trouble makers. You don't invite wolves into the kitchen to help with dinner or
you become dinner. The State Department Report on Terrorism in April 2006 said:
"Iran and Syria routinely provide unique safe haven, substantial resources
and guidance to terrorist organizations." It went on to say: "Iran
remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism." It noted that in Iraq
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (an arm of the Iranian dictatorship)
"was increasingly involved in supplying lethal assistance to Iraqi militant
groups which destabilize Iraq." How can the Baker Hamilton Commission seriously suggest that two
dictatorships described like this are going to be "helpers" in
achieving American goals in the Middle East? The clear effort by the Iranians to acquire nuclear weapons and
Ahmadinejad's assertion that it is easy to imagine a time in the near future
when the United States and Israel have both disappeared should be adequate proof
that the Iranian dictatorship is the active enemy of America. Couple that with
the fact that the Iranians lied to the International Atomic Energy Agency for 18
years while trying to develop a nuclear weapon. Either this is a dangerous
regime we need to fundamentally change, or it is a reasonable regime with which
we can deal. Presidential speeches and State Department documents clearly
indicate it is a dangerous regime, yet there is a permanent Washington
establishment desire to avoid conflict and confrontation by "doing a
deal." In the 1930s, that model was called appeasement, not realism, and it
led to a disaster. We need a Churchill not a Chamberlain policy for the Middle
East. The
al-Assad family has run Syria since 1971. Hafiz Assad arranged
for his son Bashar to succeed him. This family and its Alewite supporters
represent a small minority of the Syrian people, but they maintain a
relentlessly tough internal dictatorship that keeps power in their hands. In
some ways, there are parallels between Bashar Assad and Kim Jong Il -- they both
maintain family dictatorships with the support of a brutal system of internal
controls. After 35 years of defying the United States, there is no reason to
believe our diplomats are more clever than their ruthlessly survivor-oriented
systems. Negotiating with them is an invitation to be taken to the cleaners and
to extend the power, prestige and influence of our mortal enemies in the region. Recent talk of reaching out to Syria has been met by the
assassination of a Lebanese Minister and the intensifying of the Hezbollah
blackmail tactics in Lebanon. Weakness from America leads to greater aggression
from our enemies. The Baker-Hamilton Commission should focus on how to contain
or defeat Syria, not on how to rely on them for help. The Democratic victory in the 2006 election should not be used as
an excuse to do the wrong thing. The Democrats are now confronting the
responsibility and burden of power. Given the right information about Iran,
Syria and Iraq, there is every reason to believe a bipartisan majority can be
formed in both the House and Senate for a rational strategy for victory.
Opposition to continuing the failed second campaign should not be translated
into opposition to an American victory. The Bush Administration should reach out to moderate Democrats and
forge a bipartisan agenda for victory and pass a bipartisan resolution for
victory in Iraq and for stopping Iranian efforts to get nuclear weapons. That
will set the basis for appropriations to continue the effort. The passage of a
solid bipartisan bill would send a signal to the world that Americans are
overwhelmingly in favor of defeating terrorism and defending America. That will
dramatically lower the morale and confidence of our enemies. These 11 steps
would be a powerful basis on which to move forward in Iraq and in the world.
What's more, they reflect the spirit of Gen. Washington when he chose
"victory or death" as the motto of the campaign that led to the
founding of America despite overwhelming odds.
("These 11 steps would be a powerful basis on which to move forward in Iraq and in the world. What's more, they reflect the spirit of Gen. Washington when he chose "victory or death" as the motto of the campaign that led to the founding of America despite overwhelming odds.")
Amen, Jeff Ketelson Republican Congressional Candidate for the 11th District California 2008
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