Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint in Baghdad
Legal scholars — both critics and supporters of the Iraq war — say that if Congress tries to manage the deployment and withdrawal of troops without cutting funds, the president’s powers as commander in chief would be encroached, perhaps leading to a constitutional confrontation of historic proportions. . . .
So how, exactly, can Congress assert power over the war, beyond its ability simply to pull the plug on its financing? History suggests that Congress has found ways of checking the president in the past without encroaching on his power as commander in chief. And, history suggests, as well, that neither side is that eager for a constitutional showdown.
Basra and the south of Iraq is a serious mess despite the impressive and professional work of British forces over the past three years. The writ of the Iraqi government is weak. The reason there is little sectarian conflict is that most of the Sunni minority have been driven out through ethnic cleansing. . . . [PM Tony] Blair himself told Parliament that British troops would not be leaving Basra in the condition in which they would like.
It is the timing of Blair's announcement of the British withdrawal that is most revealing. He could have delayed it for weeks if his interest had been to help the president. But his own domestic weakness dictated this timetable. As his prime ministership draws to a less-than-illustrious end, he has had to find a way to reassure the British public that his Iraq adventure will indeed end, too. There is now a widespread belief in the United Kingdom that Iraq has been the worst disaster in British foreign policy since 1956, when Britain and France invaded Egypt with Israeli help after Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal.
Every single American casualty is a tragedy and my heart goes out to the friends and families of the brave and gallant Americans who’ve given their lives in Iraq. However, one of the characteristics of maturity is the ability to distinguish lesser evils from greater ones and in my view the greater evil is the enormous numbers of Iraqi casualties that no one really doubts will ensue if we leave Iraq before things there are a lot more stable than they are now . . .
I opposed the invasion of Iraq but I think we have no mature choice other than to remain there now and do whatever we can to pacify the situation. That this somehow makes me complicit in the original invasion is absurd. We must look at the situation as it is now; not as it was four years ago; not as we wish it were. It’s a sign of sanity that one is able to adapt to change.
The official reaction to the revelations at Walter Reed has been swift, and it has exposed the potential political costs of ignoring . . . America's veterans -- many of whom are among the last standing supporters of the Iraq war. In just two weeks, the Army secretary has been fired, a two-star general relieved of command and two special commissions appointed; congressional subcommittees are lining up for hearings, the first today at Walter Reed; and the president, in his weekly radio address, redoubled promises to do right by the all-volunteer force, 1.5 million of whom have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But much deeper has been the reaction outside Washington, including from many of the 600,000 new veterans who left the service after Iraq and Afghanistan. Wrenching questions have dominated blogs, talk shows, editorial cartoons, VFW spaghetti suppers and the solitary late nights of soldiers and former soldiers who fire off e-mails to reporters, members of Congress and the White House -- looking, finally, for attention and solutions.
Several forces converged to create this intense reaction. A new Democratic majority in Congress is willing to criticize the administration. Senior retired officers pounded the Pentagon with sharp questions about what was going on. Up to 40 percent of the troops fighting in Iraq are National Guard members and reservists -- "our neighbors," said Ron Glasser, a physician and author of a book about the wounded. "It all adds up and reaches a kind of tipping point," he said. On top of all that, America had believed the government's assurances that the wounded were being taken care of. "The country is embarrassed" to know otherwise, Glasser said.
Since September 11, 2001 the general population in the West, in America in particular, has awakened to varying degrees to the war raging within Islam that has spilled over beyond the borders of the Arab-Muslim world. The war within Islam is as old as the history of Islam itself, a war brought about by those wielding the sword for worldly power by appropriating Islam to serve their ends and to subjugate Muslims and non-Muslims alike to their whims. In recent history this war has been fought between countries with Muslim majority population. It has been fought within these countries across sectarian or ethnic divisions as is now being fought in Iraq.
The war within Islam is not unique. Christian Europe was involved in similar warfare spread across centuries, as recently as the two world wars that left Europe in ruins. The wars among Christians spread and endangered the wider world and which then became involved, took sides, and eventually prevailed over those forces most bigoted and hostile to the general peace of the world. As with these wars, the wider world must now agree that to achieve peace and freedom the most bigoted elements within the Muslim world – the jihadi Muslims and their allies – need to be irrevocably defeated.
-- SALIM MANSUR
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