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There Is Still Time for the Right Republican Candidate John LeBoutillier IRAQ AND OTHER PREDICTIONS Four years. Longer than World War II a war in which the U.S. and her allies defeated powerful Germany and powerful Japan two industrial and military giants at that time. We have been fighting against someone for four years in Iraq, and we still cannot make the airport road into Baghdad safe. What has happened, and why? And what does the future portend? 1) The fundamental misconception has always been that non-Muslims could occupy an Arab Muslim country and remain there for more than a few months. Such an occupation cannot work. Period.
The built-in nature of Arab Muslims is filled with hatred, resentment, in-breeding, tribal conflict, widespread opiate use, jihad against "non-believers," and a view of the afterlife that encourages some to martyr themselves and take as many Christians and Jews with them as possible.
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2) Iraq, as a nation thrown together 90 years ago by outsiders, has no national tradition other than fear of the central government. In fact, all Arab Muslim nations are the same: They are run by the jackboot of fear and order from a central government. They simply cannot handle the freedoms we so cherish here in the West. And they don't really want them either. Thus, they all have virtual dictatorships even when, like Egypt, they appear to be democratically elected. We deluded ourselves with a terminal case of ethnocentrism, where we figured the Iraqis were just like us and wanted what we want. So we then gave it to them democratic elections, freedom the of the press etc., and it isn't working. They do not want what we want. They don't want it, and they won't, and didn't, fight for it. In fact, they revel in fighting against us. And because we've been running the country for four years, we are now blamed for every problem no electricity, no security, ethnic pay backs that occur on our watch. 3) Saddam and his Sunni-dominated Ba'ath Party ruled Iraq for decades, all through fear and violence. Why? Because it was the only way to keep order. 4) Prediction: Iraq will only settle down when another strong-man takes over. Yes, another tyrant; another dictator who does awful things to his people. This is the lesson naive Americans, including a clueless-about-foreign-policy G.W. Bush and his inept advisers, will have to learn all over again: America cannot and should not be the world's policeman! A dictator, undoubtedly of the Shi'a branch of Islam, will wreak horrible revenge on Sunnis, who will try to flee to Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. They already are flooding those countries, which have closed their borders. We can't rebuild New Orleans; we can't stop illegals from crossing our own borders; we can't balance our own budget. How in the world could we even think we could rebuild and then run Iraq? No, we did not create this civil war in Iraq; but we did, through our lack of forethought, unleash it. 5) American conservatism need to take a long, hard look in the mirror. How could a philosophy be so bastardized by the Bushies? How could conservatism be morphed into massive new federal programs, new irreversible entitlements, new far-reaching anti-privacy powers, new federal departments, a new role in education and a foreign policy built on pre-emptive intervention?
Conservatism has been built on the role of government: We conservatives are supposed to believe, as Lincoln said, "government should only do what people cannot do for themselves." 6) The Republican Party has been torn asunder by the Bush policies, especially on illegal immigration and Iraq. Bush may have made it impossible for the Republicans to keep the White House next year.
The Congress will almost certainly stay in Democratic hands. Can you imagine if a Hillary or an Obama or an Edwards or Richardson occupies the Oval Office with un-checked power on a Democrat-controlled Capitol Hill? It will be a total disaster. Massive new federal programs will certainly ensue. Expect more debt, even more than under Republicans, and more taxes, too. The economy will suffer and so will everyone except the rich (they never suffer as they knows ways to make money even in bad times; that's why they're rich). This is the legacy of G.W. Bush. Unless . . . Unless the GOP can find a new candidate who can re-connect a fractured and dispirited GOP and take it to the Democrats by showing how totally out of touch and naive they are about the world. As of now, there is no such candidate in the race, but there is still time for one to emerge. Absent that new candidate, the Republican Party and conservatism itself is in desperate shape.
Editor's note:
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