In case you missed it, because it was not reported, the US has achieved victory in Iraq. We came to bring democracy, to give the people freedom to choose their leaders, and to rid the world of Saddam Hussein, a dictator that for many years worked on developing and threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction. All this has been achieved. Iraq has had elections, chosen new leaders, and executed the former murderous dictator.
Now the country has new challenges. Rival religious factions are at war with one another. The influence of the “religion of hate” has caused violence and murder. We may have been naïve or ill-informed when we, the American people, bipartisan leaders in congress, and even the UN authorized the war. We may not have understood how much hatred and culture of murder and revenge lay beneath the surface. But now we have to decide if we will help Iraq through this next struggle. Will we help them solve their domestic civil war and contain those religious fanatics that are causing the most problems? This is a new question. It is a question we would not have had to ask if we hadn’t gone there in the first place, but it does not diminish the fact that we achieved what we set out to achieve.