Wednesday, March 10, 2004
An invaluable article by Daniel Serwer, director of the United States Institute for Peace - Doing Right By Iraq - notes the considerable progress being achieved in Iraq in spite of terrorist attacks and then comes to term with our own domestic debate over the causes of the war:
Read the whole thing, as we say.
This has particular significance as we enter an American presidential race. Administration policy in Iraq is quite properly being questioned: Was it right to go to war? Did doing so increase U.S. security? Would we have gone to war had we known that there were no large stocks of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Was it a good idea to go to war without U.N. or NATO backing? These are tough questions that need to be asked, and answered, in the upcoming presidential election campaign and in years to come.
But there is the risk that those who oppose the administration on the Iraq war will now inadvertently undermine the building of the peace. Whatever the answers on prewar Iraq policy, we are in Iraq now and need to stay the course, with as many allies as we can muster. There is no turning back.
Read the whole thing, as we say.
