But he still has many qualms:
Going to war still sent so many terrible messages to the world. [Well, it certainly sent this message: Don't mess with US.]Brown -- like his brethren on the left -- simply can't understand what the war in Iraq is all about because his mind is cluttered with Orwellian slogans: "America evil - war always bad." Thus it has been since the U.S. broke with Stalin in the aftermath of World War II. But, unlike Stalin, "intellectual" lefties like Brown have no conception of the uses of power, for good as well as evil.
Most of the obstacles to success in Iraq are all still there, the ones that have always led me to believe that we would eventually be forced to leave the country with our tail tucked between our legs. (I've maintained from the start that if you were impressed by the demonstrations in the streets of Baghdad when we arrived, wait until you see how they celebrate our departure, no matter the circumstances.) [What are those obstacles to success, other than the defeatist rhetoric spewed by contemporary versions of Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose? We faced tougher odds in World War II, and its aftermath, and overcame them because we were determined to do so.]
In and of itself, the voting did nothing to end the violence. The forces trying to regain the power they have lost -- and the outside elements supporting them -- will be no less determined to disrupt our efforts and to drive us out. [So what? Does that mean we should let them drive us out? I guess it does if you're one of the Mark Browns of this world whose mind cannot comprehend the strategic value of the Middle East. Perhaps his SUV runs on ethanol.]
Somebody still has to find a way to bring the Sunnis into the political process before the next round of elections at year's end. The Iraqi government still must develop the capacity to protect its people. [The Sunnis can get on the train or get run over by it. I suspect they'll get on board. With adequate help from the U.S., the Iraqi government will develop the capacity to protect its people. That's another reason not to pull out just to satisfy the "peace at any price" crowd.]
And there seems every possibility that this could yet end in civil war the day we leave or with Iraq becoming an Islamic state every bit as hostile to our national interests as was Saddam. [The only way to ensure a civil war and the creation of an Islamic state is to pull out prematurely and allow civil war to happen.]
In the "intellectual" version of the world, things will happen simply because of inexorable historical forces, that is, because lefties wish they would happen. Marx (the intellectual) wished for "dictatorship of [by] the proletariat," and Lenin (the man of action) gave Russia dictatorship -- period.
Yes, ideas are important, but they're nothing without action. And -- thank God -- we have a president who knows it. When you want good things to happen you have to be in command of events. That's where we seem to be at the moment. And that's where we'll stay, as long as defeatists like Brown, Kennedy, and Kerry don't have their way.
