In Friday's heated debate in the House over the resolution to withdraw immediately from Iraq, I did not hear one word about the effect of our withdrawal on other coalition countries.
We have a number of allies who have joined us in Iraq. Their men and women are dying right alongside ours. Many of them joined us not only because they support the cause, but also because of their loyalty and friendship to the United States.
While the Dems were foaming at the mouth when we went to war (remember John Kerry's 'global test'?), I did not hear one of them suggest that we huddle with the coalition before making any decisions about our continued involvement in the war. I guess they have repeated the lie of 'unilateralism' so many times that they actually believe it.
How do we expect our allies to react to all this internal discussion of Iraq? Should they just stay in Iraq, holding the bag? Do we realize that all of this U.S. discussion about cutting and running might affect their policies and attitudes about Iraq?
How can we expect our allies to stand firm with us in Iraq (and elsewhere in the world), if we are publicly second-guessing our involvement? How do we think they might respond to accusations that Bush deliberately misled the country (and the world) to enter into war with Iraq? Do you think they might be dismayed? Do you think they might be reluctant to support us in future conflicts?
As our allies see our resolve and commitment begin to crumble, do you think they will just hang around? I suspect that they might want to remove their troops from harm's way. Once they begin pulling their troops, the Left will use this as further rationale for our immediate withdrawal.
Heaven help the U.S. if we prematurely withdraw from Iraq. If we leave these people to annihilation by the terrorists, I don't see how we can ever approach our allies in the future and expect them to support us in foreign conflicts.
It would be a self-inflicted wound from which we would never recover.
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