There IS and WAS and HAS ALWAYS BEEN...a timetable

Great article from Asharq Alawsat, the leading Arabic International Daily, owned by the Saudi Distribution Company. It is written by Amir Taheri.

In the circles opposed to the toppling of Saddam Hussein one word is making the rounds these days: timetable.

Having failed to stop the war that liberated Iraq, and with their hopes of the insurgents marching triumphant into Baghdad dashed, they are now focusing on one issue: the withdrawal of the US-led coalition forces. Some want this to happen immediately, while others are prepared to grant a few weeks or months.

Those Democrat politicians in Washington, who had backed the war with as much enthusiasm as George W Bush, are now using the issue of withdrawal as a means of distancing themselves from their initial positions. The Arab reactionaries who shuddered at the thought of a despot being toppled by foreign intervention are now clinging to the withdrawal slogan in the hope of sabotaging the process of democratisation in Iraq. In Europe, professional anti-Americans of all ilks are trying to cover their political nakedness with the “ withdrawal” fig leaf.

The truth, however, is that a timetable has been in place from the first day of the war that ended the Ba’athist tyranny in 2003.

Yes. Makes you think. Who are the Democrats aligning themselves with, exactly, in calling for us to withdraw from Iraq? The Ba'athists? Al Qaeda? Zarqawi? They all want the same outcome....

Any checklist would clearly show that the Iraq project has been more successful than Saddam nostalgics with to portray. The first objective, to bring down Saddam Hussein, was achieved in three weeks. The next objective was to break the apparatus of oppression created by the Ba’ath. Despite some residual problems that objective, too, has been achieved. Another objective was to break Saddam’s war machine that had been used against Iraq’s neighbours as well as the Kurds and the Shi’ites. After just three years nothing is left of that infernal machine.

One could continue the checklist with the formation of the Governing Council representing the first step towards the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty.

Next on the checklist we have the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis that was accomplished in June 2004.

That was followed by the formation of an interim government, a series of municipal elections, a general election leading to the formation of Iraq’s first pluralist government, the writing of a new constitution and a referendum to get it approved. The next item on the checklist is the general election scheduled for 15 December.

The checklist clearly shows that every objective included in the political programme has been achieved within the exact timeframe fixed by the new Iraqi leadership and its coalition allies.

Indeed. But Ted Kennedy calls the war a 'quagmire'. Russ Feingold calls it a 'flop'. What, exactly, is their definition of success?

With the exception of the Zarqawi gang and its residual Ba’athist allies, almost no one in Iraq wants an immediate withdrawal of he coalition forces. The Iraqis know that their country is located in a rough region with predatory neighbours that cannot be trusted. They see the presence of the coalition forces as a kind of insurance policy against even more brutal intervention in their affairs by several of Iraq’s neighbours.

The idea of a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq has been built into the entire project from day one. It was on that understanding that the Iraqi people chose not to fight for Saddam, thus allowing the coalition to win a rapid and easy military victory. That fact created a moral contract between the people of Iraq and the US-led coalition as co-liberators of the country. The Iraqi people’s part of the bargain was not to prevent the dismantling of the Ba’athist machinery of repression and war and to welcome the chance to build a new political system. The coalition’s part of the bargain was to protect Iraq against its internal and external enemies until it was strong enough to look after itself.

A voice of reason. The Democrats, backed by their allies in the mainstream media, have been yelling 'no plan to win the war', 'we need a timetable', 'the war is a failure' so often that, unfortunately, I think people are starting to believe it. This is extremely dangerous for the U.S.

What matters, however, is that it is up to the people of Iraq and its coalition allies to decide the moment an the modalities of the withdrawal It is a judgment that no outsider could make .. Those who opposed the liberation and those who have done all they could to undo it have no moral right to join that debate.

Read the whole thing.