Nothing New Under the Sun

Recent months we have provided guidelines as an assist in understanding the Iraqi conflict - the reasons we are there, the direct linkage to US security, something the Founders would approve of. We have highlighted along the way those events which have underscored a gathering momentum of success for Coalition strategy. And, we have eased the way by putting this conflict in historical perspective. Certainly mistakes have been made, chief among these the presumption of ease of victory. But then at the onset of our Civil War some members of the cabinet forecast it would be over in 90 days. The NY Times predicted victory in thirty days. The Chicago Tribune predicted success "within two or three months at the furthest," because "Illinois can whip the South by herself." Then there was Bull Run and the South’s Beauregard and Jackson, and the picnicking Northerners who had come in their carriages to view the "easy victory" rushing back to Washington in fear of their lives. Horace Greely wrote a despondent letter to Lincoln: "On every brow sits sullen, scorching, black despair...If it is best for the country and mankind that we make peace with the rebels, and on their own terms, do not shrink from even that." Fortunately Lincoln knew better, that capitulation to renegades and extremists (whose creed as slavers was found as repugnant then as al Qaeda’s atavistic inheritance of the dark ages put into practice, is found now) meant the loss of the Union, that through this just conflict he would look to secure for posterity a secure and prosperous America, accepting the challenge of war to preserve the Nation. And finally, upon finding the right general, he did just that.

Robert Craven