Why Is The Iraqi War Situation Improving?

November 25, 2007 

Over the past few months certain major aspects of the war in Iraq seems to be improving after nearly five years. But if you look close enough at these improvements it becomes obvious that these improvements could have happened a long time ago. Maybe the reason is because the agenda of our commander-in-chief & his supporters has changed. Could it be because we have a presidential election coming up; the only time the wishes of “we the people” are considered?  

If the presidential election were held today, I am afraid that all the Republican candidates could stay at home. And deep down in their heart, they know this. I, for one, do not think the Iraqi war should be the sole reason for deciding who should be our next president. But come Election Day, the status of the war will probably be the most common single issue on the minds of the majority of the voters. Also I am not one of those that is calling for “throwing the Republicans out” just because of the war. However, it is hard for me to see how we could be much worse off overall as a nation than we are with the current White House administrations, including the war in Iraq. But I do keep wondering how far we could have been in fighting the real war on terrorism had we spent the time, effort, and money on that front instead on the Iraqi war. I realize that the Iraqi war was started on the premise of circumventing a training ground for terrorism using WMD’s. But today terrorism is no less active than it was after 911 other than the Taliban is no longer the declared government in Afghanistan and bin Laden is not as free to move around as before, neither of which has anything to do with Iraq. There is always the necessity for preventative measures in a lot of cases, but we had real terrorist acts going on outside Iraq when we went to war with Iraq. That is where we should have concentrated our efforts, and that is not Monday morning armchair quarterbacking. There were plenty of knowledgeable people saying so at the time. 

One of the things you hear a lot today is criticism by the Republican supporters of Harry Reid and his statement made back in April of this year. Harry Reid said that “the war is lost”. Maybe a little premature, but Bush himself said on December 19, 2006 that the U.S. was not winning the war in Iraq. And at the time Reid made his statement, things had only gotten worse. If the improvements had not been made since then, I seriously doubt you would be hearing much about the Harry Reid statement.  

So this brings us back to the recent improvements in Iraq. Most sensible Americans know that Bush had different motives in mind when he went to war with Iraq. And he knows that those motives are well known now and are not sitting well with the voters. Therefore, there are efforts in place to improve the image of the Republicans before Election Day. If not for this reason, you have to admit that it does make you wonder about the timing of the Iraqi war improvements, especially when these improvements could have been obtained long before.