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Monday, January 31, 2005In his MSNBC column, the mighty Instapundit mentions a man who should get more credit for events in Iraq this week: Bill Clinton.Now, I'm about as far from Clinton lover as they come, but, he's right. While the Clinton years were, in ways, "a sabbatical," as President Bush said, a sabbatical can be used to gather one's thoughts about what's next. Clinton's holding actions in Iraq, and his signing of the Iraq Liberation Act may not have changed the world overnight, but they stood as reminders to the world that America had not forgotten about Iraq and had not stopped paying attention to the dangers posed by Saddam. And when the time came to act, Clinton's record was sitting right there, a reminder that Saddam was not a bugbear of presidents named Bush but a universally acknowledged threat to the stability of his region and as a scourge upon humanity. We can argue about whether Clinton could have or should have done more. In rebuttal, one might suggest that before 9/11 it would have been next to impossible to galvanize the public behind an undertaking like our Iraq effort. After all, even post-9/11 a certain percentage of the country regards terrorism as a nasty trick to justify contracts for Halliburton and power for Bush. If 3,000 bodies aren't enough to convince some that there's an enemy we need to oppose, what chance did Clinton have? In signing the Iraq Liberation Act and launching the occasional cruise missile, Clinton may have done less than was needed, in hindsight. But at least he was on the right side. Which leaves this Republican shaking his head and wondering: How did the Democrats, after 8 years of Clinton, drag up such a cast of people who were a step down? 
posted by gbarto at 8:19 PM |
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