Charles Krauthammer is a genius. His column today talks about something that's been bumping around the back of my mind in several pieces for a few weeks now. But I couldn't put it together.
Now, anybody who has ever talked with me about Iraq knows that I'm a huge supporter of what we're doing there. I think it was something that had to be done... both to "drain the swamp" of terrorism funding, and to remove a murderous madman from power. But just for a second, let's assume that the people who are against this war are right, and the whole thing was a mistake.
Even if that were true, Bush's record in the terrorism war would still be 1-1. Afghanistan was a complete and unqualified success on half a dozen different fronts. People forget all the predictions of disaster, and all the obstacles we had to overcome there. But we did, and we replaced a murderous, totalitarian, terrorist regime with a democracy where women now freely walk the streets and people are actually VOTING. Even if Iraq was a mistake, doesn't Bush deserve a huge amount of credit for that?
As Krauthammer says:
"Who do you want as president? The man who conceived the Afghan campaign, carried it through without flinching when it was being called a "quagmire'' during its second week, and has seen it through to Afghanistan's transition to democracy? Or the retroactive genius, who always knows what needs to be done after it has already happened -- who would have done "everything'' differently in Iraq, yet in Afghanistan would have replicated Bush's every correct, courageous, radical and risky decision -- except one. Which, of course, he would have done differently. He says. Now."
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