Iraq - Three Years

The 3rd year anniversary of the freedom of Iraq has given birth to an abundance of articles reviewing the question of whether it was right or wrong. To get a thoughtful, fact filled review you had to go to the blogs and the magazines on the internet. If you read or watched the antique media one was pitched the same old Bush lied, people are suffering, it was a mistake, we should leave and Iraq is in the midst of a civil war. We would have been treated all week with all that crap if it weren't for Laura Ingraham thumping the MSM on NBC's Today show. Go Laura! For the rest of the week the MSM's biased reporting of Iraq became the news.
I was glad to see the Bush administration go out and start publicly talking about Iraq. Bush and Cheney had excellent speeches. Tony Blair spoke about Iraq too. His was great also.
Gatewaypundit had a great article with quotes from those who predicted doom and what actually happened.
One of the best articles I've read is J.R. Dunn's in the American Thinker. There are 3 parts and I've only read the first. They are a bit long but worth it. I particularly like his description of the U.S. Grand Strategy. Democrats say that Pres. Bush has no strategy to win the war. Dunn, however, lays it out.

What is the distinction between grand strategy and strategy per se? Grand strategy is the strategy of the long view, derived from national policy, involving a nation's long-term goals, its ideals, and its place in the world. As defined by B.H. Liddell-Hart, grand strategy involves

the actual direction of military force, as distinct from the policy governing its employment, and combining it with other weapons: economic, political, psychological.

and

George W. Bush's grand strategy for defeating terrorism is of the same order: to remake the region, replacing dictatorships with democracies in order to deprive terrorists of support – in Maoist terms, drying up the water in which the insurgent fish swim.

It is a bold concept, as sweeping as anything that has occurred in the Middle East since the collapse of the Ottomans. Its execution will require years, if not decades – it's no accident that the administration has taken to calling the effort “the Long War.”

I don't know why people fail to think long term. It's baffling that people expect a nation to just suddenly exist with all the parts of it's society in place. The Democrats I understand. They are just looking at the next election hoping to win it. At the end of the article Dunn say this:

A political solution is necessary to secure the military victories already won. This strategy will require patience, understanding, and willingness to overcome setbacks. Things are going to happen that we do not like. There will be disappointments and failures. These are not products of policy, but aspects of the human condition. None of them will be any reason to turn back or abandon the effort. Errors can corrected, failures can be overcome. And it should never be forgotten that, in the words of Churchill, the ongoing liberation of the Middle East remains “one of the great unsordid acts of history.”

I wish people realized that life doesn't go perfectly. We live constantly with our own errors and strive to press on in spite of them.
I like howIraq The Modeldescribes the US and Iraq:

Now the two strangers had to work together to accomplish a goal Iraqis knew almost nothing about; they knew that America wanted to topple Saddam and secure the oil fields but that's all they knew while America was thinking of a huge transformation for the entire Middle East with Iraq being the key to that transformation.
There was a wide gap between the two but we had no choice but to work together, because in a moment Iraqis didn't choose, America and a group of Iraqi ex-pat leaders were suddenly replacing a regime that controlled everything for too long.

He too asks the question, was it right to remove Saddam? His answer is a resounding YES! He also anticipates the hope for a better future even through the difficulties Iraq faces now.

We had to accept the change and live with all that would come along with it whether good or bad.
The democracy we're practicing today in Iraq is the exact opposite of what we had for decades and until three years ago. This democracy carries the essence of life, the differences, the dynamics and yes, the failures but also the seed of a better future.

Let us not lose hope in doing good, for in due time we shall reap, if we do not grow. Galatians 6:9