Much will be made, rightly, of Howard Dean’s defeatist statement declaring that the United States can’t and won’t win in Iraq. What I find to be worst of his statements, though, is buried in a little sentence inside the story--a little sentence that might give people with short memories the wrong impression on the choices that the United States had before deciding to go to war with Saddam Hussein.

President Bush got rid of Saddam Hussein and that was a great thing, but that could have been done in a very different way.

While that first bit is merely ass covering. It takes away the possible finger-pointing retort of, “What, you would prefer that Saddam Hussein were still in power?” But Dean, demonstrably, does not mean that it was a great thing that Saddam Hussein was removed.

See, there was no other option in methods; the military option--war--was the only way to remove Saddam Hussein and that portion of the war was handled brilliantly. Saddam’s regime toppled in a matter of weeks under a furious focused aerial assault followed by the “race to Baghdad.” While the handling of the reconstruction hasn’t been as successful (although I’d say it’s far too early to say that we can’t win--and it’s telling that the people of Iraq and our deployed military forces feel more optimistic about the future of Iraq than does America’s general population) that isn’t the part that Dean was criticizing.

What, I am forced to wonder, were our other options? Maintaining the no-fly zones indefinitely (and at some cost) to protect Iraqi citizens from Saddam’s vindictive streak? Doing our best to drum up support for sanctions--again, indefinitely--since international support was wavering and the pressure for “normalizing” relations with the dictator was growing? That critique was somewhat justified; the sanctions were doing little to hurt Saddam and much to hurt his citizens. Or perhaps we should have continued to support the flawed and corrupt oil-for-food plan that enriched the morally bankrupt under the guise of helping Iraq’s poor? Again, we’d have to have supported that indefinitely.

There was no sign of weakening of the regime and it would probably have taken decades for Saddam to fall--only to be replaced by one of his sons or some other, typical, third world strongman. One of the most important things for the maintenance of a regime is energy resources, and Iraq happens to sit on one of the richest and most abundant energy stores in the world. This fairly guaranteed energy production for the country, money for the regime, and the ability to maintain the dictatorship indefinitely.

Iraq was a war of choice, I would agree, but the number of choices in dealing with Saddam Hussein was somewhat limited. And given his proven aggression, his reserves of oil, and the proximity to so many other oil producing countries, strategically it made little sense to normalize relations and allow him to rebuild his military apparatus.

What Dean really meant to say was, “Removing Saddam Hussein was great, but I wouldn’t have made the choices that actually lead to that removal.” It takes a complete nutter like Ramsey Clark to think that the world would be better off if Hussein were still in power, the only true option for his removal was a military option. And once we removed Hussein from power in a war of choice, we also took on an obligation to help rebuild Iraq.

That obligation is both moral and practical in nature. On the moral side, it would have been quite simply wrong to leave a power vacuum in Iraq where the various political and religious factions descended into civil war and the body count would have been terrifying; that is the situation we would have left behind. The second situation that we would likely have left behind was a new race to Baghdad as Iran moved to conquer her former enemy. Only an American military presence kept that from happening during the reconstruction, and only a continued American presence keeps it from happening while Iraq is still weak.

On the practical side, it makes sense for us to want one of the world’s richest proven oil producing countries, one of the most influential countries in the Middle East, and one of the most industrialized countries in the Middle East following the same path toward liberalization as Turkey. That is, not a perfect democracy, not entirely allied to US needs, but not dangerous or aggressive toward her neighbors.

Dean is suggesting that there was some magical third way that would have avoided all of the bad bits that came from Hussein’s removal. I have yet to see an adult suggestion of what this third path might have looked like, and I doubt that I ever will. Politics of this kind revolve around tough choices that all have some negative involved in what you hope is a greater good--and that goes for pacifism or any form of isolationism as much as it goes for this kind of a military operation.

This post is running to the terrifyingly long side, but allow me this one last thought: Dean’s (and, it is increasingly obvious, the Democrats’ solution of a speedy draw down in military power, with an immediate withdrawal of the National Guard and Reserves and near-term re-deployment of regular military forces, is a dangerous plan. It would leave Iraq’s still-to-fragile government in a nasty fight with terrorists who cannot stand the idea of a constitution based on something other than blind obedience to their interpretation of Quranic law.

Such a quick retreat would also have the potential effect of emboldening regional enemies—and an attack launched from someone like Iran is not something that we could ignore. The upshot is that the Dean plan, far from removing us from the situation, could very well have the effect of involving us in another war.

Take Dean’s words and advice for what they are: a flawed understanding of the situation that lead to our military involvement in Iraq and an even more flawed solution to the difficulties that we still face.

Read the story.
McGehee is thankful for Dean. Understandably.
Update: And, of course, Michelle Malkin rounds up some good reactions to Dean’s statements, too.
And we have been kindly linked by Ed Driscoll who has his own thoughts about Dean and the Democrats.