Progress?

Saddam's number 2 wants peace. He is the supposed leader of the non-Wahhabist, Sunni Insurgency.

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/22/report-saddams-number-two-alleged-leader-of-insurgency-wants-to-be-friends/

Is it bullshit? Who knows? Let's sign him up let him prove...through actions...that he's down. Hey, the fact is, if these guys want to surrender, that's fine with me...and we should treat them not graciously, but fair. It will shows that it pays much more to be our friend than our enemy. One of America's great historical accomplishment is how we have been able to convert former enemies to friends. First, the British, then the Southern states, later Germany and Japan. Iraq can follow that model, if we are both wise, tough, and generous.

On a totally other side note re: Iraq...and why it still puzzles me...liberals tend to view "others" (ie Iraqis) as potential friends and fundamentally decent people. If we are to believe in that premise, that Iraqis are essentially good and friendly people who want nothing more than to live peaceably and be friends with us and their neighbors...we should stay until that presumably real possibility becomes true.

And it tends to be the conservative premise that "others" are threats to be managed, that our interest in Iraq should simply be keeping them in line...and hence a strongman is fine so long as it is the most cost-effective way to keep our interests.

Now...I'm talking about where we are now...the liberals seem to take the position that Iraqis are fundamentally a tribal culture, unwilling to be at peace with either their neighbors or themselves, and that we, by being there, are simply pawns in their own civil conflict. In short, they are not our friends, they do not want peace the way we understand it, they don't want friendship with us or their neighors...that while there might be enlightened exceptions, most Iraqis simply want power for their tribe. Our presense only excerbates the fundamentally tribal problem and further, costs Americans a great deal of money and blood.

Ironically, it is many conservatives who want to stay...but I don't think it has so much to do with their basic faith in Iraqis. It has to do with the idea of honor and duty and to see the job through. It also has to do with "winning" and proving the other side (on the one hand, AQ and the insurgency, and on the other hand the anti-war folks) was wrong.

While I recognize that my support of the Iraq war has not always been for the same reasons as Bush and company, I haven't been able to push myself over to the "liberal" side. I cannot become invested in an American defeat, and especially not when fighting against various forms of fascism - religious and secular. My position is certainly open to criticism and even naivete for supporting a project whose stated reasons were different from my own. But between the two options I supported the war b/c I thought it was worth a shot and now that we're there have enough reasons to think we can win the peace.