A Few on the Left See the Essential Truth

THE NEW REPUBLIC is a Left wing organ so it can be safely assumed that it is not hospitable to the Bush administration.

However, there are members of the Left, as well as moderate Democrats like Joe Lieberman, who see the geopolitical situation we face vis a vis global terror in its proper context.

Fareed Zakaria writes in TNR

...since we are listing mistakes, the biggest one many opponents of the war are making is to claim that Iraq is a total distraction from the war on terrorism. In fact, Iraq is central to that conflict. I don't mean this in the deceptive and dishonest sense that many in the Bush administration have claimed. There is no connection between Saddam's regime and the terrorists of September 11. But there is a deep connection between his regime and the terrorism of September 11. The root causes of Islamic terrorism lie in the dysfunctional politics of the Middle East, where failure and repression have produced fundamentalism and violence. Political Islam grew in stature as a mystical alternative to the wretched reality--secular dictatorships--that have dominated the Arab world. A new Iraq provides an opportunity to break this perverse cycle. The country is unlikely to become a liberal democracy any time soon. But it might turn out to be a pluralistic state that gives minorities limited protections, allows for some political participation, and has a reasonably open society. That would be a revolution in the Arab world.

No article in TNR would be complete without its share of denigrating the conduct and honesty of the Bush administration, but it's refreshing to have a disagreement on the tactics of handling terrorism instead of attacks on "BushHitler" and "brownshirts."

Accepting terrorism as a police problem and our willingness to accept pinpricks, losing a few sailors here, a few marines there, a blown up embassy, got us to 9/11. That strategy has failed, and failed spectacularly.

The Left today has no solution to the war we are in. They never gave their full support to the US in past wars (remember that the Left was against the fight against the Nazis until the USSR was attacked and Stalin gave the order for an about-face on World War II).

They have no solutions ... but they are first class ankle biters.