nypost.com
THANKS, MR. PRESIDENT
April 13, 2003 -- The Iraqi people who danced in the streets last week aren't the only ones with cause to rejoice.
Peace-loving folk everywhere are a whole lot better off this morning.
And make no mistake: No one deserves more credit for that than one man - George W. Bush.
It cannot be said enough: For his enormous contribution to the cause of peace, freedom and justice, the entire world owes a huge, huge debt of gratitude to the president of the United States.
President Bush stood like a rock for the past year - indeed, ever since the terrorists of 9/11 revealed to Americans the scope of the threats they faced.
"Some governments will be timid in the face of terror," Bush said in his 2002 State of the Union Address, just four months after the Pentagon and World Trade Center were hit. "If they do not act, America will."
And it did.
Bush rightly singled out Iraq, along with North Korea and Iran, as an "axis of evil" - bent on weapons of mass death, support for terror and subjugation of their people. He vowed that Saddam's regime would be disarmed. Or changed.
Saddam & Co. chose the latter; Bush made sure they got their wish.
This, of course, was no easy feat - despite what was, by history's standards, a remarkably quick victory.
Remember the run-up to this war.
Remember the political obstacles Bush faced - not just from abroad and at the United Nations, but also from Democrats pandering to the far left at home:
* Pusillanimous Parisians, morally bereft Berliners, mischievous Muscovites all teamed up and did everything possible to block the liberation of Iraq.
* Indeed, a good chunk of the world's citizens put their resentment of American power and rectitude, along with parochial economic interests, above the need to curb terror and free Iraq.
* At home, leading Democrats pandered to the antiwar crowd and called on Bush to knuckle under to foreign pressure - to allow the United Nations to steal America's right to self-defense, to "give the inspections time to work."
Even as the first bombs began to fall but a few short weeks ago, the Democratic leader in the Senate, Tom Daschle, said he was "saddened, saddened that the president failed so miserably" and that, as a result, "we're now forced to war."
One of the Democratic presidential front-runners, Sen. John Kerry, called Bush "inept" and "self-defeating."
Even Sen. Joe Lieberman, another top contender for the Democratic nomination (and a man who knows better), accused the Bush team of being "unilateralist" and "divisive" and pushing "a lot of the world away from us."
Surely Iraqis this week are thanking their lucky stars that the Supreme Court quashed a Florida court's effort to steal the 2000 election for Al Gore, who also opposed Bush's action.
Bush stood firm.
Now Iraq is free. Saddam's regime will no longer threaten anyone.
This page, of course, did not doubt Bush's resolve for one second.
When Bush "promises that America has 'an obligation to lead,' " we wrote last year, "you've got to believe that - one way or another - Saddam Hussein's long run in Iraq will be coming to an end."
But the world, for its part, couldn't find an award big enough to repay America's president for what he did in the name of peace, security and freedom.
Thank you, President Bush. America, at least, and Iraq are grateful. |
