WASHINGTON (BP)–President Bush’s new strategy for the Iraq war has drawn the support of an ethics professor instrumental in framing the “just war” moral framework adopted by President George H.W. Bush for the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
In comments to Baptist Press, Daniel Heimbach, professor of Christian ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., voiced support for “the President’s challenge to maintain vision and fortitude. Americans should neither give way nor give up. Rather we must persevere.” Heimbach credited President Bush with “responsible visionary leadership in a world that sees far too little of this precious commodity.”
Heimbach cited three reasons for his support of Bush’s war policy:
1) “[T]he President is right and the Democratic response is wrong to claim the situation in Iraq is deteriorating. It is grave, but has been getting progressively better over time,” Heimbach said. “It is better today than a year ago, and was better a year ago than two years ago. This is a time to persevere and not lose heart.”
2) “[I]t is irresponsible for the Democratic response to unfairly exaggerate the nature of the fighting in Iraq by categorizing it as a civil war. There is no opposition government, and differences among the Iraqi people are neither intractable nor irreconcilable,” Heimbach said. “The severity of fighting in Iraq is more a measure of foreign insurgency than domestic division, and the American presence is needed to keep that insurgency from destroying the steady progress being made toward domestic cooperation. Christians should not dignify fighting in Iraq in terms of civil war, not only because that is not actually the case, but also because that is the exact misperception the terrorist insurgency wishes to promote.”
3) “[I]t is dangerously unwise to focus American attention on the price of war in Iraq without weighing the true value of what is at stake or the likelihood achieving significant progress. Christians must be careful to neither under- nor overstate the price of war in Iraq. And while that price is a serious matter, it is presently very far from qualifying as anything truly ‘heavy’ compared to what Americans have born in other wars.
“Our likelihood of success is in fact high because we have been making significant progress over the last few years, and the value of what is being achieved in Iraq — the value of democratic self-government and opposition to religious terrorism — is well worth the cost we anticipate paying.”
President Bush, in a prime-time address to the nation Jan. 10, said he believes the new strategy will help the United States succeed in the fight against terror. Bush called the struggle “noble and necessary,” and he reiterated that the “advance of freedom is the calling of our time.”
“Fellow citizens: The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice and resolve,” the president said from the White House library. “It can be tempting to think that America can put aside the burdens of freedom. Yet times of testing reveal the character of a nation. And throughout our history, Americans have always defied the pessimists and seen our faith in freedom redeemed.
“Now America is engaged in a new struggle that will set the course for a new century,” Bush said. “We can, and we will, prevail. We go forward with trust that the Author of Liberty will guide us through these trying hours.”
Bush acknowledged that in 2006 the “vicious cycle of sectarian violence” between Sunnis and Shiites overwhelmed the political gains that Iraqis made at the polls one year ago, and he took the blame for wrong decisions.
“The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me,” Bush said.
Success or failure in Iraq will determine the direction of the global war on terror, the president said, and on Sept. 11, 2001, America learned what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world can bring to the streets of U.S. cities.
“For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq,” Bush said.
Because security, especially in Baghdad, is the most urgent priority in Iraq, the president announced he is sending more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq, with five brigades to serve in Baghdad alongside Iraqi troops.
Past efforts to secure Baghdad failed because there were not enough troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists, Bush said, but this time the force levels should be sufficient.
“Now let me explain the main elements of this effort: The Iraqi government will appoint a military commander and two deputy commanders for their capital,” he said. “The Iraqi government will deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad’s nine districts. When these forces are fully deployed, there will be 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades committed to this effort, along with local police. These Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations — conducting patrols and setting up checkpoints, and going door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents.”
He also noted that the Iraqi government will be held accountable.
“If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people,” the president said.
Americans should not be surprised when violence continues and the enemy perseveres, Bush said.
“Our enemies in Iraq will make every effort to ensure that our television screens are filled with images of death and suffering,” he said. “Yet over time, we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad’s residents.”
Departing from his preference, Bush set a timetable: To establish its authority, the Iraqi government will take responsibility for security in all of Iraq’s provinces by November, he said.
The new American strategy includes acceleration of the training of Iraqi forces along with renewed reconstruction efforts, a plan for dealing with Iran and Syria, and the use of America’s full diplomatic resources to rally support for Iraq from Middle East nations, Bush said.
“The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time,” the president said. “… In the long run, the most realistic way to protect the American people is to provide a hopeful alternative to the hateful ideology of the enemy by advancing liberty across a troubled region.”
Victory, Bush said, will not look like the ones that previous generations of Americans secured around the world.
“There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship. But victory in Iraq will bring something new in the Arab world — a functioning democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties and answers to its people,” he said.
After the president’s 20-minute address, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois delivered the Democratic response to the revised war strategy, echoing the conclusion of the Iraq Study Group that the situation there is “grave and deteriorating.”
“Escalation of this war is not the change the American people called for in the last election,” Durbin said. “Instead of a new direction, the president’s plan moves the American commitment in Iraq in the wrong direction.”
Durbin said 20,000 American soldiers are too few to end the “civil war” in Iraq and too many American lives to risk on top of the more than 3,000 the nation already has lost on Iraqi soil.
“America has paid a heavy price,” he said. “… And we have given the Iraqis so much…. Now, in the fourth year of this war, it is time for the Iraqis to stand and defend their own nation.”
Durbin called for the “orderly redeployment of our troops so that they can begin coming home soon,” and he said that rather than a surge in the number of troops on the ground, America needs a surge in diplomacy.
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