Congressman Thaddeus McCotter, Chairman of the Republican House Policy Committee, pens a piece worth reading at RedState today. McCotter argues that the Iraqi national Parliament is not a leading indicator of progress on political reconciliation, but a lagging one:
This Iraqi “election for freedom” is not an intrinsically military development. It is fundamentally a political development complementing and speeding military progress; and hastening the day such individual and local “grassroots” political wins collectively dictate political progress in Baghdad. Let us, as the sovereign citizens of our free republic, ever remember how in representative democracies Parliaments and Congresses do not dictate to sovereign citizens; sovereign citizens dictate to Parliaments and Congresses. Thus, in Iraq each citizen in his or her respective tribe, town and province must inform and consent to federal laws being enacted, implemented, and honored; and, when this consent is individually granted in sufficient numbers, Iraq will complete its transformational emancipation from tyranny to liberty. Further, let us, as the sovereign citizens of our free republic, ever remember how we cannot abandon Iraq’s fledgling democracy – or any democracy – under terrorist attack. The War for Freedom must be won through ideological, political, economic, diplomatic and – as an ultimate resort – martial means. If the U.S. abandons Iraq’s democracy, we will also abandon our and the entire free world’s inherited legacy of and professed commitment to freedom. If this betrayal of ourselves and the Iraqis occurs, our enemies will be empowered and we will be ideologically disarmed in the face of the enemy. If not liberty, what political principle will a discredited and defeated U.S. promote to turn the Middle East’s oppressed away from Al Qaeda’s extremism?
Opponents of engagement in Iraq frequently argue that there’s no ‘military solution.’ McCotter makes pretty clear that supporters would agree. Ultimately, stability in Iraq can only come from disparate groups deciding that their best chance for peace and progress lay in compromise. But as in so much of our politics, Congress does not lead the people–Congress follows. McCotter makes plain why we can’t hold the bums in Baghdad to a higher standard than the bums in Washington. Read the whole thing.
