Christopher Hitchens is optimistic about Iraq. His article at Slate concludes with this:
If all goes even reasonably well, and if a combination of elections and prosperity is enough to draw more mainstream Sunnis into politics and away from Baathist nostalgia, it will have been proved that Bin-Ladenism can be taken on-and openly defeated-in a major Middle Eastern country. And not just defeated but discredited. Humiliated. Is there anyone who does not think that this is a historic prize worth having? Worth fighting for, in fact?
I leave that thought with all those who have been advocating withdrawal, or taking a fatalistic attitude to an overrated "insurgency," or who hold the absurd belief that al-Qaida would have left Iraq alone if only we had done the same. If their advice had been followed, and the coalition had pulled out in 2004, the Zarqawi forces would have tried to take the credit, and their boast might even have been believed. This would have been a calamity of a global and epochal order. Now, however difficult and messy the rest of the transition, that at least will never be the outcome.
Reading the whole thing is worth the time.
Hillary Clinton said Monday that "This administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country." The wife of the man who slept and dithered while al Qaeda plotted should be more careful about her asseverations of incompetence, but that notwithstanding, she couldn't be more wrong. If things continue on their present course in Iraq, the economy remains strong, and Bush is able to reform either social security or immigration policy, he will probably be viewed by historians as one of the most accomplished presidents since Roosevelt, and perhaps since Lincoln.
He has liberated 50 million people from oppression, successfully (so far) prevented a terrorist attack on our soil, presided over an economic recovery in very difficult circumstances (inheriting a recession, 9/11, and several very costly natural disasters), appointed two (and perhaps yet a third) extremely competent jurists to the Supreme Court, has done more for the status of minorities and women in his cabinet than anyone before him, and has done all this in the face of constant vitriolic calumnies from his political opponents, without ever returning their fire in kind. He has shown far more grace, virtue and class than have the carping, vitriolic, ankle-biters who, out of sheer hatred, attack every move he has made.
Few presidents have accomplished even a fraction of what George Bush has achieved, especially in the face of such relentless and withering opposition, and surely, pace Mrs. Clinton, his predecessor did not.