Home
In this issue
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Nov. 19, 2007 / 9 Kislev 5768

Looking at Iraq in macrotime

By Michael Barone


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | When my father returned from service as an Army doctor in Korea in 1953, he brought back slides of the photos he'd shot, showing a war-torn country of incredible poverty. We would have laughed if you had told us that Americans would one day buy Korean cars. But 50-some years later, South Korea has the 13th-largest economy in the world, and you see Hyundais and Kias everywhere in America. Looking at things in microtime frames is not always a reliable guide to the macrotime-frame future.


" So it may turn out to be with Iraq. We have been looking at Iraq in microtime frames — or, for many who oppose the war, frozen in the time frame of late 2006. A better picture of the microtime frame is that we have achieved considerable success this year. "The trend toward better security is indisputable," writes the Associated Press. U.S. military and civilian deaths have declined sharply. Anbar province is pacified, Iraqis are streaming back to Baghdad, and al Qaeda in Iraq is on the run. Time's Joe Klein, a critic of the administration, admits the gains and advises Democrats not to try to cut off funds. Conservative columnist Tony Blankley claims "a very real expectation that next year the world may see a genuine, old-fashioned victory in the Iraq war."


American media are presenting less reporting from Iraq, partly because some in the media believe that good news in Iraq is not news. Some Democratic congressional leaders still maintain that the surge strategy has made no difference, and they seek a vote on troop withdrawal. But Democratic presidential candidates, more closely attuned perhaps to changes in events and opinion, are talking less about withdrawing from Iraq and more about what we should do (or should not do) about Iran.


Hopeful signs. Let's look, however, not just at the microtime frame but the macrotime frame. Yes, violence could re-escalate, as Klein predicts. But within sight is a far more hopeful trajectory. In the long run of history, our involvement in Iraq is starting to look less like a descent into a hopeless quagmire and a more unstable Middle East. Remember that in early 2005 the successful initial invasion and the specter of a possibly democratic Iraq prompted Libya's Muammar Qadhafi to give up his weapons of mass destruction and Syria to withdraw troops in the face of the "cedar revolution" in Lebanon. The increasing violence in Iraq in late 2005 and all of 2006 was accompanied by the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, the increasing menace of Iran, Syria's continued bullying of Lebanon, and other dire developments.

Donate to JWR


There was similar back-and-forth in Korea: Communists nearly driving the United States off the peninsula, then the successful Inchon landing and push to the Yalu River boundary with China, then the Chinese counteroffensive that resulted in a stalemate roughly along the 38th parallel. Each of those developments suggested a very different future trajectory; the one that turned out to be lasting was the maintenance of a non-Communist South Korea that over several decades became first prosperous and then democratic. That example gave impetus to similar developments in east Asia and even China, which adopted a system of authoritarian government and market economics reminiscent of 1970s South Korea. Harry Truman was regarded as a failed president, with job ratings below George W. Bush's. But the long-term verdict on his Korea policy is much more positive.


An Iraq that is reasonably stable, fairly democratic, more prosperous and productive than the Middle Eastern standard: This seems to be at least one possible trajectory from the success of the surge. That would be a considerable achievement, with positive reverberations for decades to come. In time the back-and-forth between victory, then rout, then acceptable but incomplete success that we saw in Korea — the microtime frames that seemed so important at the time — was mostly forgotten. And the qualified but substantial progress achieved in the macrotime frame, in Korea and in the dangerous region around it, dominated our view. We have now some basis to hope that something similar happens in Iraq and the dangerous region around it. We are still far from the "broad, sunlit uplands" that Winston Churchill pointed to in the distance after disaster was narrowly averted at Dunkirk. But we seem to be getting closer.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

BARONE'S LATEST
The New Americans  

Now, more than ever, the melting pot must be used to keep America great. Barone attacks multiculturalism and anti-American apologists--but he also rejects proposals for building a wall to keep immigrants out, or rounding up millions of illegals to send back home. Rather, the melting pot must be allowed to work (as it has for centuries) to teach new Americans the values, history, and unique spirit of America so they, too, can enjoy the American dream.. Sales help fund JWR.

JWR contributor Michael Barone is a columnist at U.S. News & World Report. Comment by clicking here.




Michael Barone Archives

© 2006, US News & World Report

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works