State of the Union

In his Second Inaugual, delivered as the Civil War was still in progress, Abraham Lincoln reflected on a war whose initial purpose was to save the Union, but later changed into one to end slavery.

The government, Lincoln said, initially had not sought to end slavery, but rather "claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it." 

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. . . .  Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding.

But “[a]ll knew that this interest [of slavery] was somehow the cause of war.”

It has become an urban myth that the war in Iraq was sold as one to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, with the cause of freedom added later, after those weapons were not found.  Such an expanded purpose has an honorable precedent in the Civil War, but the truth is that freedom was always the central purpose of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

This is what George Bush said to the troops at MacDill Air Force Base on March 26, 2003 — six days into the war — as American forces marched toward Baghdad for an anticipated confrontation with Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard:

We cannot know the duration of this war, but we are prepared for the battle ahead. We cannot predict the final day of the Iraqi regime, but I can assure you, and I assure the long-suffering people of Iraq, there will be a day of reckoning for the Iraqi regime, and that day is drawing near. . . .

Our entire coalition has a job to do, and it will not end with the liberation of Iraq. We will help the Iraqi people to find the benefits and assume the duties of self-government.

The form of those institutions will arise from Iraq’s own culture and its own choices. Yet, this much is certain: The 24 million people of Iraq have lived too long under a violent criminal gang calling itself a government.

[Iraqis] deserve better than a life spent bowing before a dictator. The people of Iraq deserve to stand on their feet as free men and women — the citizens of a free country.

This goal of a free and peaceful Iraq unites our coalition. And this goal comes from the deepest convictions of America. The freedom you defend is the right of every person and the future of every nation. . .

This evening’s State of the Union will be remembered for the demands upon Syria, the call for democracy in Egypt, the support for a Palestinian civil society necessary for a democratic state to emerge, and the statement of support for the enslaved Iranian people.

Together with the extraordinary moments of an Iraqi woman holding up her blue-stained finger, alternating it over and over again with a two-finger victory sign, and then returning the long embrace of the mother of a fallen Marine, the words and images of this State of the Union captured the purpose of this war — one articulated by President Bush in its opening days.

As for the war’s achievements, Youssef M. Ibrahim, former senior Middle East correspondent for The New York Times, writing in yesterday’s USA Today, described where things stand now, after an election in Iraq less than two years after Bush’s speech to the troops:

Thanks to intensive satellite coverage aimed at a television-driven culture, some 200 million Arabs watched at homes, clubs and coffee shops, aghast at how wrong they may have gotten some of the Iraq equation.

American occupation or not, their Iraqi brethren left no doubt that they were thrilled. They flocked to voting stations in Basra, Mosul and Baghdad and to polling centers set up abroad for expatriate Iraqis in Syria, Jordan and Iran to choose a government.

In interview after interview, Iraqis said such things as, "It is like a wedding . . . It is a great day . . . This is history." . . .

So it follows that these events shall not pass without consequences — especially because Iraq will be there, a living, breathing and evolving model. And, unlike Palestine, Iraq is a pillar of Arab and Muslim civilization.

Then, of course, there will be the day after tomorrow, when Iraqi-elected representatives, men and women, will sit in one of those Arab League summit meetings, no longer shy or demure vis-à-vis the other 21 Arab member nations.

They will be able to look the others straight in the eye, knowing that Iraqis possess a legitimacy not shared by anyone else. . . .

As things stand right now, the whole Middle East political map is up for change.

Fire in the minds of men.