George W. Bush. . . . a man with a mission?

After 9-11, President Bush was of singular resolve it seemed. We must declare war on the terrorist forces that promote or facilitate terror. The America people were with him.

Now, however, the President's resolve to fight terror seems to have been replaced with a new agenda -- begin to dismantle the source of terror by establishing democracy in the middle east, i.e. Iraq. That is a defensible strategy, most likely, and one that the American people have been willing to support. It seems, on the face, to be closely related to the idea of getting rid of terrorists ultimately.

The problem with the whole agenda is that all of the President's tough talk counts for nothing in the face of IRaq's attempts to write a constitution. Just consider the "support" that the U.S. administration is giving to the idea that "Islamic" law will have a sizeable influence in the new Iraqi constitution.

From the Washington Times Insider

BAGHDAD -- U.S. diplomats have conceded ground to Islamists on the role of religion in Iraq, negotiators said yesterday as they raced to meet a 48-hour deadline to draft a constitution under intense American pressure.

Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish negotiators all said there was accord on a bigger role for Islamic law than Iraq had before.
But a secular Kurdish politician said Kurds opposed making Islam "the" -- not "a" -- main source of law and subjecting all legislation to a religious test.

"We understand the Americans have sided with the Shi'ites," he said. "It's shocking. It doesn't fit American values. They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state. ... I can't believe that's what the Americans really want or what the American people want."

U.S. diplomats, who have insisted the constitution must enshrine ideals of equal rights and democracy, declined comment.

The Bush administration, with 140,000 troops still in Iraq, has insisted Iraqis are free to govern themselves. But Washington also has made clear it will not approve the kind of clerical rule seen in Shi'ite Iran.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has guided intensive meetings since the Iraqi parliament averted its own dissolution a week ago by giving constitution drafters another week to resolve crucial differences over regional autonomy and division of oil revenues.

Failing to finish by midnight tomorrow could provoke new elections and, effectively, a return to the drawing board for the entire constitutional process.

Another extension may be more likely, as Washington insists the charter is key to its strategy to undermine the Sunni revolt and leave a new Iraqi government largely to fend for itself after U.S. troops go home.

Why does the administration lack the resolve to stand against such an idea? Could it be that the impulse that guided the President after 9-11 has been weakened and now he is afraid of seeming a failure in Iraq. Is the administration that desperate for some sign of "success."

Andy McCarthy of National Review Online hits it on the head.

There is grave reason to doubt that Islam and democracy (at least the Western version based on liberty and equality) are compatible. But that is an argument for another day. The argument for today is: the American people were never asked whether they would commit their forces to overseas hostilities for the purpose of turning Iraq into a democracy (we committed them (a) to topple a terror-abetting tyrant who was credibly thought both to have and to covet weapons of mass destruction, and (b) to kill or capture jihadists who posed a danger to American national security). I doubt they would have agreed to wage war for the purpose of establishing democracy.

But even if I suspended disbelief for a moment and agreed that the democracy project is a worthy casus belli, I am as certain as I am that I am breathing that the American people would not put their brave young men and women in harm’s way for the purpose of establishing an Islamic government. Anyplace.

It is not our place to fix what ails Islam. But it is utter recklessness to avert our eyes from the fact that militant Islam thrives wherever Islam reigns. That is a fact. When and where militant Islam thrives, America and the West are endangered. That is also a fact. How can we possibly be urging people who wisely don’t want it to accept the government-institutionalized supremacy of Islam?

If this democracy establishment stuff is about our national security, as we have been told, then it is unconscionable for the President, his advisers, and the ambassadors who represent us to sit by and let this happen. George W. Bush is off his mission. We must call him back to it.

We did not invade Iraq for humanitarian purposes, that was a happy by-product (a tyrrant was over thrown and people freed.) We invaded to make the U.S. and the world safer. Unless a real Western style constitution is established in Iraq, soon the Iraqi's will have been traded an Islamic "constitutional" dictatorship for a secular one. Not a real bargain. And the U.S. -- as McCArthy points out -- will be less safe.