After Iraq…

With overwhelming U.S. victory in the war with Iraq a foregone conclusion, it is not premature to focus on what happens next. But this focus should not only be on how to “mop up” the pockets of resistance that will remain in Iraq (like what we are fighting in Afghanistan). We must expand our new and courageous “unilateralist, preemptive” policies to other states that sponsor terrorism.

Iran is the most obvious target. It is from Iran that anti-Western ideas emanate the strongest (and are spread to other nations). A nuclear-armed Iran cannot be allowed to stand. But the difference with Iran is that not a single aircraft or soldier would have to be committed in order to topple the regime. There is already a very strong undercurrent of dissent among the younger generation in Iran. They are students who value the Western ideals of freedom and long for Western “materialistic” pleasures like jeans, sneakers, and rock music. This profoundly pro-Western ideology is what sets this generation apart from the one that brought about Iran’s current theocratic dictatorship in the late 1970’s. That revolution was adamantly anti-Western.

What this current group of Iranian dissidents requires more than anything else is U.S. support – in the form of ideological encouragement as well as materials like communications equipment (or weapons, if necessary). This support is different from our assistance to many other groups in the past (for example, the Afghan resistance in the 1980’s). Those groups shared no values with the West and were merely biding their time until they could turn our own weapons against us.

Syria’s aid to Iraq during the current war makes it another necessary target. Like Iran, there is a hatred of Western values and a support for terrorists. In addition, Saudi Arabia’s monarchy must be made to realize that it still exists merely because we allow it to. Evidence of its support for radical Islam could not be clearer. The Wahabbi training schools must be shut down. We must also make it clear that we reserve the right (actually, the duty) to seize Saudi Arabia’s oilfields and return them to the Western companies from which they were nationalized (i.e, stolen) by the Saudi government many years ago.

But what of the financial costs of preemptively protecting our interests? There should be no question that the primary duty of a government is the protection of its citizens. So, it is time for the statists in our government to put the money where the rhetoric is and to do some “sacrificing” of their own for the war effort: Increase military pay; End the unconstitutional welfare programs, farm subsidies, and government-funded railroad; Open the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as well as the waters of California and Florida to oil and gas exploration.

America is most differentiated from the nations that hate it because it was built on the strengths of the capitalists in the private sector. They must be set free to succeed or to fail on their own merits, not through government handouts (and the record shows that their successes will dwarf their failures). The government must do what it is constitutionally required to do (and nothing more) – protect the rights of these producers and protect the lives of American citizens.