U.S. Army Sgt. William Allen, a medic from 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, examines an Iraqi man during a reconnaissance patrol in Hammam Al Alill, Iraq, on Oct. 28, 2008. DoD photo by Staff Sgt. JoAnn Makinano, U.S. Air Force. (Released)From IBD Editorials:
The barbarism in Mumbai and the economic crisis at home have largely overshadowed an otherwise singular event: the ratification of military and strategic cooperation agreements between Iraq and the United States.
They must not pass unnoted. They were certainly noted by Iran, which fought fiercely to undermine the agreements. Tehran understood how a formal U.S.-Iraqi alliance endorsed by a broad Iraqi consensus expressed in a freely elected parliament changes the strategic balance in the region.
For the United States, it represents the single most important geopolitical advance in the region since Henry Kissinger turned Egypt from a Soviet client into an American ally.
If we don't blow it with too hasty a withdrawal from Iraq, we will have turned a chronically destabilizing enemy state at the epicenter of the Arab Middle East into an ally.
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