Readers who’ve visited LFR for any amount of time know that I’m a big fan of Ralph Peters. After reading his NY Post op-ed on Saddam’s execution, I can proudly recommend that you read his entire op-ed. Here’s two of my favorite paragraphs:

Everything changed in 2003. For all of its later errors in Iraq, the Bush administration altered the course of history for the better.

It may be hard to discern the deeper meaning of our march to Baghdad amid the chaos afflicting Iraq today, but President Bush got a great thing right: He recognized that the age of dictators was ending, that the era of the popular will had arrived. He and his advisers may have underestimated the difficulties involved and misread the nature of that popular will, but they put us back on the moral side of history.

Ralph Peters isn’t a Bush apologist but he’s an honest man who calls things as he sees them. He’s right that President Bush put us on the morally right side of history by vanquishing a tyrant like Saddam. That’s why I believe history will regard George W. Bush’s accomplishments as historic. I’d doubt that they’ll consider him a great president on a par with Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR & Reagan but I’ll guarantee that they won’t be able to ignore his liberating 50 million Afghani and Iraqi people within months of each other.

They won’t be able to ignore the thugs that those wars uprooted and killed. They won’t be able to ignore the images that those wars produced, the ink-stained fingers of the first legitimate Iraqi elections held just 23 months ago to the day of Saddam’s execution. They won’t be able to ignore the video of a Saddam being lifted out of that infamous spiderhole north of Tikrit that made him look little. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said:

“Here was a man who was photographed hundreds of times shooting off rifles and showing how tough he was, and in fact, he wasn’t very tough, he was cowering in a hole in the ground, and had a pistol and didn’t use it and certainly did not put up any fight at all,” Rumsfeld said. “In the last analysis, he seemed not terribly brave,” he said.

They won’t be able to ignore the fear the attack on Iraq had on Qaddafi, either, even though John Kerry tried trivializing it.

Here’s another great section of Col. Peter’s op-ed:

Supported by other English-speaking democracies, Bush acted. Breaking Europe’s cynical rules, our forces invaded a dictatorship to liberate its population. And suddenly, the world was no longer safe for tyrants. No matter the policy failures in the wake of Baghdad’s fall, the destruction of Saddam’s regime remains a historical turning point. When our troops later dragged the dictator out of a fetid hole, every other president-for-life shivered at the image.

What wonderful, vivid imagery Col. Peters evokes with his writing. Unfortunately, not all “presidents-for-life” learn from other’s lessons. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shows no signs of worrying about meeting the same fate that Saddam met this morning. How sweet it would be to see Old Mahmoud meet the same fate as Saddam.

Technorati Tags: Saddam Hussein, Dictators, Middle East, Ahmadinejad, Ralph Peters

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. [...] Cross-posted at California Conservative Categories: Iraq, Iran, Corruption, Tyrants | [...]

   Pingback by Let Freedom Ring » Blog Archive » Saturday’s Must Reading — December 30, 2006 @ 11:08 am

1. Peters is a national treasure. I posted on the same New York Post piece as well. Excellent work citing him! Take care!

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   Comment by Donald Douglas — January 3, 2007 @ 6:05 pm