NOW, SOBRIETY

Yes, we should celebrate, and I still am. After choking up much of yesterday afternoon, and being a little dazed watching the news last night, it’s hard to do anything but celebrate. This resembled the end of the Cold War because it was, in a different context, exactly the same thing. It’s the end of a vicious, oppressive dictatorship, that had clung on to power, with the help of the Soviet Union and France and China, well past its due date. As freedom has reached Eurasia, South America, and parts of the far east, since the end of Soviet communism, the Arab world remains cut off. We’ve just opened a supply line. It will be up to us and the Iraqis to make sure the freedom sticks, the line stays open, the tyranny doesn’t return – and that’s something that most of us, anti-war and pro-war, can surely agree on and do something to bring about. But, today, this morning, the war isn’t fully over; Tikrit hasn’t fallen; order hasn’t been restored; Saddamite remnants could still wreak havoc. None of this detracts from the victory. None of it. But it surely cautions us against hubris or over-confidence. We now have a country to restore and a long war still to wage.