John Bunzel is a Democrat, a former president of San Jose State University, a former member of the U.S. Human Rights Commission, and currently a Stanford political scientist. In a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed, he delivers a powerful justification of why he still supports our nation's course in Iraq, why this is NOT another Vietnam, and what is wrong with the morally-superior tone of today's outraged, hyperbolic anti-war Left.

Americans have struggled hard with the issue of Iraq, whether they are Democrats (I include myself) or Republicans, liberals or conservatives....a dilemma that helps to explain why Bush's war policies have been met more often with muted and passive alienation than large-scale activism. Another reason is that Iraq is not Vietnam. "The Vietnamese did not carry out suicide attacks on their own people," the New York Times columnist David Brooks has pointed out, "or go around the world rioting over cartoons or fly planes into skyscrapers." The war in Iraq has an element of "existential menace" that Vietnam did not have.

...over Iraq (though not always comfortable with my position), I thought the war, on balance, was a risk worth taking....I never believed that overthrowing Saddam Hussein by force was morally unjustified. I also disagreed with the anti-war activists who claimed that being firmly opposed to war against Hussein was some sort of litmus test of one's moral identity, as if one's stand on the war revealed one's personal character....I feel ill-disposed to those who would limit the bounds of serious thought and discussion by presuming a self-confirming moral superiority.

....Americans now want out of this war. They also know there is no cost-free way to leave -- that the decisions to be made involve tough choices about what risks are worth taking and what consequences may follow. As events unfold, it may turn out that Iraqis will tell us whether to stay or go, and when. But we should not forget that a majority of Americans were sympathetic to the goal, and always understood the value, of helping Iraqis fight for a democratizing outcome. This is perhaps one of the strongest reasons why a big, angry anti-war movement has not taken to the streets by the hundreds of thousands. At least not yet.

In the meantime, amidst the ongoing violence, the new speaker of the Iraqi parliament, a Sunni, is calling for political negotiation and compromise as the only way forward to a peaceful Iraq. In the U.S., fellow Congressional Democrats are cool to the NYT op-ed proposal from U.S. Sen. Joe Biden (D-Delaware) and Leslie H. Gelb that Iraq be carved into three nations. They say if that happens, it's something the Iraqis have to decide, not us.

Despite the screaming daily headlines of the misfortune hunters, the world is safer with Saddam's deposal, Iraq's fortunes are advancing, significantly, as the infrastructure of liberty is painstakingly constructed. Saddam's desperate grandstanding at his trial for multiple instances for genocide fails to diminish the political importance of this quest for real healing, and real social justice - terms which are usually thrown around all too carelessly.

Some wish the good old days for Iraq. I'm not one of them.

TECHNORATI TAGS: JOHN BUNZEL, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, IRAQ, PARLIAMENT, SADDAM HUSSEIN, GENOCIDE, TRIAL, ANTI-WAR LEFT, DEMOCRATS, JOE BIDEN