If Iraqis can risk their lives for a chance at democracy, I will risk alienating right and left by asking for a reasoned, thoughtful debate about our nation’s future and the war on terror.

For almost a year now I have watched without much comment as events have unfolded in Iraq. My reaction is probably similar to that of many Americans.

• I have been appalled by the horrific waste of energy and life as terrorists continue to target our troops but also civilians, often women and children. They are fascist to the core, which fact underscores the terrible nature of this conflict.

• I have been appalled by many of the critics of the war. It is one thing to honestly question strategies, tactics or even the wisdom of the war itself, quite another to cloak that criticism in extreme charges not rooted in reality. Unfortunately, most of the Democrats have chosen to make political hay at the expense of honest dissent.

• I have been disappointed with the response of many conservatives to the criticism, which is itself often over-stated and not particularly mindful of the realities and difficulties in Iraq.

The discourse in this nation over such a vital issue is difficult to comprehend. Sean Hannity screams we are winning, Ariana Huffington screams the president lied, and there the discussion stagnates. Hannity and Limbaugh seem averse to delving into the details about how to improve America’s fight against terror, and Huffington and her ilk can never get past their hatred of Bush.
 
Here is the problem with most (not all) opponents of the war: they root their opposition in barren soil — that Bush misled the nation about weapons of mass destruction. There is really no support for this claim, yet it is the mantra that the left has chanted mindlessly for two years now.
 
Reasonable opponents of the war might put forward these arguments.
 
1. What the President did was understandable given the known intelligence at the time and post 9/11 fears, but it was nevertheless a highly questionable venture given Iraqi culture and history. To engage in nation-building is generally not a profitable undertaking in a region historically paranoid about colonialism.
 
2. Moreover, the Bush administration’s management of the post-invasion occupation has been poorly done. The architects of this war underestimated the ruthlessness of the opposition, and the difficulties of securing the nation. The result has been to squander the good will our military earned in the early days after toppling Saddam. Nonetheless, the murder and mayhem ongoing in Iraq underscores the nature of this war and those who seek to destroy democratic societies. We are fighting the right enemy, but not with the kind of shrewdness victory is going to require. Bush and his team have not proven adept managers of what is — to be fair — a complex situation that requires leveraging adroitly all of our military, diplomatic and intelligence capabilities.
 
Reasonable supporters of the war might put forward these arguments in response.
 
1. There is no such thing as an easy war. If you think that losing a couple of thousand troops in order to put a sword in the heart of terrorism and Islamic-fascism is beyond comprehension, then you have not grasped the nature of this war or our enemy, or the serious security challenges our nation is going to face in the coming decades. For all Bush’s mistakes, and they have been significant in some instances, Iraq is marching toward democracy and eventual independence, and to ensure that result would be a major victory against those who seek to thrust the world into perpetual world war, murdering indiscriminately along the way.
 
2. Opponents of the war can rightly challenges the wisdom of time and place, even strategies and tactics, but they cannot turn reality on its head. It is not American troops who are murdering hundreds of people every week, it is the terrorists — people who would just as assuredly murder Americans in the heart of our nation if liberated from the war in Iraq. America is fighting on the side of those who do not want to live under terror and medieval laws. Why are we condemned simultaneously for doing nothing in Rwanda but trying to do something positive in Iraq — whose leader had compiled arguably the worst human rights record on the globe? It is enough to make even open-minded people wonder if hating America rather than combating terrorism is the real aim of Bush’s worst critics.

3. To charge the president with ineptitude might fall within reasonable discourse, but to charge him with deception with respect to weapons of mass destruction is to ignore the preponderance of evidence available at the time the decision to go to war was made. Quite simply, yes, the president and his team read that evidence in light of 9/11 and Saddam's long history of brutality, deception and lies. Might that have led to exaggerated fears, perhaps. Was that unreasonable under the circumstances? Not really. 
 
There have been intelligent folks in the midst of this polarization. Senator Joseph Lieberman is an exception on the Democratic side, and Bill Buckley on the right has asked fair questions about the war effort. No doubt, Bush has been too slow by half (until recently at least) to manifest his understanding of current realities, both in action and words. It must also be observed, however, that his harshest critics have so misrepresented reality as to be beyond reasonable discourse. This might explain the hysteria on both sides, as one distortion leads to another, each side escalating the rhetoric. 
 
Most Americans — at least those who give these matters thoughtful consideration — would conclude that lives depend on honest, non-ideologically driven analysis of our tactics and strategies; indeed, not only lives, but perhaps the future of civilization as we know it. It would be nice if those frothing at the mouth in Congress, on television and on editorial pages across the nation could remember this. They have a responsibility to inform our citizenry, not merely to shore up their ratings with mindlessly devoted constituencies, whatever their ideological pedigree.
 
If Iraqis can risk their lives for a chance at democracy, I will risk alienating right and left by asking for a reasoned, thoughtful debate about our nation’s future and the war on terror. I will not, however, hold my breath, suicide being forbidden by those canons of moral law by which I live.