World Class Mis-Prognostications

Looking Back:
Preditions for 2003

PEGGY NOONAN

Eyes on the Prize
Iraq's liberation will be the biggest good thing to happen since 9/11.

Monday, March 24, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST

This is what the American victory in Iraq is going to mean:


It is going to mean, first, that something good happened. This sounds small but is huge. The West has been depressed since Sept. 11, 2001. It has been torn, riven. It has been a difficult time. The coming victory is going to be the biggest good thing that has happened in the world, the West and the United States since the twin towers fell.

The deeper meaning there is that we are witnessing a triumph of activism over fatalism. Victory will remind the world that faith and effort trump ennui and despair. It will demonstrate to the civilized world that the good do not have to see themselves as at the inevitable mercy of barbarians. It will demonstrate that we are not part of a long and unstoppable slide, that we can move forward and win progress, that we don't have to cower in blue suits behind the Security Council desk. We can straighten up, join together and make things better.

An American victory is going to remind the world, too, that while many have tended to see terror states and terror groups as talented, disciplined and competent, they are not, always. The reigning Iraqi claque has been revealed, or so it seems, to be what many of us hoped it was: a house of cards. It is not bad for the world to see it collapse.

Another thing, and a crucially important one. The United States is showing to the world, to its friends and foes, that it will pay a high price to make the world better. We will put it all on the line. This country is, still, the place that will take responsibility when no one else will. In this our entire country is like the firemen of 9/11 who looked up, saw the burning towers and charged. In the past few days, weeks and months, America charged. It has a lot to be proud of. (Being America it will soon be beating itself up again, but it should take some time over the next few weeks to feel the healthy pride it's earned.)

With Iraq taken care of the United States will be able to move with enhanced strength toward an Arab-Israeli peace that might last. There are those who say Mr. Bush cannot move forcefully here because his base is composed in part of Christian Evangelicals deeply enamored of Israel. And so it is. But with victory in Baghdad Mr. Bush's base widens, and it will damage him not at all either in the world or domestically to come out strong and do what needs to be done.