tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9870060.post-1139924058809564932005-12-13T21:29:00.000+08:002006-02-14T21:34:18.810+08:00<div align="justify">Two days from now, the Iraqi people will go to the polls for the third time since January. And they will elect a parliament to govern their nation for the next four years. All across Iraq today, representatives from some 300 political parties are staging rallies, they're holding televised debates, they're hanging campaign posters, and they're taking their case to the Iraqi people. They are asking for the consent of the governed.<br /><br />As this historic moment approaches, we in America are engaging in our own historic debate. Many Americans have asked questions about our nation’s role in Iraq. And in recent weeks, President Bush has responded by clearly describing our National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.<br /><br />The American people want to know who we and the Iraqis are fighting and that we can win. And President Bush has answered, explaining the nature of the enemy that we face and why failure is not an option. The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists and Saddamists and terrorists. The rejectionists miss the unjust status they have lost. But we believe that some of them can be convinced to join a democratic Iraq that is strong enough to protect minority rights. The Saddamists are loyal to the old regime and think that they can regain power by inciting undemocratic sentiment. But as the Iraqi people become more able to defend their democracy, we believe that they will increasingly be marginalized.<br /><br />The final enemy we face, the terrorists, are a small but deadly group, motivated by the global ideology of hatred that fuels al-Qaida, and they will stop at nothing to make Iraq the heart of a totalitarian empire that encompasses the entire Islamic world. If we quit now, we will give the terrorists exactly what they want. We will desert Iraq’s democrats at their time of greatest need. We will embolden every enemy of liberty across the Middle East. We will destroy any chance that the people of this region have of building a future of hope and decency. And most of all, we will make America more vulnerable.<br /><br />In abandoning future generations in the Middle East to despair and terror, we also condemn future generations in the United States to insecurity and fear. And President Bush has made clear that on his watch, America will not retreat from a fight that we can and must win ...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/58039.htm"><strong>Read on.</strong></a> (<em>Secretary Rice's remarks at The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, USA, on the eve of the Iraqi Elections, 13 December 2005). </em></div>Geoffreynoreply@blogger.com