June 14, 2007 -- WONDER what Iraq would look like if we left to morrow? Take a look at Gaza today. Then imagine a situation a thousand times worse.
We need to stop making politically correct excuses. Arab civilization is in collapse. Extremes dominate, either through dictatorship or anarchy. Thanks to their dysfunctional values and antique social structures, Arab states can't govern themselves decently.
We gave them a chance in Iraq. Israel "gave back" the Gaza Strip to let the Palestinians build a model state. Arabs seized those opportunities to butcher each other.
The barbarity in Gaza has become so grotesque that not even the media's apologists for terror can ignore it (especially since Islamist fanatics began to target journalists).
Over the weekend, Hamas gangbangers-for-Allah grabbed a Fatah functionary and dropped him from the roof of a high-rise to check out the law of gravity (the only law that still obtains in Gaza). Tit-for-tat, Fatah gunmen grabbed a Hamas capo and gave him the same treatment.
Thereafter, cooler heads prevailed and both sides returned to their everyday routines of kidnapping, torturing and assassinating each other's leaders, gunning down teachers and doctors and, of course, murdering women, children and stray pedestrians.
Educated Palestinians flee, if they can. Civilians cower, wondering where the next rocket-propelled grenade will hit. And, amid the carnage, students risk death to take their final exams so they can qualify to study abroad - and get out. The indiscriminate violence is the Palestinian version of democracy: Every citizen gets a chance to be killed.
And there's humor in Hell: The Islamist madmen behind Hamas call Fatah fighters "the American Jew Army." We've come a long way, boychick, when fellow Arabs anoint the late Yasser Arafat's thugs as tools of the Great Satan and the Lesser Satan.
In Iraq, terrorists returned to Samarra to finish the job of destroying the Golden Mosque - the 2006 bombing of which ignited months of gruesome Shia-Sunni violence. Under attack from fellow Sunnis disgusted with their excesses, al Qaeda-in-Iraq sought to get the Shia fired up again to force a return to Sunni unity.
Meanwhile, back home, the get-out-now crowd pretends that, if only we pull out our troops, Iraqis will magically settle their internal grievances (presumably, the way the Palestinians have).
The left doesn't care how many Iraqis die, as long as President Bush can be humiliated. Four years ago, the neocons fantasized about a post-Saddam Age of Aquarius. Now the Murthacrats insist that, once we bail out, Atlantis will rise from the Tigris and Euphrates. The willful naivete is identical. The only differences are the timing and who gets blamed.
Look at Gaza, at the orgy of self-destructive savagery, the macho idiocy, the junkyard-dog religion and the murder-suicide cult sweeping Arab civilization. Then note that, barring a few fringe players, only two sides are fighting in the Gaza Strip.
In Iraq, we have foreign terrorists fighting everybody, Sunni Arabs fighting Shia, Shia fighting Shia, Sunni fighting Sunni, Christians and other minorities persecuted by Sunni and Shia, Kurds struggling to preserve their patch of civilization, with American troops and our allies in the middle . . . on a quiet day.
Of course, not only the Arabs are to blame: We went to Baghdad with a fantasy instead of a plan; Israel tried to compromise with genocidal killers; media commissars abetted terrorists, and our generals placed more emphasis on ducking blame than on defeating our enemies. But for all that, it's the Arabs who failed themselves, again and again and again.
When Lebanon tried to achieve a semblance of democracy, Syria embarked on a killing spree that, to this day, has had no tangible consequences for the Assad regime.
When elections came to the Palestinian territories, the Palestinians voted for terrorists. When elections came to Iraq, the Iraqis voted for ethnic separatists or demagogues.
And while Prince Bandar reportedly was raking in billion-dollar bribes between tennis matches with U.S. pols, our Saudi "pals" were spending their oil wealth to ensure that no Muslims will ever live under a tolerant government that regards women as human. Is there any good news at all?
Yes. Earlier this week, Capitol Hill saw a small miracle: A U.S. Army general told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. As fine an officer as we've got in uniform, Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey refused to pander to anyone. Instead, he laid out the grim situation in Iraq and detailed the minimum commitment required for any hope of even a flawed success.
Dempsey placed integrity, our country and our troops above self-interest. He described the padded payrolls in Iraq's national police, the sectarianism of local police forces and the long-term effort needed to get the Iraqi army on its feet and fit to fight (think years, not months). Security requirements demand 50,000 more Iraqi soldiers and cops-this year alone.
The general even pointed out that some Iraqis are nostalgic for the order of Saddam's regime: We failed to deliver the No. 1 good, security.
The testimony was sobering, to say the least. And therein lies reason for hope. After years of obfuscation and outright lies from the Rumsfeld-era generals, our troops are finally led by officers who realize we're at war-and that winning is more important than promotions.
We're stuck in Iraq, and it sucks. But were we to leave in haste, far more blood than oil would flow in the Persian Gulf. The disaster in Gaza's just a rehearsal for the Arab-suicide drama awaiting its opening night in Iraq.
Ralph Peters' new book, "Wars of Blood and Faith," hits stores July 25.