Politics & Power Quote by Johnny Isakson

Gratitude is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Isakson’s line, delivered in the long shadow of the Iraq War, functions less as a report from Iraq than as a moral alibi aimed back home. By asserting that Iraqis are “grateful,” he reframes a contested occupation as a benevolent exchange: America provides “opportunity,” Iraq provides thanks. It’s a neat rhetorical trade that tries to convert geopolitical violence into civic uplift.

The phrasing is tellingly bloodless. “Giving them the opportunity to do” trails off into abstraction, dodging the specifics Americans were arguing about - civilian deaths, sectarian collapse, the legitimacy of the invasion, the permanence of bases. Opportunity to do what, exactly? Vote, rebuild, govern, resist? The vagueness is the point. It’s a verbal perimeter that keeps the messy outcomes from rushing the microphone.

There’s also a careful stacking of actors: “the people of the United States,” then “our armed forces,” then “our coalition forces.” That triad launders responsibility through collectivity. If everyone is involved, no one is individually accountable; dissent becomes not just disagreement but a refusal to stand with “our” people. “Coalition,” meanwhile, provides international seasoning to what many saw as an American project, implying legitimacy by association.

The subtext is domestic: reassurance. It answers a gnawing question of the era - is this sacrifice worth it? - with a flattering narrative in which the beneficiaries are thankful and the benefactors are generous. The sentence doesn’t persuade by evidence; it persuades by insisting the story is already settled.