The importance of winning in Iraq

David Limbaugh:

Given our success with the counterinsurgency operations and the stakes involved in the outcome of the war in Iraq, President Bush and other Republicans have a window to restate their case for the importance of Iraq in the War on Terror. They should seize the opportunity before war opponents have another chance to discourage the war effort.

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The preliminary success of the "surge" has greatly undermined the Democrats' position on a number of fronts, which is why they are trying to destroy General David Petraeus's credibility in advance of his favorable report. It is why they are developing new strategies to secure our withdrawal, such as backing off their demands for a firm withdrawal date to lure "moderate" Republicans into joining their cut-and-run scheme.

Democrats have said this is a civil war, that America's presence is exacerbating the ethnic rivalry and prolonging the war, that Al Qaeda's involvement is marginal, that the war is "unwinnable," and that even if we are making great strides militarily, we are getting nowhere politically.

They've said that remaining in Iraq fuels Al Qaeda recruiting efforts while withdrawing would deter them.

They've said Iraq is not part of the War on Terror and implied that our withdrawal will not constitute a setback to us in the WOT, nor will it result in disastrous consequences for Iraq, the Iraqi people or the Middle East.

They've said we should refocus our efforts on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and on better pursuing Osama bin Laden.

It's not just the success of the surge that is unraveling the Democrats' war against the war but also the primary reasons behind that success. Our revised strategy to capture and hold territory has reportedly emboldened Iraqi ethnic groups formerly helping Al Qaeda to turn to us and against Al Qaeda. Democrats are well aware of this, which is why some of them, like Sen. Chuck Schumer, are denying our military the credit for turning things around.

If the surge is neutralizing Al Qaeda, and this neutralization is leading to a dramatic turnaround in the Iraq War overall, the Democrats' multipronged excuses for opposing the war fall like dominoes.

Exposing Al Qaeda as the main catalyst for the war militates against concluding this has been a civil war as opposed to terrorist activity and ethnic conflict escalated to violence largely at the instigation of Al Qaeda and other outside forces. It also proves that Iraq truly is part of the War on Terror -- if we need further proof than Al Qaeda's blood commitment to our defeat in Iraq.

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There is something much bigger than Democrat perfidies at stake too. Al Qaeda stays at war with us and gains hope by believing that the US cannot defeat its war strategy of creating chaos through and insurgency that it hopes to take advantage of. If we defeat that strategy, we discourage al Qaeda and others like Hugo Chavez who think they can beat the US with an insurgency strategy. If we don't win the war in Iraq we will see others using this strategy for generations to come.

The real reason the Democrats oppose the counterinsurgency strategy is they want to inhibit the use of force for any reason and a defeat gives them the Vietnam syndrome again which holds that any use of force will lead to an inevitable quagmire. The strategy of the Democrats will coincide perfectly with that of al Qaeda and Chavez and other opponents leading to debilitating conflicts all over the world that the Democrats will have us shrink from making us weaker and weaker.

Winning gives us our best chance of peace and fewer deaths world wide. Losing will give the peace activist more genocide and more wars.