The Democrats latest excuse to lose

Washington Times:

Capitol Hill Democrats say they will question Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker this week about how the 5-year-old Iraq war has sapped U.S. military readiness, imperiled positive results from the Afghanistan conflict and alienated the United States from the rest of the world.

They also will push for a rapid pullout while posing questions about what they see as the ever-present threat of renewed fighting in Iraq, the lack of political reform by the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the oil-rich country's failure to pay for the war or reconstruction.

"We are right back to where we started before the surge," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware Democrat and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, which hears testimony tomorrow from Gen. Petraeus and Mr. Crocker.

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Biden's statements reflect willful ignorance or bad faith arguments. No one who looks at the data can claim we are back where we were before the surge. Al Qaeda has been pushed into a corner around Mosul and sectarian violence is down significantly. It would alienate allies more to leave than to stay because our commitment would be put in doubt. It would make the overall war last longer and be more costly in blood and treasure.

As for the costs of the war, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham say:

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Unable to make the case that the surge has failed, antiwar forces have adopted a new set of talking points, emphasizing the "costs" of our involvement in Iraq, hoping to exploit Americans' current economic anxieties.

Today's antiwar politicians have effectively turned John F. Kennedy's inaugural address on its head, urging Americans to refuse to pay any price, or bear any burden, to assure the survival of liberty. This is wrong. The fact is that America's prosperity at home and security abroad are bound together. We will not fare well in a world in which al Qaeda and Iran can claim that they have defeated us in Iraq and are ascendant.

There is no question the war in Iraq – like the Cold War, World War II and every other conflict we have fought in our history – costs money. But as great as the costs of this struggle have been, so too are the dividends to our national security from a successful outcome, with a functioning, representative Iraqi government and a stabilized Middle East. The costs of abandoning Iraq to our enemies, conversely, would be enormous, not only in dollars, but in human lives and in the security and freedom of our nation.

Indeed, had we followed the path proposed by antiwar groups and retreated in defeat, the war would have been lost, emboldening and empowering violent jihadists for generations to come.

The success we are now achieving also has consequences far beyond Iraq's borders in the larger, global struggle against Islamist extremism. Thanks to the surge, Iraq today is looking increasingly like Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare: an Arab country, in the heart of the Middle East, in which hundreds of thousands of Muslims – both Sunni and Shiite – are rising up and fighting, shoulder to shoulder with American soldiers, against al Qaeda and its hateful ideology.

It is unfortunate that so many opponents of the surge still refuse to acknowledge the gains we have achieved in Iraq. When Gen. Petraeus testifies this week, however, the American people will have a clear choice as we weigh the future of our fight there: between the general who is leading us to victory, and the critics who spent the past year predicting defeat.

The Democrats voted over 60 times for defeat. They should pay a political price for their lack of understanding of the Iraq war and their lack of faith in our troops and their commanders.