Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

I watched excerpts from today's Senate hearings on the war in Iraq with a profound sense of disgust. Democratic Senators, led by Edward Kernnedy, were calling on SecDef Donald Rumsfeld to resign, because of the "gross errors and mistakes" that characterized his leadership of the war heretofore. Buoyed by recent poll results showing declining support among the US electorate for the war effort in Iraq, Democrats appear to be trying to make political hay out of the continuing insurgency in Iraq.

As Max Boot wrote in this morning's LAT, the insurgency appears to be suffering from tremendous difficulties. It has no broadly shared political objectives, no sanctuaries to organize and regroup, little popular support among the vast majority of the Iraqi people, and no popular leaders. Nonetheless, the defeatist elements among the American body politic appear to be more concerned about defeating Bush than they are about beating Al Queda and making the sacrifices of the thousands of US soldiers killed and wounded in Iraq worth something.

I am confident in the administration's willingness to lead in the face of hostile public opinion, rather than follow the winds of public sentiment. But were the Kennedys and the Deans to prevail, we would suffer the consequences for the next twenty years or more. Semper fi.