Bush still has a spine, maybe

From The Washington Post:

President Bush vowed yesterday to come up with "a new strategy" in Iraq but expressed little enthusiasm for the central ideas of a bipartisan commission that advised him to ratchet back the U.S. military commitment in Iraq and launch an aggressive new diplomatic effort in the region.

On the day after the congressionally chartered Iraq Study Group released its widely anticipated report, much of Washington maneuvered to pick out the parts they like and pick apart those they do not. The report's authors were greeted with skepticism on Capitol Hill, and Democratic leaders used the occasion to press Bush to change course without embracing the commission's particular recipe themselves.

The group's 96-page report roiled some in the Middle East, particularly Israel, which rejected proposals for concessions to Syria. And it drew fire from current and former U.S. officials who called its diplomacy ideas unrealistic, unattainable and even misguided. The U.S. ground commander in Iraq, while welcoming the report's broad principles, warned that meeting its goal of withdrawing combat units by early 2008 could prove to "be very problematic."

On the day of the report's release I remember that the consensus on talk radio and the blogs seemed to be that Bush would accept the report and agree to implement all of its provisions. Which would have been a disaster because the Iraq Surrender Group's recommendations boil down to "surrender a little bit slower than the Democrats want to and as an afterthought destroy Israel too".

I am glad to see that the pundits were wrong this time. Cutting and running from Iraq would be an open invitation to every Islamofascist and Third World dictator to run wild.

The reason that Osama bin Laden thought that he could get away with 9/11 is because:

• The bombing of the USS Cole was treated as a law enforcement problem.
• The first World Trade Center bombing was treated as a law enforcement problem with Clinton even going on TV and urging the people "not to overreact".
• Bill Clinton responded to Saddam Hussein's dispatching of an assassination squad to murder George H W Bush in his usual way by firing a few cruise missiles at targets of absolutely no consequence.
• George H W Bush failed to send his forces into Baghdad in the first Gulf War and remove Saddam then.
• Jimmy Carter's entire reaction to the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis.
• And finally, the beginning of our nation's long slide into the graveyard of history the betrayal and abandonment of South Vietnam by a Democrat dominated congress.

Given all of these points Osama would have been stupid NOT to think that America's response to 9/11 would be to rage and roar for a bit then fire off some cruise missiles at empty patches of desert and then cut and run from the region, leaving Israel and Saudi Arabia twisting in the breeze behind us.

If we leave Iraq now or any time before the situation has stabilized with a pro-US Iraqi government firmly in control of the situation we tell the entire planet that Osama bin Laden was, for the most part right. We tell the world that to defeat the United States you do not have to beat our Army on the field of battle. To beat the US all you need to do is cause a trickle of death. A few bodies here, a few explosions there kept up over a few years and the American will to resist evaporates like the morning dew.

If we leave Iraq now the trickle of death will follow us home. A car bomb in Chicago today, a suicide bomber in the Asheville Mall tomorrow, a freeway overpass sniper in Atlanta next week. On and on for years with the expectation that sooner or later America will give the Muslims what they want.

And if the history of the past few decades is any guide - we will.