Surging Ahead

It's hard to be too optimistic about President Bush's plan in Iraq, there is a lot that depends on the Iraqis and, frankly, they haven't been real dependable on the whole. I want this to work; I want Baghdad to be pacified and wouldn't mind at all if Iran and Syria got their comeuppance. But it's just easy to see how this approach will be less potent than necessary. It's a real leap of faith to assume that the Iraqis will live up to their side of the plan.

That said, what other choice do we have? Have you thought about the Democrats' approach? The guys over at Blackfive.com said it well:

On the other side, the Democrats response was actually pretty accurate on the assessment of the situation (with the requisite partisan barbs thrown in for good measure), but as usual, they completely fail to recognize the consequences of their course of action. Talk about history repeating itself; this is eerily reminiscent of the Democrat's Vietnam playbook. This is one of the reasons that liberals in charge are so scary. They have no compunction about guaranteeing and then ignoring a good old fashioned genocide. That is what's coming in Iraq as soon as we leave. Scarier still is the idea that when we left Vietnam to a well trained (compared to the Iraqis) South Vietnamese Army, [the Democrats] didn't just cut off direct military assistance when the North came down, they cut off ALL economic aid. This is probably what they will do to the Iraqis even if we secure Baghdad and train up their Army. Once we're out, and the Iranians start moving in, the Democrats will cut them off.

It's wrong to abandon those Iraqis and I was appalled at the Sen. Durbin's calloused "you're on your own" attitude. And more frightening is that failure in Iraq will likely encourage Islamic radicals to follow us home.