BlackFive

The anti-war left has gone pretty much all out in their surge against the surge and thus far all Harry Reid and company have managed is to fail to do anything at all. Sadly, given our Congress, that is the best that could be hoped for. Reid went so far as to call the surge doomed prior to the last troops even leaving the US. I try to give opponents of the war the benefit of the doubt , but the problem is their lack of concern over the effects of a sudden withdrawal make that difficult. Jonah Goldberg has a recent quote that points out one aspect of this.

  "Liberals used to be the ones who argued that
    sending U.S. troops abroad was a small price
    to pay to stop genocide; now they argue that
    genocide is a small price to pay to bring U.S.
    troops home."

A genocide, or several, in Iraq is the first of many bad things that our running away will cause. Next comes an Al Qaeda in Iraq resurgence and likely naming of Baghdad as capital of a resurgent Caliphate. Throw in Iran's certain dominance of most of Shia Iraq and it's own expansionist plans and you have the Sunni-Shia perfect storm, I mean it would be everything Ahmadinejad and the 12th Imam-ers could hope for. Add in a turbocharged Iranian nuke program and FFS I'm ready to check on my go to hell plans.

I can understand frustration with the lack of success in Iraq and have said I hold Rumsfeld responsible for holding on to his Iraqification policy long after it was obvious we were fighting against an insurgency. Now that we have implemented actual Counter-Insurgency doctrine (COIN) we are seeing the difference that the proper strategy supplies. The problem is that our political system has already intruded on this and will continue to do so. Add to that the media's negative noise machine and too many Americans just want it to stop. That is what we have to overcome to win our troops a chance to win this war.

Unfortunately for the would be losers  the tide is against them and they are increasingly faced with voices they should not deny telling everyone things are improving demonstrably. One is the NY Times Baghdad Chief John Burns, who should hear no questioning of his credibility from any side, and he gave Hugh Hewitt an interview in which he says that things have definitely changed for the better and the prospects for peace are higher than they have ever been. The nwe have the piece by the Brookings scholars who just returned from Iraq saying that for the first time we appear to have things on track and we should continue to support efforts at actual victory.

Attempts to discredit any voice with positive news about Iraq have already begun with particularly over-rated Matthew Yglesias weighing in on Petraeus and already finding he and his prospective report wanting. While reminiscent of a bed louse lecturing Leonidas it is emblematic of the tone on the left currently. They are mad as hell and they are not gonna take any of this good news BS.

Somehow I don't think calling heroic US leaders reporting on our path toward victory liars is a great plan, but hey Dems good luck with that.

Audio of my bit this morning on 97.1 St. Louis with Jamie Allman