Time to crush the insurgency while we still can

Michael Goodwin is far more critical of President Bush than I am. But in terms of our strategyin Iraq, perhaps those of us who support the president should have been more critical of him all along.

Some tried. The situation in Iraq would be far different if Mr. Bush had listened to Colin Powell's advice. He choose to listen to Donald Rumsfeld instead- and has tried to win the war in on the cheap. But as Sec. Powell- who, after all, was once General Powell, one of the architects of our 1991 victory in Iraq- has so eloquently (and vainly) insisted all along, the way to win the current war is to crush the insurgency- to come down on it with such massive and overwhelming force that Baghdad simply isn't a safe place to be a Ba'athist or any other kind of Islamofascist, or a Muslim sectarian unwilling to live in peace with his neighbors of another sect. And if that means sending massive numbers of troops over there, so be it- and the sooner the later, because we're running out of time.

Maybe the President has finally learned his lesson. The trouble is, what might have won the war by now if it had been resorted to at the start- when it had time- now has to be done in the face of intense political pressure to withdraw troops from Iraq, and hand security over to the Iraqi government probably before it is able to handle the task. After all, the success of the war effort matters far less to certain parties than the embarassment of the president and the electoral triumph of the Democrats this November, and in 2008.

Mr. Bush had better have learned his lesson by this point- because unless Baghdad is secure (as most of the country already is, BTW- though you wouldn't know it from reading the MSM)- and secure soon- the forces of Islamofascism will have won. With a major assist, of course, from the Democratic party and the MSM, which can be counted on to do everything in their power to undermine him no matter what course he takes.

HT: Real Clear Politics

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