Perhaps the central component of the US strategy for stabilizing Iraq is the organization and training of the Iraqi army and police forces. While the majority of Iraq's security forces are loyal to their commanders and to the central government, and support the coalition forces they fight alongside, many Iraqi units have been infiltrated by enemy forces - most prominently, by members of Iranian-sponsored Shi'ite militias.

As Petreaus and Crocker warned this week, if the US Congress or the next administration decides to pull the plug on American-led efforts in Iraq, the results will be horrendous. Both men warned that a rapid withdrawal of US forces would likely cause the disintegration of the country, and Iran can be trusted to snatch key pieces of Iraq for itself. But beyond that, a US withdrawal would set adrift nearly half a million US-trained and armed forces who will undoubtedly seek out new sponsors.

The implications of the disintegration of the Iraqi forces for regional and indeed for global security are terrifying to imagine, and the policy ramifications of such an eventuality are clear. If the US plans on a quick exit from the country, the best thing it could do is to stop training and arming the Iraqi army.

This brings us to the strategic danger implicit in the raw hostility and irrationality of the American Left toward everything related to the Iraq campaign, which was expressed so openly in Congress and in the liberal US media this week. When a formerly responsible Congressional leader like the Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee Tom Lantos prefers belittling Petreaus and calling for speedy withdrawal of US forces and a "diplomatic surge" involving negotiations with Syria and Iran over accepting the responsibilities of US global leadership in time of global war, it is clear that something horrible has happened to the Democratic Party.

As The Wall Street Journal put it on Tuesday, the hard Left, which seems to have been catapulted to the leadership of the Democratic Party, "sees politics as not so much an ongoing struggle but a final competition."

The Journal continued, "Under these new terms, public policy is no longer subject to debate, discussion and disagreement over competing views and interpretations. Instead, the opposition is reduced to the status of liar. Now the opposition is not merely wrong, but lacks legitimacy and political standing. The goal here is not to debate, but to destroy."

Much criticism has properly been heaped on the lap of the Maliki government in Iraq for failing to make critical political progress that could improve the long-term prospects for post-Saddam Iraq. Governmental competence is imperative because as Petreaus explained, "the fundamental source of the conflict in Iraq is competition among ethnic and sectarian communities for power at resources."

Petreaus continued, "The question is whether the competition takes place more - or less - violently."

What is notable about Petreaus's statement is that it can be equally applied to all countries. Politics and warfare are both about the relative distribution of power. What separates democracies from tyrannies and failed states is that democracies determine power's distribution through deliberation and debate while tyrannies and failed states are governed by the rule of the gun and the laws of the jungle.

That the political party now in control of both houses of Congress, and well-positioned to form the next administration seems to have discarded this basic truth is far more dangerous for Iraq, the Middle East and indeed the entire world, than the chronic weakness, incompetence, double dealing and corruption of the Maliki government or of any successor government.

The strategy that the US has adopted in Iraq, which has met with such success in the brief time it has been operative, is a long-term strategy. Unless the Democrats regain their senses, it will be difficult for anyone to trust that the US won't simply abandon Iraq, and with it, its responsibility as the leader of the Free World in the midst of a global war.