And Ahmadinejad’s antipathy to the West is not, on its own terms, irrational. The Islamic fascist view of the ideal society is in fact incompatible with the existence of Western Liberal democracies. As long as the BBC, Sky TV, and Hollywood keep pumping out news and entertainment that tempts young and impressionable Muslims down the path to hell, Iran’s leaders (and all those dedicated to a robust religiously ruled Islamic State, including Al Qaeda) will dedicate themselves to destroying liberal societies.

If the war in Iraq is primarily the current battlefront in a larger war, the costs of leaving the battlefield are potentially huge. As seemingly costly as this war has been, by any historical standard the costs have been quite modest. Further, by fighting the war in Iraq, the United States has taken to war to a battlefield upon which our enemies cannot afford to lose. Iran, Syria, and in fact all the most radical elements throughout the Middle East could not easily tolerate or even survive the existence of a free, prosperous, and Democratic Iraq in their midst. As long as we are concentrating our forces in Iraq and seem likely to continue the fight, our enemies will throw everything they have at us there—lowering the chances of successful strikes against our vital interests and territory elsewhere.

If the West chooses to abandon the fight in Iraq, not only will that country fall to our Islamic Fascist enemies, but we will be freeing up the enormous resources they are expending to defeat us there. Resources that can be turned against us here at home or in Europe. And instead of having US forces stationed on the border of Iran and Syria, ready to menace them if necessary, we will have reduced our military threat to them without reducing the cultural threat they need to eliminate. It would be a huge victory for them in their war against us.

Given all this—if you accept the assumption that the war between the West and Islamic fascism is inescapable—leaving Iraq would be irrational. Our total casualties in 3 years of war there are substantially less than we suffered in the battle of Okinawa (12,000 dead in less than 3 months).

The Iraq war, when viewed discretely, may appear to have the United States as paying a very high price for a goal that frankly is nice—democracy in Iraq—but not vital to our interests. But if you view the war as part of a larger conflict, then the costs are put into a very different perspective. Indeed, if you believe that Islamic fascism is an existential threat to liberal democracy, and vice versa, tying up the enemies’ forces in Iraq for years looks like a pretty good bargain.

So which view is right? We may never know if Bush succeeds in continuing the battle in Iraq, either succeeding in establishing a democracy or at least tying up the enemies’ forces for years. Alternatively, we may find out if those who want to pull out get their wish: if the conflict in Iraq is simply about who rules that country, then our retreat will hurt our prestige but not endanger the country; if Iraq is simply one front in a greater war, we may soon be wishing that we had “surged” those troops years before, instead of pulling them out.

The new front in the war, then, would be here.