Said Senator Obama in September: “Let me be clear: There is no military solution in Iraq, and there never was.” He believes, with his spiritual adviser Jeremiah Wright, that we were wrongly led into Iraq by a lying “C student,” and the only reasonable way out is to surrender — admit failure and defeat — and get out. No pullout could be premature, could come soon enough.

Gen. David Petraeus’ surge of 30,000 U.S. troops has worked far better than any congressional leftist thought it would or, even now, admits. Sens. Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham wrote in early April how unfortunate it is that “so many opponents of the surge still refuse to acknowledge the gains we have achieved in Iraq” — and how clear the choice “between the general who is leading us to victory and the critics who spent the past year predicting defeat.” A terrorist victory in Iraq simply would embolden islamofascists across the globe.

Iraq under Saddam was a haven — an enabler, a nexus — for jihadists meaning to do harm to us and liberty-loving people everywhere. Saddam his Baathist Sunnis are dead, isolated, or gone. By nearly all accounts the surge is working, and promoting internal stability and reconciliation. But U.S. troops must remain there to enable those processes to proceed — and the majority Shiites to resolve their differences.

In all this, Iran plays a huge role — with Moqtada al-Sadr in hiding there under extremist ayatollah tutelage, and with Iran funding, training, and arming dissident Shiites to disrupt Iraq and kill Americans. How much sense would it make to cut and run, thereby adding more strain to the already overstrained forces that remained? Further, how much sense would it make to withdraw American forces from the Iraqi border with Iran — an Iran posing the largest threat to Iraq’s long-term stability, and an Iran moving resolutely toward the practice of nuclear terror worldwide?

Let the shameless congressional defeatists explain how the nation — its surrendering forces brought home from Iraq — would avoid the consequences of failure. Despite leftist prattlings, the U.S. must stay in Iraq till the day is done and victory won.