Bush puts all his chips on table

Meanwhile, we practiced nation-building in Germany and Japan and did quite well at it. President Bush's request for $87 billion and his promise to stick with Iraq for the long term was a clear signal that we will not cut and run from our responsibilities to do the same for Iraq. If he'd signaled otherwise, Iraq would deteriorate to a level of chaos that would make today's mess look like a tea party. Seen from this light, the future of Iraq is in the pot, too.

And so is the war on terrorism. President Bush boldly and rightly called Iraq the "frontline of freedom" in his address to the nation. Every lunatic jihadist in the world is answering the call to fight the infidels - i.e. us - in Iraq. This was almost surely not the White House's original plan - "Hey! Let's taunt the scum of the earth into attacking our troops!" Nevertheless, there's an upside to our predicament.

"The surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans," Bush said. "We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities."

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the head of military forces in Iraq, said something similar on CNN. Iraq "is what I would call a terrorist magnet, where America, being present here in Iraq, creates a target of opportunity," he said. "But this is exactly where we want to fight them. ...This will prevent the American people from having to go through their attacks back in the United States."

If Bush and Sanchez are right, and I think they are, then the security and prosperity of America and the world is on the line. If America succeeds, Iraq becomes peaceful and prosperous, which would hopefully have a domino effect in the region.

If America fails, we would have another September 11th, perhaps this time punctuated by a mushroom cloud. The American economy would crash, and so probably would the world's. And, of course, if we lost at the front lines of freedom, George Bush's name would be mud for generations.

In other words: Tapis.