If for whatever reason Baghdad never was pacified, it best be pacified and sustained in that condition soon - lest sectarian/ethnic violence exhaust not only resources, but the will to press on. Either to put caps on U.S. manpower or to withhold funding for an accretion of U.S. forces would in fact undercut precisely the troops the left professes to support even as it opposes the war.
If the U.S. begins leaving Iraq before finishing the job in Baghdad to stabilize a fledgling government there, the entire region could well explode. Notes Defense Secretary Robert Gates, acknowledging mistakes: "That is the nature of war. But however we got to this moment, the stakes now are incalculable." Echoes Reuel Marc Gerecht, an adviser to the Iraq Study Group - regarding premature withdrawal in Iraq: "It is hard to imagine any event that could give the virulently anti-American Islamists (in the Middle East) more inspiration and hope."
Just so.
If we broke it, we are obligated to fix it. If we are in Armageddon, why fight a mini-Armageddon in Congress and the public prints over whether to press on - complete with deja vu and protesters and Vietnam all over again?
Failure is not an option. There is - and can be - no substitute for victory. The war we are in is protracted and brutal. Let us do what we must to win however long it takes, and then - only then - come home.
Ross Mackenzie
Ross Mackenzie lives with his wife and Labrador retriever in the woods west of Richmond, Virginia. They have two grown sons, both Naval officers.
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