So the stage is set for a decision on how serious we are - as a people - on the task we are about in the war on terror.
The West has no reasonable alternative to prevailing in Iraq. And whatever one may think of the situation there now, wars can be turned around. Matthew Ridgway demonstrated that within weeks of replacing Douglas MacArthur in Korea. General Omar Bradley noted in his "General's Life" that Ridgway's "brilliant, driving, uncompromising leadership would turn the tide of battle like no other general's in our military history."
David Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, just may have been built in the Ridgway mold. Last week he went to Washington to plead for patience.
According to a Washington Post report, Gen. Petraeus "described progress in Iraq as mixed. Sectarian slayings in Baghdad are down by a third since January, he said, and progress in the Sunni province of Anbar has been 'almost something that's breathtaking,' he said. On the other hand, he said, 'the ability of al-Qaida to conduct horrific, sensational attacks obviously has represented a setback.'"
Not only would adoption of a timetable now put a bullet in the heart of U.S. troop morale. It also would tell the terrorists their attacks in Baghdad - aided by their useful, shameless Democratic fools - are winning the war in Washington, and all they need to do is wait us out.
Either we as a nation are serious about defeating rampant jihadism, or we are not. If we are, then we must remain in Iraq until a freely elected government can stand on its own. If we are not, then we might as well tuck tail and get out now - and start preparing the barricades here. The measure of our seriousness about the future of freedom and our own preservation may well be contained in the bill finally enacted to fund the troops.