Words like these reverberate now in Washington. Even before we get the eagerly awaited September progress report from Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, the peace-at-any-price mob can't wait to declare peace. Honor has nothing to do with it. The peace mob already knows all they want to know.
Terrorism is not fascism, but the terrorists have the familiar lust for blood. Osama bin Laden is not Adolf Hitler, but like Hitler he recognized vulnerability in the West when acts of terror against the American embassies in Africa, the USS Cole and the first bombing of the World Trade Center went unanswered. The plotters of al Qaeda similarly recognize faint hearts in the West. Friends as well as enemies are measuring how dependable an ally America and Britain really are. Evil men in Afghanistan and Iraq can't invade the West, but the first line of defense runs through those miserable places.
George W. Bush is no Winston Churchill, but he can learn from him. Churchill offered his people a deep understanding of why war was both necessary and inevitable, and asked for their help. He got it. Three days after he replaced Chamberlain, he replied to his skeptics: "What is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory." Gordon Brown, the new British prime minister, is no Churchill, either. He describes the war in the dullest of dull language: "In Iraq we have duties to discharge and responsibilities to keep." No ringing call to arms there.
The Iraq war is unpopular, but losing it would be disastrous. Rudolph Giuliani got it right in the Sunday morning Republican debate in Iowa: "The reality is that you do not achieve peace through weakness and appeasement. . . . We should seek a victory in Iraq and in Baghdad, and we should define the victory." Looking reality in the eye is the work of troublesome young men -- and women. Is there now one among us?