The MSM On The Candidates' Responses To The Russian Invasion Of Georgia

While Obama kicks back on his vacation in Hawaii, Georgia is burning and the MSM is evaluating the very different responses thereto by Obama and McCain.

Surprisingly, the NYT criticizes Obama for his aloofness in comparison to John McCain who, the paper notes, is further burnishing his foreign policy credentials.

WaPo goes for what has become the typical line over the past week for the MSM and the Obama camp, glossing over Obama's feckless initial response to the crisis and his relative non-engagement since while attacking McCain for acting decisively. Indeed, WaPo goes so far as to equate criticism of McCain "acting Presidential" in regards to the Georgia crisis with criticism of Obama for "acting Presidential" in the preceeding weeks. The distinction that Obama merely coopted the symbolism of the Presidency while McCain is appearing Presidential based on his thorough knowledge of a situation involved in a foreign crisis is apparently lost on WaPo.
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You know Obama's position is weak when the NYT is given over to criticizing The One in comparison to McCain. This from the NYT:

For the last several days, Senator Barack Obama has seemed to fade from the scene while on his secluded vacation here, as his opponent, Senator John McCain, has seized nearly every opportunity to display his foreign policy credentials on the dominant issue of the week: the conflict between Russia and Georgia.

Only once, at the beginning of the week, did Mr. Obama discuss the fighting in public, when he emerged from his beachfront rental home to condemn Russia’s escalation, in a way that seemed timed for the evening television news. He took no questions whose answers might demonstrate command of the issue.

Mr. McCain and his surrogates, however, have discussed the situation nearly every day on the campaign trail, often taking a hard line against Russia to the point of his declaring the other day, “We are all Georgians.”

It is as if the candidates’ images have been reversed within a matter of a few weeks. When Mr. Obama was overseas last month, Mr. McCain’s foreign policy bona fides seemed diminished, if only because he could not attract the news media attention received by Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Now, Mr. Obama’s voice seems muted at a time when much of the world has been worriedly watching the conflict.

. . . For his part, Mr. McCain has fielded questions daily, batting back criticism that his tough stance is reminiscent of the language of the cold war. On the other hand, the fluency with which Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, discusses Georgia, citing the history of the region and the number of times he has visited, lends an aura of commander in chief. And as if he already had a cabinet, Mr. McCain said he was dispatching his allies Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, to the region.

To conservatives, particularly the neoconservative set, Mr. McCain’s forceful responses have been welcomed. Conservatives have pointed out that Mr. Obama looks a bit out of touch this time. “I didn’t think that Obama had to do much during his week’s vacation — everyone deserves a break,” wrote Jim Geraghty of National Review Online. “But this week is starting to really turn into a week where you don’t want to be seen golfing.”

Mr. McCain, pressed by reporters, has resisted opportunities to criticize how Mr. Obama has addressed the situation in Georgia.

Mr. Obama’s week has been low-key, a sharp contrast to his high-voltage campaign events. On Thursday, he toured a nature preserve and went body surfing. Beyond that, Mr. Obama has played golf, taken walks on the beach with his daughters, eaten dinner at a few Honolulu restaurants with his wife and friends, and visited almost daily with his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, whom Mr. Obama calls “tutu,” a Hawaiian term. . . .

Read the entire article. The Washington Post goes the more traditional route of the MSM over the past week, attacking John McCain for sounding decisive in response to the Russian crisis. And, like the AP's insane hit piece of the other day, WaPo notes that McCain has a former lobbyist for Georgia on the payroll while neglecting to mention that he also employs former lobbyists for Russia. And you have to love how they equate criticism of Obama for coopting the symbols of the Presidency with their criticism of McCain now for acting decisively in response to a foreign crisis:

Standing behind a lectern in Michigan this week, with two trusted senators ready to do his bidding, John McCain seemed to forget for a moment that he was only running for president.

Asked about his tough rhetoric on the ongoing conflict in Georgia, McCain began: "If I may be so bold, there was another president . . ."

He caught himself and started again: "At one time, there was a president named Ronald Reagan who spoke very strongly about America's advocacy for democracy and freedom."

With his Democratic opponent on vacation in Hawaii, the senator from Arizona has been doing all he can in recent days to look like President McCain, particularly when it comes to the ongoing international crisis in Georgia.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili says he talks to McCain, a personal friend, several times a day. McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, was until recently a paid lobbyist for Georgia's government. McCain also announced this week that two of his closest allies, Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), would travel to Georgia's capital of Tbilisi on his behalf, after a similar journey by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The extent of McCain's involvement in the military conflict in Georgia appears remarkable among presidential candidates, who traditionally have kept some distance from unfolding crises out of deference to whoever is occupying the White House. The episode also follows months of sustained GOP criticism of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, who was accused of acting too presidential for, among other things, briefly adopting a campaign seal and taking a trip abroad that included a huge rally in Berlin.

"We talk about how there's only one president at a time, so the idea that you would send your own emissaries and really interfere with the process is remarkable," said Lawrence Korb, a Reagan Defense Department official who now acts as an informal adviser to the Obama campaign. "It's very risky and can send mixed messages to foreign governments. . . . They accused Obama of being presumptuous, but he didn't do anything close to this."

But McCain and his aides say his tough rhetoric on the Georgia crisis, along with his personal familiarity with the region, underscores the foreign policy expertise he would bring to the White House.

His focus on the dispute has also allowed McCain to distance himself somewhat from President Bush, who has been sharply criticized by many conservatives for moving too slowly to respond to Russia's military incursion into Georgia and South Ossetia, the breakaway province at the heart of the dispute. McCain's first statement on the conflict last Friday came before the White House itself had responded.

In often-lengthy remarks about Georgia this week on the campaign trail, McCain repeatedly talked of how many times he had been to the region, let it be known that he had talked daily with Saakashvili since the crisis began and made it clear that there had been times he thought Bush's response could have been stronger.

He provided a primer for why Americans should care about the "tiny little democracy" and tried to tie the foreign crisis with a domestic one: oil. Georgia is "part of a strategic energy corridor affecting individual lives far beyond" the region, he said.

"His statements have been very presidential," said John R. Bolton, a former U.N. ambassador under Bush who has since become one of the sharpest critics of the administration's recent foreign policy. "These are the kinds of things that the president should have been saying from the beginning."

. . . McCain's ties to Saakashvili go back to the 1990s, when the future leader of the "Rose Revolution" was a student at George Washington University. In an interview this week on CNN, Saakashvili said he was "talking to Senator McCain several times a day."

"You know, I think he spends less time on his presidential campaign these days and lots of time on Georgia," Saakashvili said. "And I really appreciate that, because Senator McCain has been fighting for freedom of Georgia for many, many years."

. . . The Obama campaign has been generally cautious in its remarks about the Georgia conflict, and the campaign yesterday declined to comment on the appropriateness of McCain's role. But earlier this week, Obama adviser Susan Rice said McCain "may have complicated the situation" with his early tough rhetoric on the dispute.

"John McCain shot from the hip," Rice said on MSNBC, calling his initial statement "very aggressive, very belligerent."

Lieberman, one of McCain's most ardent and vocal supporters, responded by criticizing Obama's more cautious first statement on the Georgia situation an example of "moral neutrality" that showed his "inexperience."

By Wednesday, however, both McCain and Obama had come together to praise the Bush administration's announcement of humanitarian aid and the secretary of state's diplomatic journey. McCain also told reporters that "this isn't the time for partisanship, sniping between campaigns," and declined to comment on Rice's or Lieberman's remarks.

Read the entire article. Fortunately, TNOY has the true story of what is going on. Obama is in hull defilade in Hawaii merely gathering his mystical strength to solve the Georgia Russia problem in a matter of days upon his return.

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Lieberman's Lament

This from Senator Joe Lieberman writing in the WSJ:

How did the Democratic Party get here? How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose?

Beginning in the 1940s, the Democratic Party was forced to confront two of the most dangerous enemies our nation has ever faced: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In response, Democrats under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy forged and conducted a foreign policy that was principled, internationalist, strong and successful.

This was the Democratic Party that I grew up in – a party that was unhesitatingly and proudly pro-American, a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders. It was a party that understood that either the American people stood united with free nations and freedom fighters against the forces of totalitarianism, or that we would fall divided.

This was the Democratic Party of Harry Truman, who pledged that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."

And this was the Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy, who promised in his inaugural address that the United States would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of freedom."

This worldview began to come apart in the late 1960s, around the war in Vietnam. In its place, a very different view of the world took root in the Democratic Party. Rather than seeing the Cold War as an ideological contest between the free nations of the West and the repressive regimes of the communist world, this rival political philosophy saw America as the aggressor – a morally bankrupt, imperialist power whose militarism and "inordinate fear of communism" represented the real threat to world peace.

It argued that the Soviets and their allies were our enemies not because they were inspired by a totalitarian ideology fundamentally hostile to our way of life, or because they nursed ambitions of global conquest. Rather, the Soviets were our enemy because we had provoked them, because we threatened them, and because we failed to sit down and accord them the respect they deserved. In other words, the Cold War was mostly America's fault.

Of course that leftward lurch by the Democrats did not go unchallenged. Democratic Cold Warriors like Scoop Jackson fought against the tide. But despite their principled efforts, the Democratic Party through the 1970s and 1980s became prisoner to a foreign policy philosophy that was, in most respects, the antithesis of what Democrats had stood for under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy.

. . . The [9-11] attack on America by Islamist terrorists shook President Bush from the foreign policy course he was on. He saw September 11 for what it was: a direct ideological and military attack on us and our way of life. If the Democratic Party had stayed where it was in 2000, America could have confronted the terrorists with unity and strength in the years after 9/11.

Instead a debate soon began within the Democratic Party about how to respond to Mr. Bush. I felt strongly that Democrats should embrace the basic framework the president had advanced for the war on terror as our own, because it was our own. But that was not the choice most Democratic leaders made. When total victory did not come quickly in Iraq, the old voices of partisanship and peace at any price saw an opportunity to reassert themselves. By considering centrism to be collaboration with the enemy – not bin Laden, but Mr. Bush – activists have successfully pulled the Democratic Party further to the left than it has been at any point in the last 20 years.

Far too many Democratic leaders have kowtowed to these opinions rather than challenging them. That unfortunately includes Barack Obama, who, contrary to his rhetorical invocations of bipartisan change, has not been willing to stand up to his party's left wing on a single significant national security or international economic issue in this campaign.

In this, Sen. Obama stands in stark contrast to John McCain, who has shown the political courage throughout his career to do what he thinks is right – regardless of its popularity in his party or outside it.

John also understands something else that too many Democrats seem to have become confused about lately – the difference between America's friends and America's enemies.

There are of course times when it makes sense to engage in tough diplomacy with hostile governments. Yet what Mr. Obama has proposed is not selective engagement, but a blanket policy of meeting personally as president, without preconditions, in his first year in office, with the leaders of the most vicious, anti-American regimes on the planet.

Mr. Obama has said that in proposing this, he is following in the footsteps of Reagan and JFK. But Kennedy never met with Castro, and Reagan never met with Khomeini. And can anyone imagine Presidents Kennedy or Reagan sitting down unconditionally with Ahmadinejad or Chavez? I certainly cannot.

. . . A great Democratic secretary of state, Dean Acheson, once warned "no people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies." This is a lesson that today's Democratic Party leaders need to relearn.

Read the entire article.

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A High Squealing Noise & A Voice Of Sanity

Recently, our Senate Homeland Security Dept. issued a bi-partisan report on the dangers of home-grown Islamic terrorism, identifying as did the NYPD of two years ago the fact that Salafi-jihadism is the driver of virtually all Islamic terrorism in the West. That high squealing noise that you hear is emenating from the major Salafist Groups in America who are doing all they can to stop this report's statement of the obvious from becoming accepted and known by the U.S. public. The voice of sanity that you hear comes from Muslim and former U.S. Navy Officer Zhudi Jasser who point out, "To deny that political Islam and its permutations on the internet from Wahhabism to salafism to Al Qaedism to run of the mill Islamism have nothing to do with homegrown terror is patently absurd."
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It is no secret that Salafi-Jihadis want to see Western freedoms eroded and the triumph of Islam in the West through the imposition of Sharia law. Towards this end, these Salafist organizations whitewash Salafism and spend incredible sums of money lobbying Western governments to adopt the position, in whole contradiction to the tons of unambiguous evidence, that Salafism is not associated with terrorism and that terrorism itself is not associated with Islam.

Many in the West willingly drink that highly poisoned kool-aide, whether for votes (Pelosi/Conyers), money (academia), a "can't we all get along" fantasy (Homeland Security), a desire not to upset the Saudis who pump our oil (Bush), pure naivete (Pentagon/Hesham Islam), or simply out of marxian multicultural ethos that deems all cultures superior to our own and beyond judgment (Britain). Thank God for the few voices in government, such as Rep. Sue Myrick and Senator Joe Lieberman, and for the "moderate Muslim" stalwarts outside of government, such as Tawfiq Hamid, Zhuddi Jasser, Ibn Warraq and the Center For Islamic Pluralism, all of whom stand firmly and unflinchingly against this Salafi menace. And, of course, there is Dr. Bernard Lewis, the man who predicted the explosion of Salafi terrorism before 9-11, the man who coined the phrase "clash of civilizations" half a century ago, and the man who described the nature of Saudi Arabia's Salafism to America in his books by likening it to the most virulent sub-group within the KKK.

What set off the high squealing noise you hear was Sen. Joe Lieberman's release of a report by his committee on Homeland Security, Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat. The report relies heavily on a prior work by the NYPD which analyzed how terrorists are made in the West - i.e., a several step process, the common thread at each step being exposure to Salafist/jihadia philosophy and propaganda.

The Senate Report is a bland but fair examination of the problem and the heretofore uncoordinated efforts in America to address it. In acknowledging the role of Salafi Islam as being at the core of Islamic terrorism in the West, it does nothing more than state the obvious. But the obvious is a message the Salafist organizations do not want America to hear - and CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, joined by the rest of the usual Salafi suspects, is in high squeal mode. They have drafted a letter to Senator Lieberman, in essence equating following the evidence of terrorism back to Salafi Islam as being the equal of profiling. You can read the letter here, or you can just read the response of Zhudi Jasser, Chairman of AIFD. It is so eloquent and articulate, I include it here in its entirity:

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) announced today that it congratulates the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on the release of its timely and insightful Report on "Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat.

"The report lays out insightful research of the majority and minority staff and clearly lays out the reality and the vulnerability of the United States to Homegrown Islamist Terrorism citing several credible examples. "

AIFD has previously not only agreed with the conclusions of the NYPD Report upon which this Senate Committee report builds, but AIFD has also previously called upon American Muslim organizations to begin the work of countering the ideologies which feed homegrown terrorism," M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D, founder and Chairman of the Board, The American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

The Senate Committee report cites many examples of homegrown terror threats. For example, AIFD has commented on the local Phoenix case of Hassan Abujihaad recently convicted of treason in federal court after a raid in London discovered that he was providing a terror cell with classified information on the whereabouts of his U.S. Navy ship to aid an act of terror against American troops.

The report's description of 'the path to radicalization', 'the terrorist internet campaign' and 'the virtual terrorist training camp' is an especially valuable contribution in the setting of mounting evidence of the threat of cyberjihad. The committee's investigation and identification of ways in which the Internet campaign can play a significant role- from 'pre-radicalization' to 'indoctrination' to 'jihadization' to 'the Lone Wolves' is also a particularly valuable contribution to the body of knowledge available today on this subject.

The report's description of the vulnerability of the U.S. and the potential of Islamists to "erode the effectiveness of our national defenses" should provide a particular warning to Americans to step-up our efforts at counter-radicalization.

AIFD would like to highlight the report's recognition of the need to coordinate a communications strategy against the homegrown threat- especially that flourishing on the internet. We would especially bring forward, the report's comment that "no longer is the threat just from abroad, as was the case with the attacks of 9-11; the threat is now increasingly from within, from homegrown terrorists who are inspired by violent Islamist ideology to plan and execute attacks where they live. One of the primary drivers of this new threat is the use of the internet to enlist individuals…"

AIFD is especially flabbergasted and chagrined as Americans and as Muslims by the scurrilous attacks upon this report and the Senate Committee under the leadership of Sens. Lieberman (CT) and Collins (ME) by the signatories to a letter of protest. This letter of protest does little other than expose the obstructionist techniques of the signatory organizations and their refusal to openly address necessary areas of ideological reform necessary in the Muslim community. If these Muslim organizations are unable to grasp the central ideological theological root causes of Islamist inspired terror, they are either participating in a grand denial, protecting the Islamist mindset, or simply obstructing the contest of ideas against political Islam.

Americans should ask - why isn't the work this committee completed not being done by Muslim NGO's? Rather than address the problems which reports like this address, many American Muslim and Arab organizations prefer to exaggerate their own victimization and ignore their own responsibility in countering the movements which this report fairly exposes.

It is particularly alarming that four of the largest Arab-American and Muslim-American advocacy organizations in the U.S (CAIR, MPAC, ADC, and Muslim Advocates) are discounting this valuable report and actually attempting to impede and delegitimize any honest attempt by Americans to dissect the 'real' causes and threats of homegrown Islamist terror. They cite the NYPD Report as "controversial" and "widely disputed" and "discredited" without any supporting evidence or credible sources for such an ad hominem assertion. By brushing off the N.Y.P.D. Report as "shoddy" and "now discredited" by "counter-terrorism experts and federal law enforcement officials … who have [privately} rejected the report's content and methodology" they operate in the typical Islamist fashion of using 'private' 'unnamed' unidentifiable sources with no substantive ideological counter arguments.

Where is the personal responsibility and regard for American security of these Muslim organizations that rather than focus their efforts on counterterrorism recklessly state: "so far … any potential terrorist threat involving Muslims has failed to materialize here in the United States …" They are entirely discounting the tireless and dedicated work of our intelligence and security agencies that have thwarted some thirty plus attacks against America. It seems that the facts in the report they criticize are of no use to them. If our Homeland Security had this type of lackadaisical attitude of denial, we would have most likely seen catastrophes greater than 9-11. When will Muslim organizations become part of the solution against militant Islamism rather than obstacles in any legitimate effort to study and understand its causes? To deny that political Islam and its permutations on the internet from Wahhabism to salafism to Al Qaedism to run of the mill Islamism have nothing to do with homegrown terror is patently absurd.

These four Arab and Muslim American advocacy organizations allege that there are sharp contrasts between integration and radicalization levels in the U.S. as opposed to Europe. Do they not realize how lack of integration and radicalization are gradual processes that take years to reach boiling points? While Muslims may be more integrated in the U.S., the growing examples of homegrown terrorism which continue to virally spread demonstrate that the only difference with Europe may be our trajectory toward radicalization. The end may be the same, but just delayed due to factors unique in America versus Europe.

How can studying a radical political ideology which cloaks itself in religion and which is separatist, violent, and theocratic be an act of discrimination? To us at AIFD, it's a noble necessary act of science, societal analysis, and of national security.

The N.Y.P.D. Report on Homegrown Terror before this Senate report was also a timely wake-up call to all Americans, and particularly to truly moderate Muslims who need to accept ownership and responsibility of this growing threat to Islam and to America.

Press releases and letters of complaint like that submitted by CAIR, MPAC, ADC, and Muslim Advocates on May 14, 2008, actually further the entrenchment of Islamist ideology on behalf of Muslims in the public square. Rather than distance themselves from Wahhabism, salafism, and other Islamist ideologies which feed the radicalism that this report illustrates, these organizations are acting in denial which only obstructs real reform and makes Muslims appear to be in support of these backward ideologies.

In their joint letter these organizations persist in their fear mongering, victimology, and divisiveness stating that the report is, "inaccurately labeling American Muslims as a suspect class …" when referring to the N.Y.P.D. Report's noble aims of protecting all Americans – Muslim and non-Muslim. In fact, if there is any appearance that Muslims are a suspect class, which has yet to be proven, it is most often because victim oriented organizations like CAIR, MPAC, ADC, and Muslim Advocates stay silent against the ideologies which threaten U.S. security. If Muslims were to lead the charge to reform our community and counter Islamist ideology no such label could ever stand in the court of public opinion.Rather than moving toward accepting Muslim responsibility and ownership of the issue, and becoming the Muslim frontline to terror, the focus of these four large Muslim organizations, within the Muslim community, is on stifling all criticism of political Islam, squelching all contradictory ideas, and most of all permitting no dissention. They prefer to label the critic of Islamist movements as outside what they set as the de-facto Muslim mainstream which in reality leaves them outside the American mainstream.The only area of agreement we have in their entire rant concerns American Muslim input into the Senate report. Certainly, it is also our hope that these types of investigations and reports solicit more Muslim input in order to get as many Arab and Muslim American organizations on record as possible about these central ideological issues. It is more important now than ever to get Muslim organizations on record regarding their stances on Wahhabism, Islamism, Salafism, governmental sharia and Caliphism, to name a few. "AIFD would also finally recommend that Muslim input to such investigations include anti-Islamist and anti-Wahhabi Muslims ready to ideologically counter the real sources of Islamist radicalism," adds Dr. Zuhdi Jasser.

For more information about the American Islamic Forum for Democracy please see http://www.aifdemocracy.org/null.

Well said, Dr. Jasser. Dr. Jasser's cause is an extremely worthy one, to take back his religion. When you hear someone ask "where are the moderate Muslims," point them to Dr. Jasser and ask them to give their full support, both in time and money. Better to give one's dollars to Dr. Jasser than to have it recycled through the oil wells of Saudi Arabia only to come back in support of CAIR and the cause of Salafi triumphalism.

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Iraqi Progress & Blood On Iran's Hands

Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham write in the WSJ today on the situation in Iraq and provide a clear statement of Iran's proxy war against the U.S., noting that the "Iranians have American blood on their hands."


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This from the Lieberman and Graham write in today's WSJ, reviewing the progress in Iraq, Iranian acts of war, and spelling out why we have an absolute necessity to succeed in Iraq:

. . . No one can deny the dramatic improvements in security in Iraq achieved by Gen. Petraeus, the brave troops under his command, and the Iraqi Security Forces. From June 2007 through February 2008, deaths from ethno-sectarian violence in Baghdad have fallen approximately 90%. American casualties have also fallen sharply, down by 70%.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has been swept from its former strongholds in Anbar province and Baghdad. The liberation of these areas was made possible by the surge, which empowered Iraqi Muslims to reject the Islamist extremists who had previously terrorized them into submission. Any time Muslims take up arms against Osama bin Laden, his agents and sympathizers, the world is a safer place.

In the past seven months, the other main argument offered by critics of the Petraeus strategy has also begun to collapse: namely, the alleged lack of Iraqi political progress.

Antiwar forces last September latched onto the Iraqi government's failure to pass "benchmark" legislation, relentlessly hammering Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as hopelessly sectarian and unwilling to confront Iranian-backed Shiite militias. Here as well, however, the critics in Washington have been proven wrong.

In recent months, the Iraqi government, encouraged by our Ambassador in Iraq, Ryan Crocker, has passed benchmark legislation on such politically difficult issues as de-Baathification, amnesty, the budget and provincial elections. After boycotting the last round of elections, Sunnis now stand ready to vote by the millions in the provincial elections this autumn. The Iraqi economy is growing at a brisk 7% and inflation is down dramatically.

And, in launching the recent offensive in Basra, Mr. Maliki has demonstrated that he has the political will to take on the Shiite militias and criminal gangs, which he recently condemned as "worse than al Qaeda."

Of course, while the gains we have achieved in Iraq are meaningful and undeniable, so are the challenges ahead. Iraqi Security Forces have grown in number and shown significant improvement, but the Basra operation showed they still have a way to go. Al Qaeda has been badly weakened by the surge, but it still retains a significant foothold in the northern city of Mosul, where Iraqi and coalition forces are involved in a campaign to destroy it.

Most importantly, Iran also continues to wage a vicious and escalating proxy war against the Iraqi government and the U.S. military. The Iranians have American blood on their hands. They are responsible, through the extremist agents they have trained and equipped, for the deaths of hundreds of our men and women in uniform. Increasingly, our fight in Iraq cannot be separated from our larger struggle to prevent the emergence of an Iranian-dominated Middle East.

These continuing threats from Iran and al Qaeda underscore why we believe that decisions about the next steps in Iraq should be determined by the recommendations of Gen. Petraeus, based on conditions on the ground.

It is also why it is imperative to be cautious about the speed and scope of any troop withdrawals in the months ahead, rather than imposing a political timeline for troop withdrawal against the recommendation of our military.

Unable to make the case that the surge has failed, antiwar forces have adopted a new set of talking points, emphasizing the "costs" of our involvement in Iraq, hoping to exploit Americans' current economic anxieties.

Today's antiwar politicians have effectively turned John F. Kennedy's inaugural address on its head, urging Americans to refuse to pay any price, or bear any burden, to assure the survival of liberty. This is wrong. The fact is that America's prosperity at home and security abroad are bound together. We will not fare well in a world in which al Qaeda and Iran can claim that they have defeated us in Iraq and are ascendant.

There is no question the war in Iraq – like the Cold War, World War II and every other conflict we have fought in our history – costs money. But as great as the costs of this struggle have been, so too are the dividends to our national security from a successful outcome, with a functioning, representative Iraqi government and a stabilized Middle East. The costs of abandoning Iraq to our enemies, conversely, would be enormous, not only in dollars, but in human lives and in the security and freedom of our nation.

Indeed, had we followed the path proposed by antiwar groups and retreated in defeat, the war would have been lost, emboldening and empowering violent jihadists for generations to come.

The success we are now achieving also has consequences far beyond Iraq's borders in the larger, global struggle against Islamist extremism. Thanks to the surge, Iraq today is looking increasingly like Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare: an Arab country, in the heart of the Middle East, in which hundreds of thousands of Muslims – both Sunni and Shiite – are rising up and fighting, shoulder to shoulder with American soldiers, against al Qaeda and its hateful ideology.

It is unfortunate that so many opponents of the surge still refuse to acknowledge the gains we have achieved in Iraq. When Gen. Petraeus testifies this week, however, the American people will have a clear choice as we weigh the future of our fight there: between the general who is leading us to victory, and the critics who spent the past year predicting defeat.

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Krauthammer, Iraq, & And The Moving Target

Charles Krauthammer ponders the same question I raised last week. Given the very real gains in security Iraq and the Iraqi government's passage of several important laws for reconciliation, how can the partisan left still attempt to justify surrender and withdraw? Some on the left have in fact given their answers.

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I posted the other day on how surreal and transparent the partisans on the left were becoming in attempting to justify defeat in Iraq in light of clear progress towards peace and reconciliation. Charles Krauthammer weighs in today on the same issue and, not surprisingly - Krauthammer leads with the report of CSIS's Anthony Cordesman:

"No one can spend some 10 days visiting the battlefields in Iraq without seeing major progress in every area. . . . If the U.S. provides sustained support to the Iraqi government -- in security, governance, and development -- there is now a very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state."

-- Anthony Cordesman,

"The Situation in Iraq: A Briefing From the Battlefield," Feb. 13, 2008

This from a man who was a severe critic of the postwar occupation of Iraq and who, as author Peter Wehner points out, is no wide-eyed optimist. In fact, in May 2006 Cordesman had written that "no one can argue that the prospects for stability in Iraq are good." Now, however, there is simply no denying the remarkable improvements in Iraq since the surge began a year ago.

Indeed, although Krauthammer does not point it out, Cordesman's prior criticisms were sufficiently harsh and pessimistic that the New York Times had them permanently linked at the bottom of their opinion page. To continue with Krauthammer:

Unless you're a Democrat. As Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) put it, "Democrats have remained emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq." Their Senate leader, Harry Reid, declares the war already lost. Their presidential candidates (eight of them at the time) unanimously oppose the surge. Then the evidence begins trickling in.

. . . After agonizing years of searching for the right strategy and the right general, we are winning. How do Democrats react? From Nancy Pelosi to Barack Obama, the talking point is the same: Sure, there is military progress. We could have predicted that. (They in fact had predicted the opposite, but no matter.) But it's all pointless unless you get national reconciliation.

"National" is a way to ignore what is taking place at the local and provincial level, such as Shiite cleric Ammar al-Hakim, scion of the family that dominates the largest Shiite party in Iraq, traveling last October to Anbar in an unprecedented gesture of reconciliation with the Sunni sheiks.

Doesn't count, you see. Democrats demand nothing less than federal-level reconciliation, and it has to be expressed in actual legislation.

The objection was not only highly legalistic but also politically convenient: Very few (including me) thought this would be possible under the Maliki government. Then last week, indeed on the day Cordesman published his report, it happened. Mirabile dictu, the Iraqi parliament approved three very significant pieces of legislation.

First, a provincial powers law that turns Iraq into arguably the most federal state in the entire Arab world. The provinces get not only power but also elections by Oct. 1. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has long been calling this the most crucial step to political stability. It will allow, for example, the pro-American Anbar sheiks to become the legitimate rulers of their province, exercise regional autonomy and forge official relations with the Shiite-dominated central government.

Second, parliament passed a partial amnesty for prisoners, 80 percent of whom are Sunni. Finally, it approved a $48 billion national budget that allocates government revenue -- about 85 percent of which is from oil -- to the provinces. Kurdistan, for example, gets one-sixth.

What will the Democrats say now? . . .

Despite all the progress, military and political, the Democrats remain unwavering in their commitment to withdrawal on an artificial timetable that inherently jeopardizes our "very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state."

Why? Imagine the transformative effects in the region, and indeed in the entire Muslim world, of achieving a secure and stable Iraq, friendly to the United States and victorious over al-Qaeda. Are the Democrats so intent on denying George Bush retroactive vindication for a war they insist is his that they would deny their own country a now-achievable victory?

Read the entire article.

So far, four on the left have responded to the changes in Iraq, with Nancy Pelosi being the most completely ridiculous:

. . . [Y]ou can't get anymore surreal than Nancy Pelosi and her response to this de-Baathification law. She dismissed it during a CNN interview the other day on the grounds that it had occurred . . .

. . .

(wait for it)

. . ."

too late."

Yes. That's right. Reconciliation does not count in her alternate reality because it did not occur in time. The House Democrats apparently passed a double secret time limit. If only Maliki and Bush had known. Amazingly, Wolf Blitzer let her get away with that response without challenge - or at least no challenge I could hear over my laughter, but I digress.

Read the article here.

And Michael Kinsley has responded by not merely moving the goal posts, but moving them outside the bounds of any logic. According to Mr. Kinsley, neither the security gains nor the political progress matter in assessing whether the surge has succeeded or in judging how to proceed in Iraq. His incredibly sophmoric argument is that the surge can be labled a failure solely on the basis of how many troops we have in Iraq at the moment. But even he is not calling for withdraw now. Which sets him apart from the LA Times.

The Los Angeles Times has responded to the good news from Iraq. Captian's Quarters covers their bizarre justification for still legislating surrender, which they never quite come to grips with because they start arguing with themselves:

The Los Angeles Times editorial board not only contradicts its previous editorials on Iraq, today's editorial contradicts itself. After pushing for withdrawal from Iraq on the basis that the US and Iraqis had made no real political progress, today they argue that we should withdraw because political progress has undeniably begun. And in conclusion, they wind up arguing for exactly the opposite.

Read the post here.

And in what can only be called a major surprise, the only other far left entity to finally stop calling for withdraw after the latest legislation out of Iraq is the New York Times editorial board. Go figure.

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A Belated Birthday for the Surge

The Surge is now one year and three days old - and I am three days late in getting this post out. And this is my salute to President Bush, General Petraeus, and all of our soldier's in uniform.

As you will read in the citations below, the Surge has turned around what appeared, at the start of 2006, a lost cause. I could not wax as eloquently on the cause and effects of the Surge as do those below, and so will refrain beyond these few thoughts.

Whether we should have invaded Iraq in the first place is open to very reasonable debate, but that debate today should be consigned to historians only. Once we invaded, Iraq became ground zero for al Qaeda and the radical Islamist movement – with Iran doing their part to section off Iraq. My belief then and now was that the worst possible thing that we could do would be to surrender in Iraq and leave it to the radical Islamists and Iran. The foreseeable costs of that act would far outweigh any costs we might need to win in Iraq and leave it a functioning democracy. That belief was shared by, among others, the West’s foremost Orientalist, Dr. Bernard Lewis.

With that in mind, I have considered the actions of the leadership of the Democratic party to legislate defeat in Iraq at all costs to be suicidally short sighted in terms of our national security and, to the extent such acts were predicated on a desire for partisan gain, treasonous. In 2006, the Democratic meme was that we were in the midst of a civil war, and thus needed to get out of Iraq. Once Bush announced the Surge, the Democratic leadership did all that they could to prevent this strategy from being implemented. And who can forget in April when the Democrat’s Senate Majority Leader, the odious Harry Reid, declared America defeated because of the acts of four al Qaeda suicide bombers.

Bush stated the justification for the surge as to bring security to Iraq in order to give time for the political situation to mature. He announced a series of benchmarks that Iraq needed to achieve: de-Baathification, passage of an oil law, and holding provincial elections being the major ones. And today, with the success of the surge, Democrats seeking partisan political gain still justify retreat from Iraq on the grounds that there has been no political progress towards the passage of the benchmarks.

As to the latter two benchmarks, the oil law is still in Parliament though, in its absence, there is no question that the central government has been distributing oil revenues fairly. Provincial elections are still being arranged with the help of the UN. As to de-Baathification, that benchmark has now been met with legislation passing Iraq’s Parliament today. This severely undercuts Democratic arguments for leaving Iraq, but that in itself means nothing. Refusing to acknowledge success in Iraq and political progress towards reconciliation, expect Democrats to now revise their meme and find yet another pretext why we must immediately withdraw from Iraq – and vote for Democrats in ’08.

As to the surge and Iraq today, there is no question that it is succeeding in bringing security beyond the most optimistic of expectations. All of which has been largely ignored in the MSM. If you want to read an assessment of the surge at the one year mark, you cannot find one anywhere in the liberal media. But you could find it in an editorial in the NY Sun:

. . . Please hold Gen. David Petraeus and the thousands of men and women under his command in your thoughts: They serve to keep America free and safe.
Not that this matters to the peace-at-all-costs crowd.

Uber-dove Ted Kennedy grudgingly conceded the success of the surge yesterday (while sneeringly referring to it as "the escalation").

Said Kennedy: "The violence has declined."

His disappointment was palpable - but not surprising. He was among the congressional Democrats who so arrogantly predicted (hoped?) one year ago that the surge would fail.

Indeed, four days before Bush announced the surge, the top two Democrats on Capitol Hill - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi - defiantly declared that "adding more combat troops will only endanger more Americans."

New York's own Sen. Chuck Schumer, who normally knows better, complained that the president had offered "a new surge without a new strategy."

And those Democrats who even then were hoping to succeed Bush as commander-in-chief piled on.

"The president's plan has been flawed from the outset," said Sen. Barack Obama, adding: "At what point do we say, 'Enough'?"

John Edwards called on Congress to de-fund the surge and demanded the immediate withdrawal of 50,000 US troops.

And Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - newly converted to fervent opponent of the war following the Democrats' 2006 wins - complained that the surge "will take us down the wrong road."

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

American casualties are down sharply, having dropped in each of the past four months. Sectarian violence has declined, as the number of car bombings and suicide attacks has plummeted.

That is to say, the chief objectives of the surge, as defined by Bush last year, are well on the way to being realized.

"Our troops will have a well-defined mission," he said, "to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs."

Iraq, to be sure, is far from a pacified country. Neither can it be said that political normalcy is just around the corner.

. . . But are any of the Democratic candidates honest enough to admit they were wrong?

Are you kidding?

Indeed, as Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman wrote yesterday in The Wall Street Journal: "Had we heeded their calls for retreat, Iraq today would be a country in chaos: a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, overrun by al Qaeda and Iran."
Instead, "the forces of Islamist extremism are facing their single and most humiliating defeat since the loss of Afghanistan in 2001."

A word about those two senators, one the winner of the New Hampshire GOP primary and the other an independent Democrat who was virtually hounded out of his party for his refusal to join its surrender caucus.

No two people on Capitol Hill have displayed the courage and wisdom they have shown in their continued endorsement of the US mission in Iraq - even as they've criticized its execution.

As McCain warned a year ago: "We have to succeed. We must succeed. The consequences of failure for the region would be catastrophic."

For his part, Lieberman from the outset applauded Bush "for rejecting the fatalism of failure."

Even as Congress was offering resolutions condemning Bush's change in strategy - an act unprecedented in US wartime history - signs of success were becoming apparent.
But Democrats - especially the party's White House hopefuls - either refuse to admit their error or display willful cut-and-run mulishness.

Do none of them understand the consequences of failure in Iraq?

Do they even care?

. . . But the fact remains that the war in Iraq has been turned around - thanks to Gen. Petraeus and his troops, who took the fight to the enemy, and to President Bush's willingness to risk all by changing course.

They all understand that America cannot afford to lose this struggle.

Some of those who hope to be taking the presidential oath of office come next January understand this, too.

That none of them happens to be a Democrat speaks loudly to the decline of a political party that once understood that eternal vigilance is indeed the price of freedom.

And this from Ralph Peters:

AS you read these lines, our troops are in the midst of Operation Phantom Phoenix, a "mini-surge" to squeeze al Qaeda and its fast-dwindling band of allies out of their few remaining safe havens in Iraq.

Iraqi troops fight beside us against a common enemy. Vast swaths of the country enjoy a newborn peace. Commerce thrives again. At the provincial and local levels, the political progress has been remarkable.

As for Operation Phantom Phoenix, our commanders expected terrorist dead-enders to put up a fight. Instead, they ran, leaving behind only booby traps and disgust among the Iraqis they tormented far too long.

Well, they can run, but they can't hide. We dropped 20 tons of bombs on 40 terrorist targets yesterday, including safe houses, weapons caches and IED factories. In a late-afternoon exchange with The Post, Gen. David Petraeus characterized our current ops as "executing aggressively, pursuing tenaciously."

The headlines at home? "Nine American Soldiers Killed." No mention of progress or a fleeing enemy on the front pages. Just dead soldiers.

Determined to elect a Democrat president, the "mainstream" media simply won't accept our success. "Impartial" journalists find a dark cloud in every silver lining in Iraq. And the would-be candidates themselves continue to insist that we should abandon Iraq immediately - as if time had stood still for the past year - while hoping desperately for a catastrophe in Baghdad before November.

These are the pols who insisted that the surge didn't have a chance. And nobody calls 'em on it.

Meanwhile, "Happy Birthday, Surge!"

One year ago, "the surge" kicked off as a forlorn hope, our last chance to get it right.

The odds were against us. Terrorist violence was out of control. Baghdad was a toxic wreck. Militias ruled, with ethnic cleansing rampant. And Iraq's leaders couldn't even agree about which day of the week it was.

We had never applied a coherent military or political policy in Iraq. Dithering leaders, civilian and in uniform, squandered American and Iraqi lives. A unique opportunity to jumpstart change in the Middle East had collapsed amid ideological fantasies, a looting orgy for well-connected contractors and Washington's simple unwillingness to really fight.

Even the new US jefe maximo for Iraq, Petraeus, was a dark horse. He'd just signed off on a counterinsurgency manual suggesting that the key to defeating terrorists is to learn to pronounce Salaam aleikum (Peace be with you) properly.

And then it all went right. Confounding Dems who expected him to preside over a retreat, Petraeus took the fight to the enemy like a rat terrier on meth. Jettisoning all the p.c. dogma, he turned out to be the first true warrior we put in command in Iraq.

Luck turned our way, too - and luck matters in war. Al Qaeda had managed to alienate its erstwhile Sunni Arab allies in record time. Former insurgents decided that the Great Satan America made a better dancing partner than Osama & Co.

Although analysts have missed it completely, the execution of Saddam Hussein helped, too: It took away the rallying figure for Sunni hardliners and made it easier for former insurgents to switch allegiance. The shock of Saddam's hanging jarred Iraq's Sunni Arabs back to reality: Big Daddy with the mustache wasn't coming back.

Meanwhile, the rest of the population was just sick of the violence. The merchant class wanted to get back to business. Tribal sheiks felt betrayed by foreign terrorists. And mashallah! We had veteran commanders on the ground who recognized the shifts underway in Iraqi society and capitalized on them.

. . . Oh, and the left turned out to be dead wrong, as usual. We hadn't created an unlimited supply of terrorists. In fact, the supply turned out to be very finite, to al Qaeda's chagrin. And killing them worked. (One of the great untold stories of 2007 was the number of al Qaeda corpses.)

And our former enemies have been killing them for us.

Iraq still faces massive problems, of course. Thirty years of murderous tyranny under Saddam followed by four years of Coalition fumbling left the country a shambles. But Iraqis want it to get better.

The military situation is well on the way to being under control. Now the question is whether Iraq's leaders, especially those from the newly empowered Shia, can put their country above their personal and parochial interests (something that we don't expect of our own politicians these days). . .

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McCain, Lieberman And The Surge

Republican Senator John McCain and the once Democratic, now Independent Senator Joe Lieberman have co-authored a column today in the WSJ discussing the success of the surge and looking ahead to preserving and deepening the gains made in Iraq. The two men have been the strongest voices in our legislature for actually winning the War in Iraq. Their willingness to stand and be counted has been vindicated by the courage of our soldiers on the ground. This today from the WSJ:

It was exactly one year ago tonight, in a televised address to the nation, that President George W. Bush announced his fateful decision to change course in Iraq, and to send five additional U.S. combat brigades there as part of a new counterinsurgency strategy and under the command of a new general, David Petraeus.

At the time of its announcement, the so-called surge was met with deep skepticism by many Americans -- and understandably so.

After years of mismanagement of the war, many people had grave doubts about whether success in Iraq was possible. In Congress, opposition to the surge from antiwar members was swift and severe. They insisted that Iraq was already "lost," and that there was nothing left to do but accept our defeat and retreat.

In fact, they could not have been more wrong. And had we heeded their calls for retreat, Iraq today would be a country in chaos: a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, overrun by al Qaeda and Iran.

Instead, conditions in that country have been utterly transformed from those of a year ago, as a consequence of the surge. Whereas, a year ago, al Qaeda in Iraq was entrenched in Anbar province and Baghdad, now the forces of Islamist extremism are facing their single greatest and most humiliating defeat since the loss of Afghanistan in 2001. Thanks to the surge, the Sunni Arabs who once constituted the insurgency's core of support in Iraq have been empowered to rise up against the suicide bombers and fanatics in their midst -- prompting Osama bin Laden to call them "traitors."

As al Qaeda has been beaten back, violence across the country has dropped dramatically. The number of car bombings, sectarian murders and suicide attacks has been slashed. American casualties have also fallen sharply, decreasing in each of the past four months.

These gains are thrilling but not yet permanent. Political progress has been slow. And although al Qaeda and the other extremists in Iraq have been dealt a critical blow, they will strike back at the Iraqi people and us if we give them the chance, as our generals on the ground continue to warn us.

The question we face, on the first anniversary of the surge, is no longer whether the president's decision a year ago was the right one, or if the counterinsurgency strategy developed by Gen. Petraeus is working. It is.

The question now is where we go from here to sustain the progress we have achieved -- and in particular, how soon can more of our troops come home, based on the success of the surge.

. . . The war for Iraq is not over. The gains we have made can be lost. But thanks to the courage of our troops, the skill and intellect of their battlefield commander, and the steadfastness of our commander in chief, we have at last begun to see the contours of what must remain our objective in this long, hard and absolutely necessary war -- victory.

Read the entire article.

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Interesting News – 10 January 2008

The top three Republican candidates appear to be in a tie in Michigan. I wonder if we will see a Republican nominee emerge before the convention. Rick Moran is asking for our support for Fred Thompson.

Some thoughts on McCain that mirror my own here. McCain is hardly a die hard conservative, and his votes on tax cuts and immigration are hard to swallow. But he has vowed to end earmarks and he makes the highest marks on national security, both of which make him an attactive candidate to me at least. In terms of bipartisanship, he is also the real deal – a true thorn for conservatives on many issues, but he would likely appeal to many independents. Bookworm Room wonders if he isin’t trying to position Lieberman as his running mate.

Remember the Lancet Report claiming 655,000 Iraqi dead issued just before the last election? The World Health Organization has released its own, much lower count based on a much larger sampling. Laer has the story here.

I am regularly amazed by the arguments against using picture I.D.’s to combat voter fraud. Of particular note is the argument that it would harm the indigent and prevent them from voting. That seems a canard. Anyone who can make it to a polling booth on election day can just as easilly make it to a government office, show proof of their identity and get an i.d. card. Contrary arguments appear to be an invitation for fraud. More thoughts here.

The People’s Democratic Republic of San Francisco wants to be a gun-free an island unto itself. And in some ways, they are making progress towards that goal.

Al Sharpton smells some race-geld to be had in the inadvertent comment of a TV golf analyst. He has started mining and much to its shame, the Golf Channel has caved.

And from Across the Pond . . .

Europe has discovered democracy. They want to vote and have their say . . . in the U.S. elections.

Democracy does have its limits, however. The governments of Europe want a "mature debate" on the EU, but no vote on the same. And on this most important issue facing Britain since 1939, Labour is being assissted by the Tories. Scandalous. When the Queen took the oath of coronation near half a century ago, it was clearly not the EU Constitution she was binding herself, along with the people of Britain, to uphold. At least some people are attempting to expose the government’s deceit in their own way.

The BBC knows where its bread is buttered – its Brussels, not Westminister. EU Referendum ponders whether this might explain the BBC’s fawning coverage of and deference to the EU. I think that the EU is simply the ultimate leftist construct, and given the bent of the BBC, that explains the affinity.

And the MCB responds to the comments of the Bishop of Rochester that there are no-go areas in Britain. Sheik Yer Mami notes that most Britons seem to disagree with the MCB.

"Millions of children are being raised on prejudice and disinformation. Educated in schools that teach a skewed ideology, they are exposed to a dogma that runs counter to core beliefs shared by many other Western countries. They study from textbooks filled with a doctrine of dissent, which they learn to recite as they prepare to attend many of the better universities in the world. Extracting these children from the jaws of bias could mean the difference between world prosperity and menacing global rifts." This is a quote on education in French and German public schools. Read this exceptional post at DWM.

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Lieberman Explains The Fall of the Democrats

Joe Lieberman catalogues the moral and ethical degeneracy of his former Democratic colleagues as they have placed the desire for political power above our national security interests. This partial transcript of Lieberman’s speech appears in today’s NY Post:

BETWEEN 2002 and 2006, there was a battle within the Democratic Party - a battle I was part of. I felt strongly that Democrats should embrace the basic framework that President Bush articulated for the War on Terror as our own - because it was our own. It was our legacy from [Presidents] Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Clinton.

We could rightly criticize the Bush administration when it failed to live up to its own rhetoric or when it bungled the execution of its policies. But I felt that we should not minimize the seriousness of the threat from Islamist extremism or the fundamental rightness of the muscular, internationalist and morally self-confident response that Bush had chosen in response to it.

But that wasn't the choice most Democrats made.

Since retaking Congress in November 2006, the top foreign-policy priority of the Democratic Party has not been to expand the size of our military for the War on Terror or to strengthen our democracy-promotion efforts in the Middle East or to prevail in Afghanistan. It has been to pull our troops out of Iraq, to abandon the democratically elected government there and to hand a defeat to President Bush.

Iraq has become the singular litmus test for Democratic candidates. No Democratic presidential primary candidate today speaks of America's moral or strategic responsibility to stand with the Iraqi people against the totalitarian forces of radical Islam or of the consequences of handing a victory in Iraq to al Qaeda and Iran . . .

Even as evidence has mounted that Gen. David Petraeus' new counterinsurgency strategy is succeeding, Democrats have remained emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq, reluctant to acknowledge the progress we are now achieving . . .

. . . There is something profoundly wrong - something that should trouble all of us - when we have elected Democratic officials who seem more worried about how the Bush administration might respond to Iran's murder of our troops than about the fact that Iran is murdering our troops.

There is likewise something profoundly wrong when we see candidates who are willing to pander to this politically paranoid, hyperpartisan sentiment in the Democratic base - even if it sends a message of weakness and division to the Iranian regime.

For me, this episode reinforces how far the Democratic Party has strayed . . .

That is why I call myself an Independent Democrat today. It is because my foreign-policy convictions are the convictions that have traditionally animated the Democratic Party - but they exist in me today independent of the Democratic Party, which has largely repudiated them. . .

Read the entire transcript here. Lieberman is an old school liberal. The only way to describe the Democratic Party today, given their elevation of rhetoric and emotion over reason and intellectual honesty, is as neo-liberals.

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