Iraq: Bullish vs. Bull****

Contrasts don't get much more diametrical than this.

First, that noted military expert, Frank Rich, in yesterday's New York Times:

What lies ahead now in Iraq instead is not victory, which Mr. Bush has never clearly defined anyway, but an exit (or triage) strategy that may echo Johnson's March 1968 plan for retreat from Vietnam: some kind of negotiations (in this case, with Sunni elements of the insurgency), followed by more inflated claims about the readiness of the local troops-in-training, whom we'll then throw to the wolves. ...

Thus the President's claim on Thursday that "no decision has been made yet" about withdrawing troops from Iraq can be taken exactly as seriously as the Vice President's preceding fantasy that the insurgency is in its "last throes." The country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there.

There's more, but it's largely redundant.

Next, Ralph Peters in the New York Post last week, as if anticipating and pre-empting Rich (via the Corner):

The difference is that the extremists in Iraq don't expect a battlefield victory. They're fighting for time. They hope to wear us down, to maintain a level of photogenic chaos in just enough of Iraq to keep the media hot. They'll keep chipping away at our forces, praying that our will will prove far weaker than our weapons.

They don't expect to force out our military through violence. They hope our political leaders will withdraw our troops. The terrorists have done their homework. They know that a disheartening number of our politicians share one of their beliefs: a low opinion of the American people, a notion that we're weak, that we're quitters.

The terrorists know that our Marines aren't afraid of them. But they believe that our politicians are terrified. Of you.

So you're the target of every bomb, bullet and blade our enemies wield. Those Marines were killed to discourage you. They were targeted to ignite political discord in the USA. They died to give ammunition to those in Washington who view our dead only as political liabilities.

Witting or unwitting, in short, Frank Rich and his fellow travelers are enemy dupes.

Finally, we get the reality (condensed for brevity's sake) from an "anonymous, ...Iraq-based subscriber to The American Spectator:

*The Constitution was on time, despite al Qaeda threats to Sunni imams.

*President Bush is bullheaded and determined to continue fighting al Qaeda and its allies, and he will remain so, especially in Iraq.

*Iraqis too are turning on Wahhabism wherever they've lived under the jihadis. Like all people they resent religious chauvinism, especially the religious chauvinism of foreigners.

*Proof of the resentment against these foreign jihadis is seen whenever Coalition forces take back territory once under the control of the jihadi terrorists. Ordinary indigenous Iraqis show coalition forces where the bomb-making factories are. This is a consistent fact on the ground.

*The U.S. is working feverishly on material solutions to save U.S. and Coalition lives....The terrorists have only the roadside bomb and the un-aimed mortar to use today. An enemy whose greatest strength is its ability to hide is not going to win. This enemy may delay success and drive up the costs. He may create a protracted terrorism environment like that in Colombia, Spain, Algeria, Israel, and for a longtime Ireland. But as in those countries, democracy muddles through and will rule at the end of the day.

*The Internet makes it far more difficult for the mainstream media to hide unpleasant facts about America's enemies and those who wish to see the U.S. military and the Coalition fail for their own political agenda.

*The unthinking use of the terms "insurgents" and "insurgency," implying as they do some sort of legitimate struggle, is now under fire. It has started to dawn even on slow-witted media types that the "insurgents" are primarily the old Baathists terrorists unwilling to give way to the long-suffering majority and the rule of law; that they are also criminals employed by the Baathists; and finally that they are the self-proclaimed al Qaeda affiliates. Those who continue to call these murderers "insurgents" will have no more credibility than if they called the KKK an insurgent organization.

*The Iraqi people have not buckled under the threat of terror. They voted when threatened with death. They continue to fill the ranks of the police and the army as quickly as the Coalition can train them despite suffering the most casualties of any member nation in the coalition. They engage the enemy with growing confidence and bravery all the time. The long-suffering Iraqis know that failure is not an option....The quickest way to end the much-needed U.S. assistance is to defeat the terrorists. Iraqis are keen to do it and to wish the U.S. farewell. [emphasis added]

If you didn't know better you'd think that the man (or woman) from Iraq and Frank Rich were describing not just different countries, but different planets.

Brother Hinderaker sums up this irreconcilable dichotomy well:

There is one obvious catch, however, in Rich's rosy - for him - scenario. Much as he and his fellow left-wingers can encourage our terrorist enemy, and they do, they don't have the power to bring about America's defeat. Notwithstanding endless hectoring from Rich and his fellows on the fringe, there is only one man whose views about Iraq will really matter for the next three and a half years. His name is George W. Bush, and he isn't going to cut and run. [emphasis added]

But I guess a man - or a hack ex-theater critic - can dream, can't he?