Better Late Than Never

One of my biggest criticisms of the Bush Administration has been its maddening unwillingness to intellectually and ideologically engage the enemy without (Islamic Fundamentalists, regardless of sect) and the enemy within (the American Left and its manifestations in the Democrat party and its wholly owned media subsidiary). I've written many times about how the Bushies went AWOL between May of 2003 when major combat operations in Iraq ceased and March of 2004 when John Kerry clinched the 2004 Democrat presidential nomination, turning what would have been an easy re-election for the President into a down-to-the-wire nail-biter. Many others have lamented how this White House has failed for years to level with the American people about the war, its nature and scope, and even who the enemy is. Rather than following through on the "Axis of Evil" theme from the 2002 State of the Union Address, the Bushies, by failing to militarily engage Iraq's neighbors to the east and northwest (Iran and Syria, for those not overly familiar with maps) and limiting subsequent combat operations to just Iraq (and Afghanistan), have allowed the DisLoyal Opposition by sheer shrill repetition to detach Iraq from the larger WAIF (War Against Islamic Fundamentalism), and even bury that larger war to such an extent that they effectively deny that it even exists. This failure to communicate finally cost the President's party control of Congress, imperiling the war "effort" and even the Bush presidency itself.

I have speculated over the last two months whether the Bushies would meekly allow the Democrats to run up the white flag to the jihadists. Certainly the pile of reeking defeatist vomit that was the Iraq Study Group report, and Bush's acknowledgement of it, did not augur well for a continued "effort" of any kind in the war, much less at the level of scope and intensity necessary to win it.

The latter is still very much in doubt. But at long last the White House looks to be delivering the facts of life to a nation that has been deceived into a pacifistic stupor:

It is the fate of the West, and in particular the United States, to have to deal with the combined threat of Shia and Sunni extremists. And for all the differences that exist between them - and they are significant - they share some common features.

Their brand of radicalism is theocratic, totalitarian, illiberal, expansionist, violent, and deeply anti-Semitic and anti-American. As President Bush has said, both Shia and Sunni militants want to impose their dark vision on the Middle East. And as we have seen with Shia-dominated Iran's support of the Sunni terrorist group Hamas, they can find common ground when they confront what they believe is a common enemy.

The war against global jihadism will be long, and we will experience success and setbacks along the way. The temptation of the West will be to grow impatient and, in the face of this long struggle, to grow weary. Some will demand a quick victory and, absent that, they will want to withdraw from the battle. But this is a war from which we cannot withdraw. As we saw on September 11th, there are no safe harbors in which to hide. Our enemies have declared war on us, and their hatreds cannot be sated. We will either defeat them, or they will come after us with the unsheathed sword.

All of us would prefer years of repose to years of conflict. But history will not allow it. And so it once again rests with this remarkable republic to do what we have done in the past: our duty.

Just so. It is frankly astonishing that an Administration that insisted for years that the enemy's ideology (Islam) was a "religion," much less one of "peace," has finally admitted that our enemies are Islamic Fundamentalists in the service of their demon "god" and that we have no choice but to annihilate them before they can annihilate us.

The next step is to elevate this message above the level of a pamphlet penned by a White House underling and get the President saying this in one televised address to the nation after another. Not just to get across to the external enemy that their Vietnam strategy is at least still in doubt, but to flush out the libs who believe that the debate is over and they won and re-heighten the cavernous differences between the two parties on the issue that matters above all others.

The Democrats are going to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney regardless; the latter might as well get their money's worth from the unpleasant experience, and perhaps lay the foundation for a 2008 rebound - as well as ultimate national survival.

[via HH]