The Danger of Withdrawal from Iraq

News reports today have suggested that Senators Carl Levin (D - Michigan) and John Warner (R - Virginia) found that the surge is working. But these articles also highlight the danger from the ill-conceived premise of the Democratic Party that immediate withdrawal is necessary.

Consider the following quote from a story on FoxNews.com:

Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, an on-again, off-again supporter of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told a British newspaper on Monday that the Iraqi government is on the brink of collapse. "Al-Maliki's government will not survive because he has proven that he will not work with important elements of the Iraqi people," the cleric was quoted by The Independent as saying. "The prime minister is a tool for the Americans, and people see that clearly. It will probably be the Americans who decide to change him when they realize he has failed. We don't have a democracy here, we have a foreign occupation."

Al-sadr is the biggest obstacle to peace and Democracy in Iraq. His positioning of the government as a non-democratic, foreign puppet, government is a pre-text for a fundamentalist takeover by shia loyal to himself and supported by the Ayatollah's in Tehran.

Beware of all Democrats and Republicans (like erstwhile Presidential Candidate and Congressman Ron Paul) that advocate immediate withdrawal. Such a move empowers Iran, which a major state sponsor of terror and a sworn enemy of the U.S.

Again Iran Misbehaves: The U.S. Response?

News stories at FoxNews.com and the NYTimes indicate that Iran has been arming Shiite militias with advanced bombs.

These weapons are killing our troops. The U.S. government needs to act. Instead there is diplomatic jawboning going on. This is disgraceful.

My plea to the President: PLEASE ACT NOW to stop Iranian interference in Iraq.

Ron Paul in Disgrace

Today the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass H.R. 3159 which is, imho, an unconstitutional intrusion by Congress into the prerogatives of the President. The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces. Decisions regarding troop assignments, including deployments and rotations, are his alone. Read about the bill here.

One of the few Republicans voting for this bill, as reported on C-Span this afternoon, was Congressman Ron Paul (R - Texas). The official record confirms Congressman Paul voted "Aye."

I cannot understand how a person who seeks the office of the President could so cravenly conspire to usurp the constitutional authority of that office.

The Congressman should be ashamed.

Missing the Point: The Reaction to Obama's Tough Talk

Much of the literate world is contemplating the tough talk of Senator Barack Obama (D - Illinois), candidate for the Democrat nomination to the office of President of the United States. The following passage from Senator Obama's speech is drawing all of the attention:

I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.

The Senator is obviously trying to buck-up voter's perceptions of his foreign policy credentials. His rivals for the Democrat nomination are pummeling him with criticism. This kind of talk will not play well with the anti-war/pacifist wing of the Democratic base. It is thus deserving of debate and analysis by observers.

But, honestly there is far more in this speech that would make one pause before pulling the lever for the junior Senator from Illinois. For example, early in the speech Senator Obama makes this observation:

We did not finish the job against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We did not develop new capabilities to defeat a new enemy, or launch a comprehensive strategy to dry up the terrorists' base of support. We did not reaffirm our basic values, or secure our homeland. Instead, we got a color-coded politics of fear. Patriotism as the possession of one political party. The diplomacy of refusing to talk to other countries. A rigid 20th century ideology that insisted that the 21st century's stateless terrorism could be defeated through the invasion and occupation of a state. A deliberate strategy to misrepresent 9/11 to sell a war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. emphasis added

I would probably disagree with just about every thought in this paragraph, but the heart of the matter is the italicized statement about stateless terror. What we are facing is state supported terror. Without the aide, succor, and support given by these criminal regimes organizations like Al Qaeda could not even contemplate the strikes they have executed against US in this county, abroad, and against other Western countries.

Then too, he ignores the true nature of the terrorist threat: The network of terrorist minded individuals and small groups who seek funding, training, and other support from the financiers of terror. Certainly Al Qaeda is one such organization, but it is not the only such organization. The Islamic Brotherhood and Hezbollah are certainly involved in these activities.

Whether Senator Obama likes it or not, Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a major state sponsor of terror. Afghanistan under the Taliban was a major state sponsor of terror. Iran is to this day a major state sponsor of terror, as is Syria. As I have noted previously on this blog (read here, here, and here), the war against terror cannot be won without ending state sponsorship of terror.

Hopefully, enough American voters will see the truth of this and prevent Senator Obama or any other like-minded individual from assuming the Office of President of the United States.