A new intelligence report prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center apparently concludes that al Qaeda is re-energized, and growing increasingly confident that it can stage successful terrorist attacks against the West.
And Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says al Qaeda’s “level of intent remains high.”
But is it any surprise that Osama bin Laden’s thugs are feeling good about their prospects – what with Democrats (and not a few Republicans) working so hard to turn over the entire Middle East to them?
For now, al Qaeda is operating from ungoverned areas in Pakistan, having been expelled from Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11.
Yet the surrender lobby on Capitol Hill is hard at work creating the likelihood of a new secure base for al Qaeda – in Iraq.
That is precisely what President Bush meant yesterday when he declared that “as difficult as the fight is, the cost of defeat would be higher.”
Allowing Congress to run the war “is a prescription for failure,” Bush said. Which is why he rightly maintains that “troop levels will be decided by our commanders on the ground, and not by political figures in Washington, D.C.”
It’s reassuring to see the president stand firm on Iraq, in the face of an onslaught from Democrats and the national news media – not to mention a growing number of weak-kneed Republicans up for re-election next year.
These senators don’t want to wait for September, when Gen. David Petraeus is to report to Congress on the progress of the current troop surge. They want a reduction of U.S. troops now – and several already are joining the Democrats’ grossly irresponsible efforts to force the president’s hand.
This despite the fact that evidence from Iraq shows the surge – whose full strength has only been in operation for a month – is succeeding.
To be sure, political progress is less steady. The White House yesterday released a report saying the nascent Iraqi regime has met only eight of 18 benchmarks. But to expect anything different, given the ongoing level of daily violence, simply was unrealistic to begin with.
Besides, as Ryan Crocker – the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, who has served administrations of both parties – argues, “the longer I’m here, the longer I’m persuaded that Iraq cannot be analyzed by these kinds of discrete benchmarks.”
Democrats, meanwhile, have given up even pretending that a congressionally imposed bug-out won’t produce a bloodbath on the scale of the nightmare inflicted on South Vietnam and Cambodia the last time they forced an American president to pull out of an unpopular war.
Indeed, they understand full well what would happen – but don’t care.
That a growing number of Republicans are more concerned with their own re-election than with the consequences of a forced withdrawal is tragic.
Years from now, the president predicted yesterday, when people “visit old, tired me down there in Crawford, I will be able to say I looked in the mirror and made decisions based upon principle, not based upon politics.”
Will any of the Capitol Hill surrender lobby be able to say the same?