And Pennsylvania Chose the Other Guy?

Rick Santorum, still making loads of sense on Iraq:

A day after the Democrats won both houses of Congress, President Bush accepted the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld. The nomination for Rumsfeld’s replacement as secretary of Defense was Robert Gates, a cathartic election’s first fruits. Last week, Gates was confirmed by the Senate in a bipartisan vote that saw only two senators vote against him: Senator Bunning and myself.

The many failings of the administration in Iraq are well known. Ignored is the larger failing of our country’s leaders: their unwillingness to define, with clarity, honesty, and consistency, the enemy we face and the complex and enormous threat it poses to the lives and freedoms of all Americans.

If America were not at war, I would have deferred to the president’s judgment in his choice for secretary of Defense. Gates is a competent and experienced nominee. But we are at war, and we need exceptional leadership and insight. Gates unfortunately shares the view of the Iraq Study Group that we cannot win the battle in Iraq; at this point, our best option is to withdraw slowly and to negotiate with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Iran has been at war with us since 1979, and is today the principle instigator of systematic murder in Iraq; to negotiate a truce with that country at this point would be to negotiate our terms of surrender. This would be seen as an historic defeat for America – most assuredly, and notably, in the eyes of the radical Islamic world..

The Iraq Study Group and Secretary Gates see clearly the problems in Iraq and the contributions Iran makes to these problems. They do not think we can win in Iraq because they do not think that we can win in Iran; or, at least, they do not think that we must win in Iran. We must confront Iran to win in Iraq, and, more than that, we must confront Iran if we are to defeat Islamic fascism all over the world. The president’s nomination of Gates, and the Senate’s passive and overwhelming support of him, shows that our leaders have not understood the peril we are in and are not prepared to win the war that is being waged against us.

How could it be that a bitterly divided Washington has suddenly come to a consensus that will surely lead us on a path to failure in Iraq, and then to even more disastrous consequences? Can our country’s leaders really have concluded that the public’s discontent with the war in Iraq changes even one bit the nature of the threat our enemy poses to us? These are questions well worth asking our politicians, and first of all, our commander-in-chief, lest he contemplate changing his mind about the enemy we face.

Why couldn't he be SecDef?

Despite what the Dems and their idiot puppets in the LWM affect to believe, America does not have the luxury of choosing her enemies. They choose us, and, in the case of Iran, did so a generation ago. We have chosen to ignore their constant provocations and their murdering of Americans; they have chosen to continuously escalate. Does anyone honestly believe they'll willingly abandon their nuclear quest? Does anyone honestly think that once they have nuclear weapons they will use them solely for deterrence?

Does anyone think our resolve and capabilities will be increased by losing Tel Aviv and New York?

We've needed a Churchill in this war and gotten Chamberlain after feckless Chamberlain.

The Draft Santorum movement ought to be underway posthaste---we need somebody in the Oval Office who understands the stakes here and doesn't give a rat's nuggets what The New York Times thinks.