When Will the U.S. Get Serious about Winning?

Michael Ledeen:

I do not agree with their suggestion we should threaten withdrawal. That’s already happened; Pelosi, Reid, and Murtha do it every day. I have no doubt the Iraqis and everyone else in the region expect us to leave sooner rather than later. What else could they think? Saying it one more time weakens our influence even further, whereas demonstrating a will to win this war is the best, indeed the only way to gain prestige and strength in the eyes of the people and their leaders.

And the only way to demonstrate a will to win is to go after the Iranians and the Syrians, as well as the terrorists already inside Iraq. God knows the evidence of Syrian involvement is overwhelming, and the latest information reportedly shows they are on both sides of the Sunni/Shiite divide. If we continue to blither ineffectually about how “unhelpful” the mullahs and the Assads are, everyone in those parts will understand that we do not yet have the will to win this war.

If we do not tackle Syria, we will simply provide the terrorists with more targets. If we do go after them, we may yet win this thing. As luck would have it, this is the ideal moment to go after the Iranians, since their supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is either dead or dying, and a vicious internal power struggle is under way in Tehran. We should propose a better solution to the Iranian people: revolution, leading to their freedom. That would require the president and the secretary of State to call for regime change in Iran and Syria, something from which they have always retreated in the past.

But if we want to win, that’s the first step. Anybody ready?

I don't see any hands raised in Congress, at the State Department, at Langley, or in the White House.

Rummy, put your hand down.