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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review April 10, 2008 / 5 Nissan 5768

Resolve and commitment

By Cal Thomas


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Observing the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, one profound truth came shining through. And it was Ambassador Crocker who uttered it, as he summarized what the United States faces on two battlefields — the one in Iraq and the political one at home, a major part of which is the presidential campaign.


Crocker said, "Developments over the last seven months have strengthened my sense of a positive trend. Immense challenges remain and progress is uneven and often frustratingly slow, but there is progress." And then Crocker added, "Sustaining that progress will require continuing U.S. resolve and commitment. What has been achieved is substantial but it is also reversible."


Critics who have demanded an immediate pullout of U.S. forces ought to say whether they are prepared to shoulder the blame should the gains in Iraq be reversed by a premature withdrawal.


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Only those politically invested in the defeat of their own country — a sad state to be in — would deny that progress has been made toward Iraq's establishment as a functioning government and more stable country. As a Wall Street Journal editorial noted recently, when the surge began last year, "al-Qaida dominated large swaths of central Iraq, Baghdad was a killing zone, Sunni and Shiites were heading toward civil war, and the Iraqi government was seen as a failure. … Today, al-Qaida has been cleared from all but the northern reaches of Anbar and Divala Provinces, Iraqis feel safe enough to resume normal lives, Sunni sheiks are working with coalition forces, and the long process of Sunni-Shiite political reconciliation has begun…"


What's not to like about that? Apparently plenty, if you are a Democratic presidential candidate, or part of the Democratic congressional leadership that is an appendage of MoveOn.org and other far-left groups. These cannot allow even the perception, much less acknowledge the reality of success, lest voters reward John McCain for his good judgment to support the surge and the objectives of the war or, heaven forbid, make the reviled George W. Bush look good.


This is where polarized politics has taken us. Not even war is a good enough reason to support a president of the other party, if opposition strengthens the possibility of political victory, even if this opposition makes victory on the battlefield more difficult for those doing the fighting.


Is there any doubt that, as in Vietnam, our enemies are encouraged by domestic war opponents and believe that if they can just hang on through the next inauguration, they might achieve victory?


While the road is difficult, because this war is not limited to Iraq or Afghanistan, but is worldwide, there are many reasons to be cautiously optimistic. As David Brooks noted in the New York Times, "Iraqis are growing more optimistic. Fifty-five percent of Iraqis say their lives are going well, up from 39 percent last August, according to a poll conducted by ABC News and other global television networks. Forty-nine percent now say the U.S. was right to invade Iraq, the highest figure recorded since this poll began in 2004."


Another positive is the provincial elections scheduled for October with national elections to follow.


Does anyone find it strange that support for U.S. efforts to quell the violence is higher in Iraq than in the United States? What is responsible for this approval gap? Part of the explanation is that too many Americans — including much of the media — have grown tired of the war. We want to move on to more pleasant things, like celebrities and the babies they are having out of wedlock.


The enemies of freedom — ours and Iraq's — would be happy to see us return to such trivialities while they focus on winning their war.


As Ambassador Crocker put it, what is needed is resolve and commitment. Al-Qaida and other enemies of the United States seem to have it. They are betting we don't. We'll soon know who is right.

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JWR contributor Cal Thomas is co-author with Bob Beckel, a liberal Democratic Party strategist, of "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America". Comment by clicking here.

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