Iraq Study Group Report Eve

Libs are hoping that they will get some treats tomorrow.

I'm not talking about a visit from Saint Nicholas.

I'm talking about the official (as opposed to leaked) release of the Iraq Study Group's findings.

Frank J Gaffney Jr. analyzes the ramifications of the group's recommendations.

He prefers to call the ISG, "an unelected, unaccountable and substantially unqualified commission," by John Wohlstetter's suggested title, the "Iraq Surrender Group."

Gaffney writes:

Led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, the ISG’s members have reportedly decided that the United States must withdraw its forces from Iraq, that we must start doing so in substantial numbers by 2008 and that we have to open negotiations with Iran and its wholly owned subsidiary, Syria.

An early indication of the way in which this bipartisan diktat will be received in official Washington can be seen in the vacuous response of the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sen. Joseph Biden announced over the weekend that the President should accept the surrender commission’s report – even before its complete contents become known.

The good news is that George W. Bush has made known, both publicly and privately, that he has no intention of surrendering to our Islamofascist and other enemies in Iraq. He understands something that has evidently eluded the ISG’s worthies: We are in a global war and that, if we run from Iraq, there is nowhere to hide.

Mr. Bush insists that withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq will be tied to success – not compelled by failure. And he has declared that he will not negotiate with the two countries most responsible for the proxy war (not to be confused with a “civil” war) going on in Iraq today: Iran and its puppet, Syria.

The bad news is that there are persistent leaks to the effect that these Shermanesque statements are to be taken with the same grain of salt as Mr. Bush’s declared determination pre-election to keep Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon for the duration of his term. It is not good for the Free World to have such uncertainty about the word of the President of the United States.

Will President Bush stand firm and be Sherman, or will he take the Neville Chamberlain route?

Will the appeasement Dems determine the course of our national security or will we choose victory over Islamic extremists?

When I hear "staying the course," I don't think of the minutiae of the war plan and troop levels.

I think of the big picture. The one that includes "the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center, the Khobar Towers attack, the August 7, 1998, bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole."

For me, "staying the course" is related to September 11, 2001.

"Staying the course" means defeating the Islamic extremists.

Retreating from Iraq is equivalent to taking the disastrous Jimmy Carter-Bill Clinton-Madeleine Albright route in dealing with terrorists and tyrants.

Appeasement and surrender is not an option.

The Left doesn't get the connection.