This is Not Survivor

Boy, to read the news on Iraq you would think that America is embroiled in another Vietnam. There is little coverage of the progress that the new government is making or the transformation of Iraqi life. Rather, stories of losses and pictures of military occupation cover the front page of the LA Times; good news is treated with scepticism. Sullivan has it right:

We are still at war over there against the Baathists and much of the current criticism of the occupation as a whole is ultimately designed to weaken domestic support for the vital task in front of us. That's what the anti-war left and right are now trying to do. They now desperately need the U.S. to lose the post-war. It's time for those of us who supported the liberation of Iraq to fight back against this potentially catastrophic gambit. For the U.S. to give up now, to withdraw, or to show any vacillation in the face of great progress in the Middle East, would indeed make matters far worse than if we had never intervened in the first place. We have an obligation to make it work. If some Democrats continue to argue that we should cut our losses, they are simply not ready for government.

There is a lack of support for the people of Iraq because 2004 is election year. The left hates Bush with a passion, to the point that they are willing to turn Iraq over to civil war and chaos to win the White House. It's been three months, is it fair to say that the entire enterprise is a defeat? The United States took two years before it came up with the Constitution after winning the War of Independence. Birthing a democracy is not a reality TV show.