Melanie Morgan

The politicians in Washington are dating impending doom. The vote yesterday by the House of Representatives in surrendering to the jihadists in Iraq spells T-R-A-V-E-S-T-Y in just about any dictionary.

Our stolidly sturdy troops in Iraq are beginning to get the idea that we, as a nation, are giving up on them, and it's time to let these honorable men and women in uniform know that the public won't allow the politicians to bail on them.

The people of this nation cannot give up on our troops – no matter how tempted the politicians become to do just that. We must not allow the scene of American helicopters evacuating U.S. personnel from the rooftop of a besieged embassy to be repeated in Baghdad.

Let's put on the table some of the generally accepted consequences of a withdrawal from Iraq without victory:

• Retreat would embolden Islamic jihadists who would rightfully claim that they defeated the greatest power in the free world.
• The Iraqi government would likely collapse altogether, allowing it to revert to its former position as a state sponsor of terrorism.
• America would lose any credibility as the world's lone "superpower" and would have little ability to rally other nations in actions to stop Islamic jihadists.
• Iran will become more emboldened to not only wipe "Israel off the map," but also to use nuclear weapons against the United States, Israel and European targets.
• Iraq itself would likely collapse into a pit of bloody violence as sects engaged in genocide and mass killings to gain the upper hand.

These are only a few of the likely consequences to which responsible figures in Washington and across the nation can agree. Lurking in the gray area are unforeseen troubles.

(Column continues below)

Given the consequences of failure, it is obvious that we must find the resolve, determination and grit to win this critical fight for the future of the free world.

I am perplexed by critics of Operation Iraqi Freedom and their claims that Iraq was not part of the frontline on the war against Islamic jihadism until Coalition forces launched the military campaign to topple Saddam Hussein's brutal regime.

These critics ignore the indisputable fact that Iraq was already one of the world's leading sponsors of Islamic terrorism. Can they truly believe that jihadists only flocked to the kite-flying fields of Iraq after the war began? To give any credence to their argument, one would have to then assume that, had the U.S. invaded France, then jihadists would have flocked there by the tens of thousands because that's where U.S. troops were.

The reasons jihadists are loath to allow Iraqis to live in a secular, democratic nation is the same reason they despise Israel and disdain the Kurds of northern Iraq. The jihadists consider the entire Middle East as the centerpiece for their Islamic caliphate that they wish to spread across the globe just as surely as Adolf Hitler intended to spread the reach of the Third Reich.

Al-Qaida could have only dreamed that, shortly after they used airplanes as missiles to take down the towers of the World Trade Center, prominent American politicians, journalists and bloggers would be arguing that American surrender was the best path to victory. And it only took six years for the white flags to wave.

Those who speak out against the mission of our troops in Iraq say that it is legitimate for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to politically attack the mission in Iraq, noting that President Bush turned the issue on his political opponents in the 2004 election.

That's a ludicrous contention because it suggests moral equivalency between rooting for our troops and their missions, and rooting against them.

The next few weeks will bring waves of news about how bad things are in Iraq, and the sad thing is this isn't propaganda from America's enemies. Instead, it is propaganda from America's domestic enemies.

"Domestic enemies" – that's one of those phrases that causes great distress for many in the media and politics. To them, labeling people as such conjures up images of "McCarthyism" and blacklisting Americans as traitors.

With no apologies to the political and media elite in this country, I believe that those who understand the consequences of failure in Iraq, but who nonetheless relentlessly criticize Operation Iraqi Freedom, are domestic enemies.

A universe of people understand what will happen if we surrender in Iraq, but these people nonetheless argue for such a policy out of shameless political expediency.

Sens. Dick Lugar and George Voinovich, for example, are fully aware of the fact al-Qaida considers Iraq the frontlines in the war on terrorism. So if we are intent on destroying the al-Qaida terrorist network, winning in Iraq would be a good place to start, don't you think? Apparently, the same men who surrendered to the anti-military left over John Bolton's nomination to the United Nations are also prepared to surrender to Islamic jihadists in Iraq.

How can we win a war against Islamic jihadism when the terrorists have people who believe in bringing down the Western powers so fervently that they will blow themselves up, and we have on our side politicians acting as Sens. Lugar and Voinovich have?

I don't care what political party you call home. We are in a war against Islamic jihadism, a cancer that wants to cut our throats and rule the West.

President Bush has made many mistakes in the execution of the war against Islamic jihadists in Iraq. However, undermining the military's mission because of a personal dislike of Commander in Chief George W. Bush, or because he's not prosecuting the war the way some might prefer, is inexcusable and a lethal mistake we can ill afford to make.