It didn’t take them very long, now did it? They haven’t even taken control of Congress yet, and already the Democrats are plotting our retreat, oops, I mean redeployment, from Iraq.

I see this as very simple. If the Democrats get what they want, and we abandon Iraq to chaos and civil war, no country will ever again take seriously a commitment made by any President of the United States.

And countries we’ve already made commitments to will reevaluate their strategic positions and make policy adjustments we won’t like Taiwan? South Korea? These countries will watch us very closely, and if we bail out on Iraq, they will run to make whatever deal they can for themselves with their respective mortal enemies, China and North Korea. Israel? No deal possible there, so I’d guess desperate preemptive strikes against their mortal enemies. And what about that forgotten little piece of land saved by Bill Clinton, Kosovo? Watch as they become the headquarters of Al Qaeda in Europe.

Our enemies have been saying that the U.S. is a paper tiger. Sure, we have the best military in the world, there can be no doubt, but we lack the will to use it for as long as it may take to secure victory. It’s not that the troops can’t do the job, it’s the politicians, and, sad to say, many of us, who don’t seem to have the stomach for doing whatever it takes to achieve our objectives.

We are at war with people who want to kill you, your family, and everyone you ever met. We may spend the next 20 years at war with these people. If we flinch, as we did last week in electing a party that everyone knew wants us to retreat, our enemies see it as a sign of our weakness, as indeed they did, as published news reports carried the comments of Ahmadinejad, Al Qaeda and Chavez crowing about Bush’s defeat.

In this war, there is no substitute for victory. In Iraq, victory means a stable, independent country that is neither a client state of Iran nor a haven for terrorist organizations like Afghanistan used to be or Syria is today. Iraq today is a violent country, but one where that vision is being achieved, with help from us.

It is certainly true that innocent lives are being lost as Iraqis kill Iraqis. While that is a human tragedy, a car bomb in a crowded marketplace is not a civil war. However, if the US abandons Iraq, the death squads will have free rein to do anything they want, without fear of consequences. Before long, Iraq’s neighbors, Iran and Turkey will be only too happy to step in to “stabilize” a chaotic situation, all the while carving up the country into their own spheres of influence, the Shiite south for Iran, and the Kurdish north for the Turks, leaving the center to become Al Qaeda’s new base of operations, the rest of the vital Middle East in chaos and American foreign policy in shambles.

These are the stakes in Iraq, and these are the reasons we must see it through to victory.