On Picking the Right Horse

I've never been a great finisher.

I've been trained to finish. I've been taught thoroughness, and certainly completeness: doing the job a step beyond what is required, so that you know without looking that what you were supposed to do is done.

But when it comes to military action, finishing the job is the only option, because the only reason to go to war is to win. And we're winning in Iraq.

What was required was not a surge, but a change in tactics. We had to get off the bases and into the neighborhoods, so the people could be confident. They want to back the winning horse, and as long as it looked like Al Qaida might win, they had to hedge their bets.

And we had to take our weapons off 'safety'. The rules of engagement had to change so that no premises, whether mosque or hut, that were used to attack us were off limits.

The jihadis are losing in Iraq, and the Iraqis are gaining confidence in their ablity to come together as a nation. It's too bad that the American Democrats have chosen to back the wrong horse.

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