Derb, I take your point and while I think Ralph is always smart, insightful and worth reading, I can’t honestly say that I’m not increasingly pessimistic.

Al-Qaeda, the Baathists and the Iranian mullahs all believe that, in the Leninist construction, “the worse the better.”

They believe that a civil war would drive the U.S. out and leave Iraq as a bloody corpse — on which they would happily feed.

In other words, they have a strategy. What’s our counter-strategy? To hope that Iraqis refuse to go along? Hope is not a strategy.

(I have similar worries re Iran: the mullahs intend to get nukes. Do we really intend to stop them? If they get nukes, do we bet they won’t use them? What odds would Jimmy the Greek give you on that?)

I have no doubt that the American military is learning valuable lessons in Iraq about how to fight Militant Islamists. I have much doubt that they are learning fast enough that they will prevail in this consequential battle – before the American public sours on the mission.

There was never any guarantee that we would succeed in helping decent Iraqis create a decent society. I do think it would be a stunning defeat if we were to leave Iraq with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi still alive and al-Qadea in Iraq still a force to be reckoned with. Other defeats would almost certainly follow in other places (Pakistan? Lebanon? Jordan? Afghanistan? If not, why not?)

Meanwhile, Democrats offer no credible alternative to the administration’s policies. Most Democrats, like most Europeans, are in denial over the very fact that we’re in a serious war against a very dangerous enemy.

They want to fight Bush and Republicans — because Bush and Republicans they can maybe beat.

They don’t want to fight Islamic Fascism because they don’t have a clue as to how they would go about taking on such a foe while simultaneously keeping everyone happy at the UN and Human Rights Watch and the NYT and the Daily Kos and CAIR and …