(a) We were not obliged or committed to a specific course of action toward those who are “with the terrorists” before the doctrine was announced; if you’re saying the doctrine did not change that, then the doctrine is meaningless. (b) What you are saying would make perfect sense if I was suggesting something as nutty as “let’s invade Yemen, or Somalia,” or other places where we know al Qaeda is allowed to operate. I am talking, instead, about two of the principal backers of militant Islam who would have been just as worthy of being taken out as Saddam was post-9/11 and who, right to the present day, are actively aiding and abetting a terrorist militia that is presently engaged against American forces in a nearby theater of combat. (c) The observation that something is going to take a long time to accomplish is a mature acknowledgement of how difficult the task is even if we go at it diligently; it is not a basis for not dealing in the here and now with something that is a big problem in the here and now. (d) In a war premised, quite correctly, on the notion that Islamic militants have to be wiped out because they are resolutely committed to killing us, what fluid strategy is served by the tactic of sitting down with Ansar al-Sunna? (e) I support President Bush, but if your point is that because he is more hardline than his critics we should pipe down when he is less hardline than he should be, I can’t accept that.

Repeatedly saying that the war will take a long time may be true but it is an engraved invitation to drift. Saying we need to be fluid may be true but it can easily lead to a loss of focus: Is the war about eradicating militant Islam? Is it about establishing democracies even if militant Islam continues to thrive around them? Is it about denying weapons of mass destruction to rogue regimes? When the President admirably eschews withdrawal time-tables and insists we are staying in Iraq until we “complete the mission,” which mission is he talking about? If it’s the stabilization of Iraq rather than wiping out the threats in that region that pose a national security threat to the U.S., is that the mission we went there for in the first place? Would the American people have agreed to go to war to accomplish that? Are we never negotiating with terrorists … except when we negotiate with them? Is today a “ruthless terror organization” day or a “business professionals” day for Hamas? Is it really a “war” after all, or is it a “struggle against violent extremism”? The President’s job – especially in a long-term project in which there are necessarily so many forks in the road – is to define clearly what we’re doing and why, and to make sure that our actions line up with those clearly stated goals. Where he falters in that job, it’s our duty to say so, not to shrug our shoulders and say, “look, he’s as good as it gets.”