The path to success in Iraq has become crystal clear: patience. Al-Qaeda is being beaten and purged from the battlefield they claimed was the most important battle for their cause. They are losing respect in the Muslim community due to their atrocities against that community. AQ is losing standing, support, recruits. They are losing badly.

And the fact is al-Qaeda did rush into it’s one time ally Iraq (if you are well informed enough to know AQ is made up mostly from the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri, AQ’s number two, who joined forces with the smaller, less known Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda) to fight the infidels and The Evil Satan. They were going to rush in and fight us wherever they could, wherever we were – most likely Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Egypt. They were on Jihad and had to expel us, and they wanted a battle of terrorist attrition. We were in a war with AQ and they were hungry for more of our blood in the streets.

But we did not let them dictate the kind of war we would fight. Unlike the appeasers who wanted to sit on the sideline making excellent targets inside embassies and the such, we went straight at al-Qaeda and said “if you want a fight of civilizations we are here and ready to go”. While Saddam’s WMD stockpiles were a sad bluff on his part (bought into by everyone in the West, left to right), his ties to AQ, as evidenced by Iraqi documents captured during the war, was not a mirage. And only those desperate to surrender to AQ cling to the idea Iraq was only about 9-11, and not about all the future 9-11’s an Axis of AQ and Saddam could inflict. The fact remains AQ had the suicide bombers and Saddam had all the WMD know how to create Armageddon on Earth.

So AQ had to fight us somewhere after 9-11, we chose Iraq and Afghanistan (and we needed two battlefields so that AQ could not focus their forces in one area). People with little to know understanding of military tactics and strategies won’t get the reasoning behind how things played out – and never will. It is like trying to explain ‘blue’ to a color blind person.

AQ went into Iraq and at first succeeded in allying with the Sunnis. And for a year the battle looked lost as violence flared up. But last year warnings went out from the Iraqis to al-Qaeda in country and in their HQ hideout that the killing of Muslims must end. AQ’s response was a series of chemical and explosive bombings on Iraqi Muslims to force them to get back into line and follow their new leaders – AQ. This aggression and need to dominate is what destroys AQ every time.

Everyone should know how the story went from there. Across Iraq AQ went form the future of Islam to the enemy of Islam – yes, their atrocities where that horrid and repulsive. Instead of picking off American interest at their leisure and with new weapons from places like Iraq (which was a arms trafficker and trainer for terrorists everywhere) we took the battle to AQ and in the process converted the Muslim community be letting them see the horrors of Bin Laden’s dreams up close. Yes, Iraq and Afghanistan drew the attention of AQ. They were meant to. If you must fight you must select the best terms for your side as possible.

There are those who are still trying to find defeat at any cost in Iraq:

Better therefore to get the “defeat” word on the table now, in 2008. Make a pre-emptive strike this year, while the Republicans still control the White House. They are the ones who took the U.S. into a doomed occupation of Iraq. They are the people who deserve to take the blame.

Defeat is a powerful word, and no country or person likes to use it. Even to mention it invites the charge of being unpatriotic. So it is no accident that in Washington, critics of the war prefer the F-words — failure, fiasco, and folly. But the decision to stay in Iraq after toppling Saddam Hussein was worse than that. It was bound to lead to defeat. The U.S. did not lose on the battlefield, but every political goal that the Bush administration set for itself has been thwarted. So the verdict on the U.S. adventure has to be “military stalemate, political defeat.”

What a pathetic fantasy world to exist in. Note how we should have toppled Saddam and just ran for it – guaranteeing AQ would flow into Iraq and take over – and have in their possession all the WMD technology and knowhow Saddam had acquired over the years. If you want defeat, with massive casualties from innumerable 9-11s, that is definitely one of the better ways to get there. I can say one thing, this guy does defeat really well- it seems success is the thing that escapes his talents.

These wretches don’t care anymore about anything but them being proven right – or in this case not having to face how wrong they have been. It is a pathetic position to be in, to ignore all signs of progress and find solace in each death of an America or an Iraqi, even as these too dwindle down to levels that are even common in times of peace for the American military.

Here’s the deal America, we have this year to see how much closer we can get to victory, which is actually quite close. Iraq will be cleansing the last remnants of AQ from any large strong holds. The violence will continue to drop and at sometime plateau to a reasonable level. And Iraqis will hold elections in October. No Democrat can do anything about surrendering until well into 2009. So let’s just see what happens. If we continue to succeed and Iraq continues to become a beacon of opposition to AQ, a new way for the Muslim community – as it is now – then we can dispense with the surrendering and work on departure in victory. That is the difference between left and right. The left wants to run away. The right wants to succeed and then depart. If the latter is possible (and it is highly possible) then why not go for it?

In fact, we are within a year of achieving success with the elections coming up, so there is very little harm in seeing how it plays out, verses giving AQ a new lease on hope for their efforts in Iraq. That could destroy everything we have achieved to date. And yes, we have to be in Iraq for sometime to help rebuild it and stabilize it. But that is the better option right now. We can spend our resources building a democratic Iraq that shows a different path to AQ’s, or we can let AQ over run the region in areas and be right back there in a few years trying to stamp them out again.

There is no upside to us leaving, except some short sighted liberals on the left get to save their fragile egos from facing their own personal defeats. There is enormous potential for disaster if we leave – including reinvigorating AQ, which is now on the ropes fighting survive. And everyone should note they are fighting the Muslim communities in Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, the UAE, Pakistan and Afghanistan to survive. These are the places where Muslims hunt down AQ for horrific crimes it has committed against fellow Muslims.

On the other hand, there is great potential for us to see this year through. If violence drops because al-Qaeda’s last sanctuaries are taken from them in Iraq that is worthwhile. It saves a lot of human lives. If elections in October bring a more representative and robust democratic government to Iraq that is more stable and resolved, that is worth supporting. And if AQ has retreated to the tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they have worn out their welcome there as they did in Iraq, then we could see AQ shattered and blown to the winds. They will be like the Nazis who still follow that depraved movement today: sick, hate-filled and totally impotent to rise again to pile up the bloody bodies.

All this talk about Iraq is premature and a waste of time. Bush is in this until January, and all indications are he will be vindicated and what looks pretty good now could be looking damn good in October. Americans are not going to predict defeat at this stage, and the left only hurts their credibility by praying for it so openly right now. We are nearing the end of this. We might as well see if we can continue to succeed before we talk about defeat that is only in the minds of a few out on a limb of their own making.