WE CAN WIN

Victor Davis Hanson is particularly impressive this morning – because he criticizes as well as praises. This point strikes me as critical:

If we are outnumbered in particular theaters, it is only through laxity, not through an absence of resources. This is a country, after all, that bickered over the cost of a single destroyer in 1937 and then built over 87,000 warships less than a decade later when it was at war. If we are convinced that Iraq must be stabilized, and Syria and Iran must cease aiding and abetting the terror and killing of Americans, then surely we have the resources to defeat our enemies in short order. The problem is not might, but will – or perhaps worry about our affluence, gas prices, and self-image.
In the last two years, on each occasion when the United States finally said “enough is enough” and began to apply itself in earnest – after the fourth or fifth week in Afghanistan, pouring it on through a sandstorm in Iraq, or rounding up terrorist cells here at home – the enemy was impressed and faltered. And in contrast, each time we caught our breath and thought we were done – allowing the Taliban to sneak back into Pakistan in droves, watching looting with impunity, concerned more about immediate reconstruction than the destruction of the Iraqi Baathists, or worried about pressuring neighbors not to allow terrorists into Iraq – our enemies became emboldened. We are all products of the Enlightenment and value sobriety and moderation, but that ensures neither that our enemies share such confidence in reason nor that predictability is a virtue in war.

At this point in the war, we should be enraged by Baathist counter-attacks, not rattled.