Junto Boys

W's RETROACTIVE IRAQ PLAN

I missed his speech but read the transcript. Better late than never, Bush explains we're answering the call of history by:

1. Preventing attacks before they occur through the intelligence agencies.

2. Denying weapons of mass destruction to outlaw regimes and to their terrorist allies.

3. Denying radical groups the support and sanctuary of outlaw regimes. (Syria and Iran again put on notice here, to applause. Not a good day for them.)

4. Denying the militants control of any nation. To those who would cut and run, a question: Would the U.S. be more safe or less safe with Zarqawi and bin Laden in control of Iraq and its resources?

5. Denying the militants future recruits by replacing hatred and resentment with democracy and hope across the broader Middle East. This is a difficult and long-term project with no alternative. Freedom there means freedom here.

Bush reminds us that this war must be won, which will require long-term sacrifice and commitment. The upshot is that candidates in 2006 and 2008 will be required to take sides on the most important policy issue of our day. I expect we will hear much of this speech again in the January 2006 State of the Union Address.

UPDATE: Cardboard cutouts of three Democrat leaders appeared with the following speech bubbles attached.

"The president went into Iraq under a false premise, without a plan, and has totally mismanaged our involvement," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "Now he is trying to justify his actions with a series of excuses." Still not sure what her strategy would have been, despite two and a half years to come up with something.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said Bush "continues to invent a false link between the war in Iraq and the tragedy of Sept. 11." Putting aside that you can't "continue" to "invent" something, I don't see anything in Bush's remarks that links the war in Iraq to September 11 specifically. The speech places both the war in Iraq and September 11 in the larger context of terrorists' ambitions of regional subjugation. Still not sure what his strategy would have been, despite two and a half years and an urgent mandate to come up with something.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Bush "has offered America a false choice, between resolve and retreat." He did offer that choice. For it to be a false choice, there must be some middle option. What is it?

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson makes the point.

Yes, America is divided about Left/Right politics and over occasional antiwar street theater. But on the major issue of the war on terror and Iraq, most critics have very few ideas of doing anything other than what we are doing right now. The result is a strange consensus that few speak about — but fewer still wish to undo.