The Discerning Texan

Michael Yon has a terrific post up on the situation in Iraq (as always), but the portion that Glenn Reynolds fished out is a really good place to start (bold highlights mine):

MICHAEL YON: Moment of Truth:

There’s only a small group of writers who honestly spend enough time in Iraq to make serious claims based on firsthand accounts. But I’ve seen the Iraqi Army with my own eyes. I’ve done many missions in 2005 and 2007, in many places in Iraq, along with the Iraqi Army: please believe me when I say that, on the whole, the Iraqi Army is remarkably better in 2007 and far more effective than it was in 2005. By 2007, the Iraqis were doing most of the fighting. And . . . this is very important . . . they see our Army and Marines as serious allies, and in many cases as friends. Please let the potential implications of that sink in.

We now have a large number of American and British officers who can pick up a phone from Washington or London and call an Iraqi officer that he knows well—an Iraqi he has fought along side of—and talk. Same with untold numbers of Sheiks and government officials, most of whom do not deserve the caricatural disdain they get most often from pundits who have never set foot in Iraq. British and American forces have a personal relationship with Iraqi leaders of many stripes. The long-term intangible implications of the betrayal of that trust through the precipitous withdrawal of our troops could be enormous, because they would be the certain first casualties of renewed violence, and selling out the Iraqis who are making an honest-go would make the Bay of Pigs sell-out seem inconsequential. The United States and Great Britain would hang their heads in shame for a century.

Alternately, in an equation in which the outcome is a stable Iraq for which they (Iraqi Police and Army officials) are stewards, the potential benefits are equally enormous. Because if Iraq were to settle down, and then a decade passes and we look back and even our most severe critics cannot deny that Iraq is a better place, a generation of Iraq’s most important leaders would have deep personal bonds with their counterparts in America and Great Britain. This could actually happen.

Read the whole thing. He's got a book coming out in April. Hit the tipjar, or preorder his book, if you want to help.

Electing either Clinton or Obama to be Commander in Chief--when both have promised precisely the reckless and precipitous withdrawal mentioned above--would go into the history books as one of the greatest betrayals of one ally by another in modern times: right up there with the dissolution of the Nazi-Soviet pact. And it would dramatically destabilize an already unstable--and important--region of the World.

The Republicans ought to be trumpeting this point loud and clear at every opportunity on every campaign stop. And anyone not trumpeting the point (i.e. Huckabee and Paul) should not be taken seriously. We simply cannot afford to abandon these good people at the precise time when they need us the most--and at a time when we have finally earned their trust that we are behind them. And we cannot afford to elect reckless, irresponsible demagogues to the Presidency who continue to this day to trash a war effort that is succeeding beyond our wildest dreams.

As for the oft-repeated "woe is me" about the fact that the Shiites and Sunnis are progressing slower than Democrats would like on the political side, keep in mind that these are people that were killing each other two years ago. Now they are at peace trying to negotiate difficult and complex ways of moving forward. It seems to me that the oppostition parties in Iraq are certainly making more of an effort (and progress) in working things through than is our own Democrat party in the US. Democracy is always messy, and even in the best circumstances it is often difficult to make significant progress in a short amount of time. The Democrat "four corners offense" during the entire term of President Bush is a perfect example of this. Yet these are the same parties "expecting" that parties at war with each other two years ago will make dramatic progress over there. Hypocrites!

Just one year ago the situation was much more precarious and we were in danger of losing Iraq altogether when Bush gambled and went "all in" on the surge. The Democrats took that bet, and they lost. They are now busy trying to ignore the fact that the surge has been a stunning and enormous success--and the press is of course following suit (the only time you hear any stories out of Iraq anymore is if a US serviceman dies: no discussions of the dramatic turnaround, of the rebuilding in progress everywhere, of the fact that even the Shiites are now starting to trust us). It is time for America to hold Democrats in Congress and the Senate--and those trying to become President--responsible for betting against our military and General Petraeus.

If we fail to do this, it will be a fatal blow to the faith of any and all of America's allies that we are a nation that keeps its word and honors its commitments. And the blood that would likely be shed as a result of such a dramatic betrayal would be squarely on the people who were vapid enough to dishonor our country and those who have given their lives for it. American blood, and the blood of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who would perish were we to pull out too quickly would stain America in the eyes of those who depend on us for a very long time.