The Last Word

“Savvy Democrats have found a way to capitalize on market fears. Just as they frequently attribute every hot day to global warming—not weather—now they lay every economic problem at Iraq’s door. If the economy is not strong, they blame what Obama calls the ‘Bush/McCain war.’ Sure, it’s fair to oppose the war and cite the cost to American taxpayers. Although, once a war has started, we have to pay for it. So when Democrats talk about how the war hurts the U.S. economy, it sounds to me as if they are arguing that U.S. troops can spill their blood in Iraq, but not if gasoline hits $4 per gallon. Then the cost is too high... Forget, if you will, that Clinton and 76 other senators voted (for the resolution) to authorize the use of military force in Iraq. This is America’s war. To troops stationed in Iraq, it doesn’t matter who started it. It does matter, however, that their sacrifices count for something. And it doesn’t help U.S. troops, whose morale has been boosted by the surge’s success, when Clinton announces, as she did again last week, that the Iraq War is ‘a war we cannot win.’... Last week, Clinton said in her Iraq speech, ‘The reality is that this war has made the terrorists stronger.’ Likewise from Obama: ‘Above all, the war in Iraq has emboldened al-Qaida.’ But if the terrorists are stronger and bolder, why are they losing ground in Iraq? Why are they in hiding elsewhere? And why have leading Democrats begun to frame the Iraq War, not just as a war that cannot be won, but as an expensive engagement that is driving up the price of gasoline for Americans?”

—Debra Saunders