THE WASHINGTON RETREAT

From todays' Opinion Journal featured editorial:

...........Yesterday, Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha became the most prominent Democrat so far to join the pullout chorus. Mr. Murtha is esteemed on Capitol Hill, and in these columns, for his Vietnam service. But yesterday's speech urging a withdrawal within six months could have been written by Howard Dean.

Mr. Murtha says a key to progress is "to Iraqitize" the war, but his deadline would make it more difficult to get Iraqis into the fight. Though tens of thousands still volunteer to fight, no Iraqis want to die in a losing cause or be rounded up or killed if the Saddamists return to power. Iraqis already have reason to doubt U.S. staying power, going back to the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War and the failure to prosecute Saddam himself nearly two years after his capture.

Saddam was trying to put just such a fear into Iraqis when he declared at his recent hearing that "I am still the President of Iraq." Ex-Baathists call themselves "The Party of the Return," and "collaborator" lists are posted in mosques. Death threats are common, and the families of those who join the cause of Free Iraq are targeted. The brother of Adel Abdel Mahdi, the current vice president and a potential prime minister after the elections, was recently assassinated.

Every Iraqi thus has to calculate the prospects of victory over the terrorists against the risks of U.S. abandonment. The signal Mr. Murtha is sending is that the risks of abandonment are growing, and that Iraqis might as well sit the fight out. This will only make it harder to train an Iraqi army and thus more difficult for the U.S. to disengage with success. The Murtha pullout could well leave the U.S. facing the terrible dilemma of a far longer stay or leaving in catastrophic defeat.

Read all of it here.