Determination

That's the title of a piece by Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker. Some key points:

...America’s strategic vision and will to use force are also hugely important to the tyrants who oppose us. Ask Colonel Gadhafi of Libya, who has voluntarily surrendered his nuclear arms program. Strangely enough, Senator Kerry has nothing to say about this when denouncing Iraq as the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Contrary to what Americans are being told relentlessly, our forces in Iraq are not posted there to serve as targets for Islamist terrorists. Nor are they present in Iraq solely to ensure the transition of that country into a democratic state – a project which will take years, even decades to accomplish fully. That mission is extremely important, to be sure.

The American forces in Iraq are also a forward deployment in the War on Terror – a signal of the utter seriousness placed on removing the bases from which terrorists operate. As President Bush's re-election is looking more probable, people like Assad are realizing that they are not to be granted relied from this pressure by a verdict of the American electorate....

Students of the history of warfare realize that as the enemy is facing defeat, casualties often mount, as desperation attacks are carried out, in the consciousness that the only alternative is capitulation. In World War II, consider the awful toll in American blood paid in the Battle of the Bulge, the invasion of Okinawa, and in the Kamikaze suicide attacks on American aircraft carriers. The escalation in casualties was not an indicator of defeat or a "quagmire."...

Determination is what it's all about. We can stay the course and tighten the noose around the necks of terrorists and their sponsors, or we can retire to the illusory safety of our homeland and allow the enemy to capture the Middle East, make nuclear weapons, and train terrorists with impugnity.

Determination is what wins wars and keeps the peace.

Determination is a character trait. Some have it; many don't.

I speak from experience. I know the determination it takes to achieve a strategic objective. I succeeded in moving my company out of the second-rate quarters we were forced to take, in a political deal, and into first-rate quarters. It took 12 years, and it happened only because I was determined to make it happen, in spite of considerable internal opposition and diffidence on the part of my CEO.

Determination on the part of Democrats is what changed the dominant economic system in the United States from something like laissez-faire capitalism to something much more like socialism. If only Democrats had the same determination to win the war on terror.