We have the capability to win in the Middle East. The only question is whether we have the resolve. At the start of the Civil War, many Northerners anticipated a quick victory. The New York Times predicted victory in 30 days. By 1863, the war was being denounced in Congress as an utter, disastrous, and most bloody failure, while President Lincoln and his administration were despised for their incompetence. "There never was such a shambling, half-and-half set of incapables collected in one government, before or since the world began," a Liberal senator said in disgust.
To-day President Lincoln is considered to be the best of all our Presidents. Just as then, we have to choose between resolve and retreat, with no guarantees about how it will end. All we can be sure of is that the stakes once again are liberty and decency versus tyranny and terror. We are fighting an enemy that feeds on weakness and expects us to lose heart. The world for generations to come will remember if we flinch. The aggressive measures the President took after 9/11/2001, have kept us safe. As a consequence, Liberals have the luxury and freedom of being able to hate him. History will see it differently.