Clueless Chuck Hagel

The American Thinker rips into Chuck Hagel’s argument that Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism or al-Qaeda. Undoubtedly the terrorist group al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn’t agree.

General Petraeus, who is in the unfortunate position of playing Cassandra to a disbelieving Congress, has been trying to set the record straight for weeks now, to little avail. Armchair generals like Sen. Hagel seem to be little interested in the facts and more interested in political spin. Al-Qaeda has very publicly declared that Iraq is their central battleground, and they’ve been working tirelessly to reach the current state of affairs. Their playbook is straight out of General Giap’s Vietnam-era insurgency tactics — the way to win against the United States is through the weakness of Washington — and they’re doing exactly that. The political disunity here is al-Qaeda’s most potent weapon against us in Iraq.

Senator Hagel, like most of our woefully inadequate political class, can’t seem to get their facts straight about Iraq. The sad fact is that they’re playing directly into the hands of our enemy, and we may lose this war not on the battlefield, but because our political class decided to put their own power over the good of the country.