The mind-numbing pace at which the United States is surrendering ground in the war against Iranian-sponsored radical Islam is breathtaking. “In ways large and small, domestically and internationally,” Thomas Sowell wrote earlier this week, “the West is surrendering on the installment plan to Islamic extremists.”

Consider Afghanistan. During the presidential campaign last year, Barack Obama and his left-wing supporters excoriated the Bush administration for getting “sidetracked” in Iraq, when Afghanistan, so said conventional wisdom on the left, was the real battlefront in the war against terrorism. Since January, however, the war in Afghanistan has taken a sharp and deadly turn for the worse, leaving many to wonder if the U.S. should cut its losses and run.

Popular support for the war is quickly eroding. This story in a British newspaper predicts a “crushing defeat” for Gordon Brown next year due to what many critics consider terrible mismanagement of the British war effort in Afghanistan. In America, a 51 percent majority now views the Afghanistan conflict as a war that is not worth fighting.

Even some conservative commentators are now abandoning ship. Earlier this week, columnist George Will called on the Obama administration to scrap its Afghan policy, dramatically slash the number of troops and focus instead on “what can be done from offshore.”

Will is hardly alone in pointing out the numerous flaws in the Afghan strategy. “U.S. rules of engagement restricting the use of air power and aggressive action against civilians have also opened new space for the insurgents,” Karen DeYoung wrote in the Washington Post. Rebuilding Afghanistan’s infrastructure has given the Taliban new targets to attack, she continued. And America’s inability to protect Afghan citizens is only fueling resentment against Western forces.

At present, DeYoung intones, the Taliban is winning.

The Great Irony

President Obama’s handpicked commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, submitted his overall assessment of the war strategy to the Pentagon earlier this week. His report, not yet made public, evidently describes the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan as “serious,” but stops short of requesting additional troops.

Numerous sources, according to columnist Ralph Peters, have revealed that McChrystal originally intended to insert a request for 28,000 more troops into his report. But someone inside the Obama administration asked him not to include such a request at this time. Whether or not President Obama authorizes a surge in forces remains an open question.

Meanwhile, bound by his campaign rhetoric to concentrate on the real battlefront, Barack Obama, of all people, finds himself in the uncomfortable position of trying to drum up public support for an increasingly unpopular war!

“This is a war of necessity,” Obama told a gathering of war veterans less than three weeks ago. “Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans.”

It’s as if we are going through an ironic frame-by-frame replay of Iraq in 2007, before the surge. Only this time, we have the most radically liberal administration in American history occupying the White House. Yes—the undisputed antiwar candidate of the 2008 election is now urging a war-weary electorate to get behind the war effort.

This will not turn out well. “We’ve got a general who’s been gagged,” Peters laments,

a president trapped by his campaign promises, a muddled mission, crippling restrictions on our troops, a resurgent enemy, a worthless Afghan government—and an awol establishment media that, after hammering the Bush administration, gives Obama a pass on American casualties.Meanwhile, Iraq—which genuinely matters—goes ignored.

Yes, even as America squanders its hard-fought gains in Iraq, which we said would happen, it is simultaneously being backed into a corner—and by the very same nemesis that is poised and ready to grab hold of Iraq once U.S. forces retreat.

Earlier this year, Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the director of National Intelligence, was asked by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to comment about the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan. According to a transcript of the proceedings, which was declassified on July 30, Admiral Blair said (emphasis mine),

Iran is covertly supplying arms to Afghan insurgents while publicly posing as supportive of the Afghan government. Shipments typically include small arms, mines, rocket propelled grenades (rpgs), rockets, mortars and plastic explosives. Taliban commanders have publicly credited Iranian support for their successful operations against coalition forces.

Yes, of course—no matter the various battlefields in this war or the differing names of the pesky insurgents on the front lines, it’s always been the same old state sponsor warring behind the scenes—and one that will soon be armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons.

Admiral Blair’s testimony will come as no surprise to our regular readers. If you haven’t followed us regularly, read what we wrote here and here to understand why we have been saying, for going on eight years now, that the United States will not win the war against terrorism.

The pride the United States and Britain once had in their awesome military power and might has been completely broken and smashed—just as the Bible prophesied it would be!