Canada's Worst Son

David Frum has written something less than a fawning blowjob for Bush. I was shocked to see it, but there it was - via Kevin Drum:

Americans want to hear a plan for victory. It's good that U.S. forces are training Iraqis. And yes, as Iraqi forces become more capable, it's logical that U.S. forces would stand down. But as Winston Churchill said after Dunkirk, "wars are not won by evacuations." And they aren't won by resolve alone either. We have a full-scale terrorism war on our hands in Iraq, a bigger war than the administration expected, backed by at least one regional government, Syria's, and abetted by another, Iran's.

On Sept. 20, 2001, the president said: "From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

Have those words been abandoned? If not, what consequences will these hostile regimes face?

Umm. Is Frum arguing to widen the war in Iraq? If he's not, fine, but it's difficult to actually express how bad an idea that is.

Let's list America's problems in Iraq:

There aren't enough troops in Iraq.

There aren't any more troops back home, either.

Recruitment is heading south like a dead pigeon.

Even with high recruitment, the necessary numbers can't be raised sooner than 5 years.

Okay, with all this, David Frum (one of the "good" Canadians, in that he's never, ever said anything bad about Bush) wants a wider war?

You know, anti-Americanism can take many forms - it's not just reading Maude Barlow. This idea is anti-American in the most basic sense. A wider war in the middle east would be a catastrophic defeat for the US. Oh, the US would rack up a hell of a butcher's bill, but they'd lose, period. Hell, they're already losing, and what Frum wants is to add more enemies? If the US can't pacify a country against 30,000 guys armed with semtex and AK-47s, what exactly does he think the US would do against 100,000 Iranians - never mind if Tehran had the help of Iraqi Shiites?

Sadly, this isn't the stupidest thing I've seen Frum write. If anybody's listening to him, however, it would certainly be the most costly.