That's it in a nutshell, demonstrated by the nearly universal tendency on the Left to frame the event as "Bush's War," as if it were a purely domestic political issue. To them everything important about it is. The international aspects consist only of the folly that the world is better off with an Iraq in chaos if the U.S. is properly humbled than with a peaceful and independent Iraq with the U.S. triumphant. To the latter end there is a lock on positive news that is only recently cracking. To the international media no admission of U.S. success will ever be made - that admission would be more damaging than the success itself. It threatens the worldview, the "narrative."
Part of the progressive approch to creating a better world is to exaggerate the shortcomings of the status quo, the underlying theme being "we know it really isn't that bad but let's pretend anyway to motivate people." But in this case it really is that bad, and it isn't the usual demon, the United States, who is to blame. That's quite outside the progressive narrative and such narratives tend to be rather inflexible. The real world is quite another matter.
It's also a matter of laziness and comfort. The Left has its whipping boy who does not fight back, an America that can be simultaneously cursed and depended upon, a comforting shield for the easy chair from which the criticism may flow unabated. The real enemy will take that chair away and enslave its occupants, but it is better to pretend that that enemy doesn't exist than actually to do anything about it, secure in the knowledge that somebody else will and the criticism game may continue indefinitely.
There is a basic paradox there - that the West, and especially the U.S., may simultaneously be subverted and still act as a shield against external enemies. It was a perfectly successful assumption during the Cold War, and it's going to take more convincing than is safe or even possible to convince its adherents that the negatives outweigh the positives, that the threat is real, and that their activities are dangerous.
I would assume that the left is making sure this point is telegraphed to Al-queda that now is not the time for attack.
If Al-Queda will just be patient, the Dems will pay protection money and back down from confrontation. In exchange, the Dems get to remaining in power.
They gamble our future existence as a nation, but heaven forbid an individual be allowed to take risks with their own retirement.
Have either of you considered that the Dems sincerely believe that we should work to understand "why they hate us"? If the issue is framed as one that fundamentally embraces appeasement, then victory in Iraq does nothing in the WoT, other than to demonstrate that we can subdue a militant insurgency.
It isn't about libs regaining power per se, it's about libs existing in another universe. IOW, they really DO believe their kumbaya ... and they want to exercise this emotion by spreading the love via US foreign & domestic policy.
That's what makes them dangerous. It's easy to counter calculating evil geniuses; it's the naive human shields that are so hard to understand.