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Honesty is a rare commodity in politics. Americans like our politicians to “talk tough on the issues” as long as the issues aren’t tough on us. So when John McCain announced last week that he has “no Plan B” in mind when it comes to military strategy in Iraq, the media and that flock of sheep known as the American public condemned him. Comments like this “there’s not going to be a victory, just various levels of defeat.” (Stephen Elliott at the Huffington Post) seem to be the accepted approach among those on the Left and a significant portion of the American mainstream. The lunacy of no Plan B is that without a very abrupt and marked turnaround in Iraq, the Left believes that we will be mired in an unwinnable war. McCain’s base logic for no Plan B is that failure is in this war is unacceptable because of the overwhelming price to be paid should we retreat.

The lunacy of having no Plan B can be seen through the prism of time. History teaches us that along the road to overall military victory generals such as Washington endured more losses than wins. What really mattered was the final battle and to that end we (the United States) are an example that Washington won at Yorktown. Viewing the situation in Iraq through this paradigm, an argument can be made that a Plan B is quite necessary. If one considers the War in Iraq a part of a war (not THE war - the larger War on Terror is THE war), and adopts the philosophy that one battle win does not a war victory make, they can rationalize that we can retreat and live to fight again another day. After all, this battle isn’t on our soil, we’ve got oceans and significant land masses between the current frontline and the homefront.

The logic of no Plan B is evident in the lack of terrorist aggression here at home. Whether the Left will admit it or not, the basic and undeniable fact is that we have not suffered another terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11. Whether you supported the war in Iraq in the beginning (which by the way I did not) it’s hard to argue that the jihadists seem happy fighting the war over there rather than having the wherewithal or resources to fight it over here. Yes it’s decimating Iraq, yes we are now in the midst of a civil war, and yes Americans are dying. I maintain though that this is preferable to the other option. Frankly, I must believe that when given the choice of defending our security, most Americans would prefer that we did it somewhere other than on our own streets. Therefore the logic of no Plan B makes perfect sense.

Right now you’re probably thinking - didn’t you just tell us that the lunacy of no Plan B can be confirmed with history. In fact, aren’t we locked in a losing proposition fighting against an entrenched enemy that will outlast us (just like Washington did with the British) rather than beat us in the traditional military sense?

I did, but…

This is a different kind of war. As President Bush said immediately following 9/11 this is a war that will last a long time. It’s likely to endure over a period of many generations, and it is a fundamental battle between good and evil. This isn’t a war over a piece of land or about offenses perceived or declared, this is a war about freedom. This is a war against oppression. And this is a war in which every battle matters.

Using history again as our lens, consider our own Civil War. The North chose to go to war with the South rather than allow the Confederates to break away. At the time of its inception (and throughout its execution) the war between the states was an unpopular one above the Mason-Dixon line. Lincoln could very well have chosen to have his generals fold up the tents and come home, but he had grander plans and motives. While it can be argued that the war ignited on the debate over states’ rights, it cannot be disputed in the end that it resolved upon the freedom of enslaved people and the fundamental rights of man.

The correlation between our Civil War and the current situation in Iraq should not be ignored. Then the Federal army fought to free the slaves, today we fight to stop religious zealots from imposing their will upon others. It seems apparent that for Lincoln (as with McCain and Bush today) there was no Plan B. To Lincoln the question of basic freedom and good versus evil weighed more heavily on him than the development of other options. In his mind every battle and every piece of southern real estate that was taken was another brick taken from the wall of human oppression. Just as with Lincoln McCain sees Iraq as another brick in the Islamofacist wall. It is with this philosophy that no Plan B is truly logical.

Unfortunately for the senator from Arizona the fundamental logic of “defeat is not an option” in a time of war only works in America as a rallying cry when we’re winning the war. I hope for the sake of McCain and people everywhere, we start winning this thing.