"It is the policy of the Iranian government, approved at the highest levels of that government, to facilitate the killing of American and other coalition forces in Iraq. Period," – CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, Washington Post, May 30, 2008

The Iranians have funneled weapons and fighters into Iraq for years—rocket-propelled grenades, shaped charge weapons to penetrate our armored vehicles, explosives for IEDs, sniper rifles, night vision scopes, timers and remote detonators, mortars, money, and advisors—in an effort to destabilize and eventually control Iraq. The mullahs are responsible for the death and injury of countless Iraqi men, women and children, providing the explosives for hundreds if not thousands of bombs, they have wiped out whole families. They have killed hundreds of young American soldiers, scarred and crippled thousands. The suffering and destruction they have inflicted on a democratic Iraq struggling for survival will take decades to overcome. They do much the same in Lebanon, supplying and funding Hezbollah as it fires Katyusha rockets into Israeli towns, and murders democratically elected leaders.

It cannot be denied and it cannot be explained away; Iran’s religious dictatorship is our deadly enemy. Yet the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has a different perspective as she tries to deny the clear success of the surge and the Iraqi army’s success in Basra.

“Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.” – Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, in the San Francisco Chronicle, 28 May 08

Her words leave one speechless. They are as divorced from reality as can be imagined. They indicate a partisanship and ideological blindness that ignores the truth and is not influenced by it. Pelosi sits in the intelligence briefings; she knows what the Iranians have done and are now doing. They are not petulant children that can be swayed by false praise and pandering. The mullahs will see her insipid comments as weakness, the fantasy of “useful idiots.” They will feed an evil that already causes suffering for millions, and further legitimize a government that advocates genocide.

One has to wonder. Is she is so thoroughly blinded by partisan political ambition and post-modern progressive ideology that the truth no longer matters? Does she really believe what she says? Does she not understand the consequences of her words? Is she so locked into her own talking points that she has lost the capacity for rational thought?

Nancy Pelosi has demonstrated monumental ignorance of the world or stunning political cynicism. American loss and retreat in Iraq furthers her party’s political aims; they have invested in defeat and so be it. They have chosen their party over their country.

For her statement, Nancy Pelosi must be censured; the sacrifice of too many brave Americans and Iraqis demands it. She is morally unsuited to be Speaker and two steps from the Presidency. If her words are indicative of the Democrat leadership, we dare not let them cling to power, the damage they would do under a Democrat president would be catastrophic. If we blind ourselves to the threats that face us, we cannot defeat them. If we appease and excuse the Irans of the world and let them kill our soldiers with impunity, 9-11 will be just the beginning.