Will Speaker-Elect Pelosi Pursue Victory in the War on Terror?

The op-ed from today's OpinionJournal hopes for bipartisanship between the President and the new Congress in their approach to the War on Terror...

The biggest question mark, and responsibility, for Democrats is on Iraq and the war on terror. They could do themselves and the country much good by working with Mr. Bush on a strategy toward achieving victory in Iraq as well as against al Qaeda.

However, contrary to the hopes of the Wall Street Journal, soon-to-be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has already stated that the does not believe that victory should be pursued in Iraq. ABC's Terry Moran asked Speaker-elect Pelosi about this on last night's Nightline...

Terry Moran: So withdrawal [from Iraq] would be a victory?

Representative Nancy Pelsoi: It's not a question of victory. It is a question of how we bring a solution to what is in Iraq. Victory has become a diminished option under the policies of President Bush and the implementation of those policies.

Admittedly, this answer isn't very coherent (what exactly is a "diminished option"?) but what is clear is that Congresswoman Pelosi is signaling the she and her party are resigned to something less than defeating the enemy in Iraq.

To be fair, Congresswoman Pelosi and like-minded liberals aren't the only ones who think that a meaningful victory in Iraq may now be impossible. However, the Congresswoman's answer to a prior question by Moran suggests the possibility that the Pelosi Democrats may believe that victory is impossible anywhere in the War on Terror...

TM: You say its time to end the war in Iraq. What if the other side, the enemies of the United States don't want it to end? Isn't ending a war when the other side is still fighting it cutting and running?

NP: No it isn't at all. Our presence in Iraq has been provocative to our enemies. It is viewed as an occupation, and is resisted not only by Iraqis but others in the region, and those troublemakers, few and number but nonetheless a menace would probably leave Iraq when we left Iraq. They're there because we're there.

This is the blame-America-first answer that assumes that the United States is always the source of the problem, and the the US most effectively responds to conflict by finding the most violent, most anti-American group involved, figuring out what they want, and giving it to them. What Democrats seem to fail to understand (but Terry Moran, to his credit, does) is that you can never rid yourself of a violent enemy if your only answer is appeasement.

The question is whether walking away is the Democrats position towards only Iraq, or if it is their total strategy for dealing with violent Islamic radicalism. The fear is that Speaker-elect Pelosi's ideas represent the mainstram Democratic beliefs on dealing with conflict, and that there is nothing to discourage fringe groups anywhere from using violence to get what they want from the United States?