Democratic Senator and putative presidential candidate Barack Obama recently added his name to the growing list of beltway celebrities demanding American forces pull out of Iraq. Republican Senator John Warner has pointedly criticized the President and the Pentagon, and even Republican Senator John McCain, a one-time supporter of the war in Iraq and likewise a candidate for higher office, has distanced himself from the White House and the war by attempting to broker a deal between Senate doves and hawks.

While campaign politics undoubtedly play a major part in the pull-out debate, the sincerity of the pull-out faction is not in question. What remains in question, however, is their wisdom.

“The acme of skill,” wrote Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military theorist, “is to win without fighting.” Victory comes not by killing the most soldiers on the battlefield or by destroying the most cities and civilians, but rather by breaking the enemy’s will to fight. When those who govern and command lose their nerve, victory is assured.

Such was the experience of the coalition forces in the first Iraq war. The Iraqi army melted away before coalition forces almost without resistance. The “war” part of the war consisted essentially of a single pitched tank battle. If it was not the “acme of skill,” the first Iraq war at least approached that zenith.

Unfortunately, the present Iraqi insurgency has taken a page from Sun’s treatise. It recognizes that it need not kill all, or even many, of the American soldiers in the field. The insurgents know they could not win a battle against American forces in the traditional sense of that term. Ultimately, the insurgents understand they must win their war in Washington, not Iraq. That is, they must break the will of the American government if they are to achieve their victory.

Say what one will about President Bush’s Iraq policy and his recent State of the Union address, he certainly does not seem like a man whose will is about to be broken. On the other hand, the ongoing public demands by high-profile figures such as Obama, Senator Hillary Clinton, and others to pull the troops out serves primarily to hearten the insurgents, not resolve the Iraqi tangle.

The consequences of simply packing up and going home would be dire at best. The ensuing carnage that would result in Iraq itself is disturbing enough. But the damage to American interests and especially the ongoing War on Terror would be considerable.

The insurgents, their terrorist supporters, and their state sponsors—especially Iran and Syria—have already defined victory as getting the Americans to go home. Should the insurgents and their allies accomplish that goal and demonstrate the U.S. to be the proverbial paper tiger, we deceive ourselves if we think they would be content simply to manipulate a war-weary Iraq. Having exposed what they believe to be America’s national weakness—something they have suspected for some time anyway—they will seek out other opportunities to attack American interests. We may pull out of Iraq now only to find ourselves soon in a more desperate struggle in Israel, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, or elsewhere.

How ironic would it be if a presidential candidate today were to unwittingly lay the groundwork for a major military crisis in his or her own future administration?