This year’s presidential election marks a key juncture in the War on Terror. In Iraq, the central front of the struggle, Al Qaeda has been nearly overwhelmed by General Petraeus’ surge strategy. Its alliances with Sunni tribes have been broken and its effectiveness reduced. In Afghanistan, the resurgent Taliban remains a threat to the Karzai regime. The next president’s decisions will make or break our efforts in those countries. The Democrats have offered their utterly inadequate visions for the conduct of the war going forward. John McCain, by contrast, is uniquely qualified to prosecute the war as commander in chief and is the only candidate who can be trusted to see the war through to a successful conclusion.

Neither of the Democratic candidates has addressed the challenges facing U.S. troops. Once they win, according to their Web sites, they will oversee the orderly withdrawal of forces from Iraq, beginning immediately and ending with all American troops out of the country in two years. Neither plan includes a strategy to maintain Al Qaeda’s relatively powerless state in Iraq. Al Qaeda or insurgent forces are never mentioned in Hillary Clinton’s proposal for Iraq. Obama supports “isolating” Al Qaeda by convening a regional council of Iraq’s neighbors, including our ever-reliable friends Syria and Iran, to haggle over the fate of the new democratic regime while American forces pull out in the face of terrorist violence. To understand these plans, which patently ignore the military component of the war, one must recall the way that the Democrats view the war on terror these days. During the debate on the surge, Harry Reid took the floor of the Senate to tell the country and our troops in the field that “the war in Iraq is lost.” No Democratic senator rose to challenge him. When General Petraeus testified before Congress, Moveon.org ran a full page ad in The New York Times suggesting that he was a traitor. Both main Democratic candidates refused to condemn the Web site. John Edwards, the recently withdrawn Democratic hopeful, told us that the war on terror was just a Bush bumper sticker. Time and again, the Democrats have tried to tell us that the war was either lost or non-existent, and that the greatest enemy we face is the incompetence of the current administration. Plugging in the two catchphrases that have dominated their race, Hillary and Obama seem to think we can Hope away a determined enemy as soon as we Change from a Republican administration to a Democratic one. Alas, Hope and Change win Democratic primaries, not wars. Wars are won by warriors like John McCain.

One would be hard pressed to find a better candidate to lead a global war on terror than the senior senator from Arizona. With decades of military service and a long career in the Senate as a national security expert, McCain’s entire adult life has prepared him for this moment. As a prisoner of war in Vietnam, he famously declined early release, insisting that he be released only after the men captured ahead of him. Elected to the Senate as a genuine war hero, he has held seats on key foreign policy committees and become a leading authority on the dangers facing our country.

This experience gives him a uniquely realistic view of the challenges to come in this global war. Contrary to the American Left’s attempts to convince us otherwise, our enemy in the war on terror is not incompetence, but Al Qaeda, which is fighting U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. McCain is the only candidate who has, from the very beginning, addressed the hard facts of the war seriously and correctly.

McCain courageously criticized the Rumsfeld strategy in Iraq before it was politically hip to do so. He took a lot of flak from members of his own party for parting with the administration in a time of war. Despite the political perils of taking on his own party with a presidential election looming, McCain stuck to his guns and insisted on a new course of action. His experience enabled him to understand that America was on the wrong course in Iraq. When it became apparent to all that the Rumsfeld strategy had failed, he lent steadfast support for the surge under Petraeus, maintaining his position even in the face of vicious criticism that crippled his presidential campaign during the summer months. Now, it is clear that the surge is working, and American forces are back on the offensive. The success of troop increases, which McCain supported since the war’s early days, makes one wonder what could have been if he had been in charge from the outset. If, one year from now, we see a Democratic retreat from the central front of the war on terror and an Al Qaeda declaration of victory, we may again find ourselves wondering what might have been.

Barack Obama seems to be the favorite for the Democratic nomination. He has managed to quote just about every part of Kennedy’s first inaugural address, save for the one part that in many ways defined the speech: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Just as Kennedy re-affirmed America’s commitment to its allies in the Cold War, so should we renew our pledge to the allies of free governments in Afghanistan and Iraq. The fate of those regimes is not the sort of thing that we leave to regional conferences or attempt to deal with half-heartedly after removing our troops. Rather, those regimes must be sustained by continued American military action against terrorist forces. John McCain is the candidate best equipped to fight that battle, and the only candidate still committed to victory.