In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Joshua Muravchik smears dissenters against the war in Iraq as “hastening the advent of the next war”:

With the Bush administration’s policies having failed to pacify Iraq, it is natural that the public has lost patience and that the opposition party is hurling brickbats. But the demands of congressional Democrats that we throw in the towel in Iraq, their attempts to constrain the president’s freedom to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the proposal of the Baker-Hamilton commission that we appeal to Iran to help extricate us from Iraq–all of these may be read by the radicals as signs of our imminent collapse. In the name of peace, they are hastening the advent of the next war.

A bumper sticker I saw in the parking lot at Target yesterday said “I’m already against the next war.” I guess this is why.

PS The sad thing is that the “next war” may be different than Iraq (ie actually necessary), but every indication is that it will play out as a referendum on the current war. It’s yet another way the Bush administration has poisoned the well for its successor.