To hear the antiwar faction talk, you would think that the war in Iraq is all but over and that we can withdraw in safety. Those who were claiming just a few months ago that the war couldn’t be won are now claiming it can’t be lost. “The reality is that neither Barack Obama nor Nouri al-Maliki nor most anybody else believes that the Iraq war can be ‘lost’ at this point,” Joe Klein wrote recently.

Just as I think this crowd was too quick to dismiss the prospects of victory a year or two ago, so now I think they are too quick to dismiss the possibility that things could head south in a hurry if we precipitously withdraw. The latest news from Iraq—bombings in Kirkuk and Baghdad that killed at least 57 people and probably more—should remind us that this war isn’t over. Yes, Sunni and Shiite terrorists are on the run, thanks to the surge, but they have hardly given up. They are still capable of perpetrating horrible acts of violence, and if we lose focus and intensity they could stage a comeback. No “Mission Accomplished” banners yet, please.