President Bush is taking tremendous heat for his policies regarding Iraq and terrorism. Having previously lost the support of most of the world and the Democratic Party, he is now losing the support of his own party, which may reflect changing circumstances and positions, but smacks of political expediency.

It is quite possible — many would say probable, and some would say absolutely certain — that the decision to go into Iraq was wrong and the decisions made since have been even worse. However, it is important to remember that none of us — supporters or detractors — knows for certain. There is no beta test, no way to know where we would be today if Bush had not made the pre-emptive attack on Iraq.

There are some things we do know. We know that Saddam Hussein was an evil man. We know that he started two wars — one with Iran and one with Kuwait. We know that he had developed and used weapons of mass destruction and had ignored United Nations resolutions that he eliminate and prove the nonexistence of the WMDs. We know that he tortured and murdered tens of thousands of his own people. We know that he abused the "oil for food" program and that the United Nations was not going to stop him.

We know that world opinion was against stopping Saddam, just as world opinion was against stopping Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot and Idi Amin. We know that current world opinion — and the United Nations — allows Darfur, dignifies Fidel Castro and embraces Hugo Chavez.

We know world opinion said that we couldn't go into Iraq because Saddam had WMDs, and hundreds of thousands would have died when he used them. We also heard that we never should have gone in because he didn't have WMDs. We know that world opinion now says we can't go into North Korea because it has nukes, making it too dangerous; and that we don't need to go into Iran because it doesn't have nukes, making it unnecessary.

We know that the American people no longer support our efforts in Iraq, just as at one point or another, they didn't support the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War I or World War II. Two years after Germany's invasion of Poland, it took the attack on Pearl Harbor for Franklin Roosevelt to bring the American people around to the obvious and inevitable, while untold lives were wasted.

We know that if Winston Churchill had been prime minister of Great Britain in 1938, instead of Neville "Appeasement" Chamberlain, Hitler would not have received the green light for World War II represented by the Munich Agreement — thereby pre-empting the greatest evil mankind has ever known. Such boldness during a war-weary age would have most likely ended the political career of Mr. Churchill. As it was, Churchill became prime minister after the Nazi juggernaut had rolled, effectively saving the world by leading Great Britain until the United States entered the war.

We know that, in general, America does not understand the concept of evil and does not nurture the idea of enemies, but as the greatest country in the history of the world, it defends reluctantly, defeats emphatically and rebuilds enthusiastically. We are fighting a sworn enemy. They have attacked us regularly, prepping the Somali militias behind "Black Hawk Down," bombing our embassies, nearly sinking the USS Cole and attacking the World Trade Center twice. They have declared jihad against us and used our laws and humaneness against us, and still, most Americans don't see this as a legitimate danger. We scream about temporary losses of minor civil liberties, equate urinating on the Koran to rape rooms and mass murder and compare our president to Saddam and Hitler.

It is impossible to believe that the United Nations — or any nation other than our own — would have done anything to stop Saddam. Is it possible that the pre-emptive war was a mistake? Yes. Is it possible that post-"mission accomplished" decisions were poor and that major mistakes have been made? Yes. However, what is not possible to know is what would have happened if Bush had not made the decision. How many terrorists would have been emboldened, how many attacks would have taken place on American soil, how many thousands would have continued to be murdered in Iraq, and what wars would Saddam have started?

It would have been easy — and popular — for Bush to stop after invading Afghanistan. He might have even generated worldwide support for removing Saddam and then leaving the country to its own devices. It certainly would have been politically easier to pull out the troops at any point in the past three years. Bush's efforts are easily dismissed as the unbelievable large mistakes of an obstinate, ignorant megalomaniac — an assessment that might be true. However, we may be witness to courageous decisions made by the man who stopped this generation's Hitler — though we'll never know for certain. I pray for the president, for our soldiers, for the people of Iraq, and I pray he made the right choices.

— Local political commentator Scott Harris' Web site is http://www.AlphaState.org.