More straight talk from the New York Post's Ralph Peters.

IRAQ made impressive progress in 2005. You wouldn't have known it from the daily news coverage or the surrender-now demands of left-wing extremists, but the long-suffering nation marched forward.

Here and abroad, the enemies of freedom insisted that failure was inevitable. Terrorists, insurgents, journalists with agendas, global America-haters and the Democratic Party's national leadership all tried to force our troops out of Iraq, no matter the consequences for the 26 million human beings who'd be left behind.