Iraq may win this war, and it will be the American people whowould give him the victory.

A recent poll showed that support for efforts in Iraq droppedfrom 71 percent to 38 percent after the ground war started.Americans don’t like to see other Americans killed.

Militarily, Iraq cannot win. They are outmanned and outclassedby American military training and equipment, which is decades aheadof their own. In addition, air superiority goes a long way toensuring victory on the battlefield, and we have had that since thefirst days of the war. Also, the Iraqis have no way to staunch theflow of precise targeting Tomahawk cruise missiles launched by theU.S. Navy. Their navy, what there was of it, has been captured orlies at the bottom of the Persian Gulf.

Saddam Hussein and his evil regime have no hope of winning thismilitarily. Unfortunately, they also know this.

Iraq’s lone hope of winning the war is to make it stop beforecoalition forces move into Baghdad and capture or kill the highcommand.

Unfortunately, they know this, too, and are doing everything intheir power to see that this happens by disheartening the Americanpeople into demanding that our forces be withdrawn from theconflict.

Expect to see weapons of mass destruction employed as coalitionforces draw nearer and into Baghdad. Hussein has already proved hedoesn’t care for his people, with past gas attacks and by usingthem as human shields. His sole aim is survival, and he will dowhatever it takes to accomplish that goal.

Employing weapons of mass destruction, incidentally, would alsofall into his goal of disheartening the American public byinflicting higher casualties. And, make no mistake, the executionof prisoners of war, troops pretending to surrender to create asuccessful atmosphere for an ambush, and Iraqis donning Americanuniforms to further confuse coalition forces are all aimed at thatgoal.

It only took about 260 deaths to make Americans demand we pullour Marines from Beirut in the 1980s. It took far less than thatfor them to demand we withdraw from peacekeeping efforts inSomalia.

Americans talk about knowing the price of freedom is blood, butwhen it comes to American blood, apparently, that price seems a bithigh.

We encourage people in other countries to rise up against theiroppressive governments and pay the price for democracy, but we haveforgotten that sometimes the price is too high and help is needed.Remember, we paid a high price in the American Revolution, but wewould not have succeeded had the French not agreed to help in theend.

Fortunately, even if protesters and the American people force awithdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq, Saddam has signed hisdeath warrant. He has violated not only United Nations mandates,but also just about every code found in the Geneva Convention, theinternational rules of warfare.

The Geneva Convention, specifically, does not allow for theexecution of POWs, ambushing opposition under a white flag, nor thedonning of uniforms from an opposing side. Not to mention the useof chemical and biological weapons should he decide to employ themas expected.

Should the American people force a withdrawal, someone wouldhave to go in again to get him for violating those rules. And guesswho that would be?

We are the world’s lone superpower, with the power, militarymight, economy and U.N. membership, to accomplish the job. A U.S.withdrawal now is a moot point. Live with it.

Editor’s Note: Scott Tynes was a sergeant in the MarineCorps. He spent nine months in the Persian Gulf during OperationsDesert Shield/Storm in 1991 and is a combat veteran of the groundwar.