Reading the reports out of Mosul this morning, we find it difficult not to think back to the terrible scenes that unfolded in Somalia in October of 1993, when locals dragged through the streets the bodies of Marines killed battling Somalian warlords. The images haunted the television news and are credited with having turned public opinion against the intervention; President Clinton withdrew our forces.

The words moving yesterday over the Associated Press were as vivid as any images from Somalia. “Iraqi teenagers dragged two bloodied U.S. soldiers from a wrecked vehicle and pummeled them with concrete blocks Sunday,” the AP reported. “Television footage showed the soldiers’ bodies splayed on the ground as U.S. troops secured the area. One victim’s foot appeared to have been severed.”

These are difficult words to read and images to take in. Yet the similarity with Somalia is perhaps no accident. Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis writes in his book, “The Crisis of Islam,” that Osama bin Laden and his followers “repeatedly” cite as precedents “the American retreats from Vietnam, from Lebanon, and — the most important of all, in their eyes — from Somalia.” The books quotes Mr. bin Laden, in an interview with ABC News in 1998, speaking of “the weakness of the American soldier,” who was “unprepared to fight long wars.” Mr. bin Laden said that in Lebanon and Somalia “after a few blows, they ran in defeat….They forgot about being the world leader….”

The journey America has made from Mogadishu to Mosul, which led through the fires of September 11, 2001, has taught us that withdrawal or retreat is not an option. No doubt President Bush understands this viscerally, even if such candidates as Governor Dean and Senator Kerry are pursuing a path that is based on an opposite view. Dr. Dean has mocked the notion that there is a connection between Mr. bin Laden and Iraq. But what America now faces suggests otherwise.