New Yorkers have gained two different views of the war in Iraq in the past week – one inspiring, the other disappointing. One came yesterday from President Bush, who said, “Freedom’s victory in that country will inspire democratic reformers from Damascus to Tehran, and spread hope across a troubled region, and lift a terrible threat from the lives of our citizens.” The president quoted a Marine corporal, Jeff Starr, who was killed fighting terrorists in Iraq and left a letter behind: “[I]f you’re reading this, then I’ve died in Iraq. I don’t regret going. Everybody dies, but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it’s not to me. I’m here helping these people, so they can live the way we live. Not [to] have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark.”

The other view came from Senator Clinton. She wrote to supporters on Tuesday, “Based on the information that we have today, Congress never would have been asked to give the President authority to use force against Iraq. And if Congress had been asked, based on what we know now, we never would have agreed, given the lack of a long-term plan, paltry international support, the proven absence of weapons of mass destruction, and the reallocation of troops and resources that might have been used in Afghanistan to eliminate Bin Laden and al Qaeda, and fully uproot the Taliban.” For those of us who have expressed admiration for Mrs. Clinton’s votes both for the war and for the $87 billion to fight it that Senators Kerry and Edwards voted against, it’s a sickening reversal. She’s saying, in retrospect, that the war was a mistake.

What a discouraging message for the senator to send to the people of Iraq and to the America soldiers fighting for freedom and against the terrorists. President Clinton and his national security adviser, Samuel Berger, found reason after reason not to take serious military action against the terrorists and their state sponsors, and the result, in part, was the attack of September 11, 2001. Mrs. Clinton still seems stuck in that pre-September 11 mindset. She seems more concerned with protecting her political standing on the anti-war Democratic left than she is with protecting the country and winning the war. Whatever quibbles one may have with Mr. Bush on the execution or strategy of the broader war or his communication of it to the public (we would have preferred a simultaneous emphasis on the Syrian and Iranian fronts, and a call for all Americans to sacrifice), at least the president conveys an understanding of why we are fighting and a steadfastness in battle. Like Corporal Starr, he has made that his mark.