My new Townhall.com column looks at the very serious choice facing Senator Lieberman. An excerpt:

Taken together, the reports of progress and the obvious attempt by the Reid-Pelosi-Murtha Democrats to undermine the American mission before it can succeed put a heavy burden on one man –Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman. It is increasingly obvious that if the political war in Washington is to be stopped from hurting and possibly fatally crippling the war against the Islamists, Senator Lieberman is going to have to change parties, pulling a reverse Jim Jeffords. (Whether any other Senate Democrat is a potential switcher is impossible to say, but Senator Lieberman certainly understands the stakes and has fought the good fight for years now.)

I don’t think any amount of political payoff could tempt Lieberman as it did Jeffords. The switch would not be because of a desire for more special ed funding or some set of perks he just cannot get from the Dems. Of course he’d want seniority and leadership, but the motivation would have to be the obvious: He can stop the war from being lost and he understands the consequences of such a defeat. Indeed, every single Democratic senator has to realize that their ongoing support for their caucus is encouraging the enemy, undermining the mission and demoralizing the troops.

But more than any other Democrat, Lieberman knows what will follow in the wake of an American defeat. He knows what either an Iraq governed by radical Shias and death squads or a fractured Iraq that hosts in its Sunni regions a flourishing al Qaeda would spell for the neighboring states and ultimately for Israel, Europe and eventually the United States. He knows as well that a nuclear Iran has to be confronted and its ambitions denied or the world will lurch towards unimaginable horrors.