From the Washington Times:

BAGHDAD — Leaders and supporters of the anti-U.S. insurgency say their attacks in recent weeks have a clear objective: The greater the violence, the greater the chances that President Bush will be defeated on Tuesday and the Americans will go home.
    “If the U.S. Army suffered numerous humiliating losses, [Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John] Kerry would emerge as the superman of the American people,” said Mohammad Amin Bashar, a leader of the Muslim Scholars Association, a hard-line clerical group that vocally supports the resistance.

    Resistance leader Abu Jalal boasted that the mounting violence had already hurt Mr. Bush’s chances.
    “American elections and Iraq are linked tightly together,” he told a Fallujah-based Iraqi reporter. “We’ve got to work to change the election, and we’ve done so. With our strikes, we’ve dragged Bush into the mud.”

Apparently our enemies don’t believe Kerry when he says, “When I am President, I will fight a tougher, smarter, more effective war on terror. We will hunt down, capture, and kill the terrorists wherever they are. “

I believe if we show weakness and retreat from engaging the Islamic extremists and creating a “shining beacon“ of freedom in the Mideast they will be emboldened.  If this happens they will be better able to pursue their agenda of converting the world to a theocratic Islamic state.  And as the above news story demonstrates the hard-line clerics believe John Kerry is their best hope to douse that beacon and further the Islamic extremist agenda.