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WSJ Op-Eds on Iraq

Two must read columns in today's WSJ ($). Fouad Ajami on The Curse of Pan-Arabia:

Consider a tale of three cities: In Fallujah, there are the beginnings of wisdom, a recognition, after the bravado, that the insurgents cannot win in the face of a great military power. In Najaf, the clerical establishment and the shopkeepers have called on the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr to quit their city, and to "pursue another way." It is in Washington where the lines are breaking, and where the faith in the gains that coalition soldiers have secured in Iraq at such a terrible price appears to have cracked. We have been doing Iraq by improvisation, we are now "dumping stock," just as our fortunes in that hard land may be taking a turn for the better. We pledged to give Iraqis a chance at a new political life. We now appear to be consigning them yet again to the same Arab malignancies that drove us to Iraq in the first place.

Ajami raises a question that is really beginning to worry me; namely, the competence of those who are setting our Iraq policy:We can't have this peculiar mix of imperial reach, coupled with such obtuseness. ... Our goals in Iraq are being diluted by the day. There has been naivete on our part, to be sure, and no small measure of hubris. We haven't always read Iraq right, but if we abdicate the burden and the responsibility -- and the possibilities -- that came with this war, our entire effort will come to grief.

Then there's Bernard Lewis' Iraq, India, Palestine, which criticizes our increasing reliance on the feckless UN:

The line that Americans are degenerate, soft and pampered -- "hit them and they will run" -- has been a major theme of Islamic terrorists for some time now. It was temporarily silenced by the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, but then revived by what was seen as public dithering and wavering. The turn to the U.N. will be perceived, or at least presented, as final and conclusive evidence of their view of America, and may well serve as the starting point of a new wave of terrorist action against Americans, reaching far beyond Iraq and perhaps even as far as these shores.

We must hope that the Journal puts these columns up on OpinionJournal.com, so that they can receive the wide audience they so richly deserve. In the meanwhile, though, if you're not a WSJ subscriber consider buying a copy today.