Fouad Ajami writes that “time is the critical commodity that this war aches for. Our enemies there have plenty of it, while the American expedition is under pressure to force history's pace.”
He adds:
The burden of this war is that its costs are so easy to see while its gains in Iraq--and in neighboring Arab lands--are infinitely harder to pin down. The truth is that a better Iraqi polity is within reach and that the American presence in Iraq has launched a wider campaign of reform in Araby. To be sure, the American presence has not rid the Arab world of its political malignancies. But there have been gains in Afghanistan and Lebanon and in the Arabian Peninsula. A notice has been served, after the abdication of the 1990s, that a price will be paid by rogues and paymasters of terrorism who run afoul of American interests. It seems like ages ago--American memory is so incredibly short--that our special forces flushed Saddam Hussein out of his "spider hole." An unmistakable message was sent to despots in Syria and Libya, and to more sly rulers nearby who winked at terrorism: America was done with appeasement. …
We can't quit Iraq quite yet. We must, instead, recall the mix of fears and interests that brought us there and the threats that had us look for an Arab setting where we could make our stand.
The rest of his essay is here.
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