Slogging ahead.(At War)

IN a primetime speech, the first of several he is to give weekly, President Bush reiterated his vision for the new Iraq. If the speech didn't contain anything new, except for the symbolic gesture of proposing to destroy Abu Ghraib, it usefully signaled the president's resolve and engagement. Bush did not grovel and apologize for past mistakes, as his critics would like. But he spoke relatively frankly about the difficulties in Iraq and our "failure"--his word--to create a credible Iraqi military force. He stood by his essential vision of a free Iraq, but did it in a non-utopian key. He declared his goal "a representative government that protects basic rights," and stipulated that "Iraqis will raise up a government that reflects their own culture and values." Just so.

Bush's speech came in an environment characterized by declining public support, increasing elite panic, and deepening distress among the war's most fervent supporters. Some perspective: It is important always to keep in mind the achievement of toppling Saddam, which removed a persistent threat to the region and our interests there. The deterrent effect on other rogue regimes will work in our favor in the future, and already has with Qaddafi's Libya. Yes, the occupation has been difficult, but it should be judged by Iraqi standards rather than American ones. Iraq is a Third World country ravaged by three decades of tyranny. In that context, the limited progress we have made in a year should be mildly encouraging and certainly not a cause for the black despair that has seized the political class. It is even becoming respectable to call for an American pullout, once the position only of the fringe Dennis Kucinich. Such a pullout would be a self-fulfilling recipe for disaster: Nothing would so ensure that Iraq goes down as "another Vietnam," the favorite phrase of Bush's critics.

Even some supporters of the war have joined the Despair Caucus, if for different reasons. A cadre of conservatives has been harshly denouncing the Bush administration for the raid on Ahmed Chalabi. It was indeed a ham-fisted way to distance ourselves from Chalabi. Whatever the merits of the head of the Iraqi National Congress--who has often been accused of wrongdoing--he is perceived as an ally of the United ...