RALPH PETERS WRITES that the war is going well:

March 25, 2003 — THE war in Iraq yesterday was a story of the dog – or many dogs – that didn’t bark. Iraqi forces remained unable to launch significant counterattacks. Irregular forces failed to mount serious threats to our rear area. Regime officals continued to wave their arms and tell us that now we’ve really made them mad. And allied forces continued to move toward Baghdad.

We lost at least one Apache attack helicopter, probably to an aircraft malfunction. But what no one at home got to see was the destruction our strikes left amidst the Medina Division of the Republican Guards – despite the Iraqis positioning many of their combat vehicles in civilian neighborhoods. . . .

Yeah, I’m being cocky today. Because I’m sick of being told how brilliant our enemies are and how our troops are going to get whupped up on by some Kmart Hitler. Might I pause in my literary endeavors to point out that, while our troops are approaching Baghdad, Iraq’s Republican Guards are still quite a distance from Washington, D.C.?

He’s not cocky throughout, and offers some legitimate worries, but he also offers a lot of useful perspective. Meanwhile John Keegan writes:

Wars do not usually obey Hollywood timetables. Progress can be slow and setbacks frequent. The Falklands, a short war by historical standards, lasted a month from the first landings to the Argentine surrender.

In Iraq the allies have done astonishingly well, having advanced nearly 300 miles since crossing the start line. This is one of the fastest advances ever achieved, surpassing that of the British liberation army in the dash from the Seine to Brussels in 1944. They have also secured the vital bridges at Nasiriyah, taken the Faw peninsula, captured Umm Qasr and isolated Basra.

Keegan is, however, worried that we don’t have enough troops on the ground, for which he blames the Turks, whose on-again off-again intransigence has produced the troop shortage as the Fourth Infantry has to go through the Suez and around to the Gulf before it can do any good. (Unless this is the mother of all deception operations. . . nah. Though it would explain otherwise somewhat incoherent behavior of the Turks.) I can’t help but think, though, that Tommy Franks knows how many troops he has, and what he faces, better than the rest of us do. And the rap on him has always been that he’s too conservative, not that he’s some hell-for-leather adventurer. I’ll spare you any armchair-generalship on my part. We’ll see, soon enough.

UPDATE: This analysis by Austin Bay is — as always — worth reading.