One Mo' Time

Charles Krauthammer explains, yet a-freakin’-gain, why Iraq isn’t Vietnam:

The Shiites, 65 percent of Iraq, are another story. They know we liberated them, but they are also eager to inherit the throne. They are not very enthusiastic about the draft constitution, which would limit their power. They chafe at the occupation, but most, in particular their more revered religious leaders, know that if we were to leave, they would fall under the sway of either the Saddamites, foreign Sunni (al Qaeda) terrorists or the runt Shiite usurper, Moqtada Sadr.

None of these is a very appealing prospect, which is why the Shiite establishment has been negotiating on our behalf with the Sadr rebels. And why the members of the Iraqi Governing Council have been negotiating on our behalf with the holdouts in Fallujah.

This is good. We do have a crisis, but we also have serious communal leaders working in tandem with us. And these leaders have far more legitimacy than Sadr’s grandiloquent Mahdi Army or the jihadists of Fallujah.

I had my own say here.