At the end of this summer of our discontent, an array of Democratic presidential hopefuls, along with a number of restless pundits, are seeking to reclaim credibility after their mistaken prognoses about the Afghan and Iraqi wars.
The facts themselves will not go away, and thus it is more likely that critics (quietly and without fanfare) will soon come over to the U.S. position, rather than vice versa — albeit on the cheap and at the eleventh hour.
We are not the only ones who know all of this. The German government realizes that these radical changes will prove for the universal good. For all of its election-inspired anti-American rhetoric last year, Germany accepts that the United States is not colonizing Iraq or siphoning off its oil, but rather spending billions of its own money, after a risky military operation, to help the Iraqi people — whether bringing water back to the Marsh Arabs, federalism to the Kurds, or respect and dignity to the Shiites.
Those facts cannot be spun and will not go away: American soldiers stationed in Iraq are no more exploitative than those in Germany, but are instead there to keep the peace and provide security, just as once they saved the Germans from themselves, and then kept the Russian bear out of Munich and Hamburg.
Before Mr. Arafat returned to the West Bank, life was far better for his people than during his kleptocracy. He may be adept at screaming from balconies and writing checks to terrorists, but he cannot govern. He was a creation of the Soviet Union and a mobster of the old school, and thus can only do what mobsters do — provide protection for money, order hits, extort from rivals, buy supporters, embezzle from friends, and purchase political legitimacy.
Palestinian puppets will come and they will go, but ultimately there will be no peace until Mr. Arafat finds his inferno or joins his family in France. It is simple as that.
Once the world sobers up and the frenzy subsides, nations will still want someone to be worried about Iran and North Korea. The Bekka Valley will not disappear. China will still scare its neighbors. Japan will still look to the United States military. The NATO partners won't wish us to leave; Russians will remember that we will never attack them, but always find a way to forgive them for almost everything they do. Egyptians and Jordanians will appreciate that they have slandered Americans and been paid in the process. And despite, or perhaps because of, past appeasement, Islamic terrorists will still hate the defenseless Europeans as much as they do the United States.
Meanwhile the American public is tiring of them all — and that will be the real challenge for any president in the years ahead.
