from Willaim Safire in today's New York Times: The Failuremongers

In what is called here "the Daily Schadenfreude," the impression is being marketed that the rebuilding of Iraq is a colossal flop. That Arabs are culturally incapable of self-government. That Islamic fundamentalism will sweep away any Western notions of individual dignity. That while Saddam was admittedly a "bad guy," the hundreds of thousands of his victims who are missing are none of the West's concern, and that a cabal of neocon hawks manipulated President Bush into war.

So goes the failuremongers' pitch. Their purpose, beyond justification of their decade of appeasement, is to cast as both ignoble and doomed this most necessary long-term counter to state-sponsored and fanaticism-driven terror. To wear down our will, they emphasize the likelihood that as long as we stay to rebuild, terrorists will shoot at our service members and relief workers and will sabotage power plants and oil fields. As we return fire, inevitable pictures of bloodied innocents will be shown on home screens.

In the coming political campaigns, failuremongers in Europe and at home will exploit reactions to these costs in blood and treasure. They will beat the drums to abandon control to a feckless U.N. bureaucracy. George McGovern's slogan of 1972 will be echoed by de Villepin Democrats and some panicky Republicans: "Come home, America."

How best to answer the merchants of dismay? Counseling patience is not enough. "Staying the course" needs no sexing up, as our British allies say, but does require the coalition's measurable accomplishment of steady Iraqi-ization. (I seek a more pronounceable verb along with an indigenous Iraqi army.)

Success will be sped by straight reporting of the big picture as well as the shocking picture. Pols and pundits are obliged to cover misjudgment and misfortune, but also to examine evidence of progress toward a peaceful, prosperous, pluralistic Iraq led by the liberators, not the obstructionists.

Failure may boast a thousand fashionable fathers in this summer of discontent, but for us realistic optimists — if it succeeds, it leads.