And we have no guarantee that they would have survived if things had gone our way from the start and our victory had been complete. And would a free, democratic, liberal state mean anything if it required American bayonets and a carrier task force offshore to protect it from its own citizens? Regime change is one thing, nation building is another. Conservatives used to understand that. They used to scold Clinton about it all the time.

My guess is that if Iraq does not break up into three states along religious and ethnic lines, it will be reunited under the brutal domination of another tyrant, either foreign or domestic. Perhaps the people will then realize "maybe the Americans weren't so bad after all". But by then it will be too late for them, and for us too. The only way we can prevent this is to accept the role of tyrant ourselves.