Canadian columnist Mark Steyn deliciously skewers the prophets of doom. As little as a few days ago the naysayers were still confidently predicting disaster, now in the streets of Baghdad; that the people of Iraq were going to rise up against the Coalition; that the US forces were not really at the international airport; and so on.
But I see the naysayers have already moved on to the next quagmire: Washington may have won the war but it risks “losing the peace.” Whatever gets you through the night, guys. Meanwhile, back in the real world, the next phase has begun. As David Frum mentioned on Saturday, Syria’s already feeling the oil squeeze. And did you know Kim Jong-Il hasn’t attended a meeting since they dropped the opening bunker-buster on Saddam’s confab? The lessons of Iraq are already being learned in Damascus and Pyongyang, if not at the BBC, CBC, New York Times or in Robert Fisk’s Baghdad bedsit.
That’s the thing about the prophets of doom: there’s always hope that America will fail on the next task.
