[...]A shopkeeper in Baghdad spinning conspiracy theories to CNN, spewing hatred of the Jews, and whining about his air-conditioning during a three-hour coffee break is nothing like the romantic figure of a peasant in a Vietnamese rice paddy expressing hope for land reform and freedom from commissars. As we know from the general post-9/11 climate, the ingratitude — coupled with an obnoxious envy — so endemic in the Middle East proves especially grating to Americans.

Yet, so far, the long-term factors in play are still in our favor, and we need not listen to our own Democratic street — or trust in the veracity of the New York Times. Neither has had a good track record of either prescience or principled behavior in these last six months.

On the news of some dramatic development — Saddam's death or capture, the collapse of the mullahs in Iran, firm textual or material evidence of WMD — our summer of discontent will end. Without warning and quite abruptly, the resistance may well dry up, allowing Iraq to settle down and go the way of those also often difficult, but ultimately successful, efforts in postwar Germany and Japan.