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. These critics now claim that we are in a Vietnam-style quagmire in Iraq and have become estranged from the rest of the world on a variety of fronts from the West Bank to the United Nations.

Nothing could be further from the truth, which is immune to spin from both ends of the political spectrum. 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.

For all the harping, postbellum Iraq and Afghanistan offer hope; the Taliban and Saddam Hussein certainly did not. The world knows the United States is promoting liberal government and that gangsters — whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or on the West Bank — are opposing it. Choosing between the Dark Ages and the Enlightenment is not difficult even for the French, especially when someone else pays and dies...

...Mr. Bush has been criticized for isolating Yasser Arafat. But the latter is someone whose enmity you welcome. The Europeans may give him a pass on his stealthy financial and emotional subsidies for Hamas and related killers, but they won't forgive his near-billion dollars in a private bank account. Killing Jews is one thing; stealing European money to subsidize the good life for kin and cronies is quite another.

Finally, even facts do matter. 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.

Reasoning with him would be no different than discussing democratic reform with Saddam Hussein, or brokering freedom of speech with the Iranian mullahs, or believing Mr. Castro will hold real elections. Such men cannot do such things, because they are precisely such men — to ask them to do otherwise or to be other than what they are is to ask them to die.

None of the threats from the Israelis, the praise from the Arabs, or the measured and calculated rhetoric from the Europeans can change the truth. It just sits there and won't go away. 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...