You need to read the whole article, but I was especially struck by this point:
Of course, the critics look right because we hardly seem to be winning the war in Iraq. But even here the critics are too smug. We have not won the war in Iraq because of something completely unforeseeable: widespread massacres of Iraqi civilians by other Iraqis and Muslims. We have never seen mass murder of fellow citizens in order to remove an outside occupier. No Japanese blew up Japanese temples in order to rid Japan of the American occupier. No Germans mass murdered German schoolchildren and teachers to rid Germany of the American, British, French and Soviet occupiers.
The level of cruelty and evil exhibited by those America is fighting in Iraq is new. Had Iraq followed any precedent in all the annals of resistance to occupation, America would likely have been victorious in Iraq. It may just be impossible, if one is morally bound not to kill large numbers of civilians, to fight those who target their own civilians and hide among them. But George W. Bush had no way to foresee such systematic cruelty.
UPDATE: Welcome American Spectator readers. Patrick, of the Paragraph Farmer, used this post as the jumping off point for a really strong and interesting article. I’m not sure I agree with him, though, and have explained why here.
Bookworm Room (ARCHIVES) 
Bush had a hint of it, on 9/11. But he believed, as most Americans believed, that the Islamic Jihad was simply a minor extreme component. That if the majority of Muslims, like in Iraq, were given a chance, they would be able to fight back (American West style) against the terroists. Ah, but Bush forgot one simple facet of human nature. Humans follow the path of least resistance. Arabs, most especially. Bush believed he could counter-act decades, if not centuries, of Arab brainwashing and cultural stigmata/backwardness, with the light of American cosmopolitan democracy.
Did not Bush say that all humans yearn to be free? However, with enough indoctrination, humans don’t yearn to be free, they yearn to obey. Bush tried to act as if this indoctrination, either by Saddam or the terroists, did not exist. Because the majority of Muslims were ‘moderate’ or some such. Bush actually believed that, he says what he believes and believes what he says. A liability when your enemies are the polar opposite. Because you cannot understand your enemy if you don’t think like him, and Bush did not like thinking about deceit, lies, and what not. But if you don’t think like that, the Arabs will always surprise you.
Bush, for example, wanted a small footprint in Iraq, in order to not “appear” as occupiers. That meant not giving orders to US Marines and the 3rd ID to shoot looters on sight, like an “occupier” would have. So while Bush was thinking he had several million people yearing to be free and yearining to self-govern, what he really had was a bunch of socialist dependent children, that if he didn’t protect with harsh methods, would side with anyone that would provide this protection. If you wish to blame Bush, blame him for his actual faults, not made up things like lies and what not. Bush had too kind a heart, too compassionate a soul, to truly see things as it was in Iraq and the Middle East. He had conviction in his actions, and unleashed some of the restraints on the military, but not enough, not enough by half. Like his father, Bush believed that he had won the war before he actually had. Everything Bush said about major operations was true, but that does not mean he should have given up the initiative and stopped giving orders to the troops to attack. The invasion of Iraq, OIF1, was a success, but that success was only a temporary setback for Saddam and Co. So don’t be like the bunny in the race with the turle. Bush took a nap and woke up with something else he did not expect.
One of the things I went over was Grim’s thesis on killing children, at blackfive. I recently organized his post with another piece of information, on my blog. But you should read Grim’s piece directly, Bookworm, and anyone else who hasn’t already.
http://www.imao.us/archives/006046.html
What Grim is writing about, is what America should be debating, and demanding the President answer in clear terms. But so long as the President listens to the democrats and the bureacrats in State, nothing will ever get done except by some miracular attack on America galvanizing the rage in Bush.
[…] As usual, Dennis Prager gets it — this time about Iraq […]