One of the things that the newly (and deservedly) jobless Peter Arnett said was that the US “misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces.”

In fact, it’s more the other way around. The reason we are at war is because bin Laden, and Saddam (and sadly, at least for now, the Iraqi people), have misjudged the determination of the US to wage war on its enemies. Partly because of foreign policy mistakes in the past–in Iran in 1979, in Beirut in 1983, in Iraq in 1991, in Mogadishu in 1993–we demonstrated to them that we had no staying power, and they now think that they can win if they can simply hang on long enough. And of course, statements like Badhdad Peter’s simply reinforce that notion, and will cost many thousands more lives.