The Arab world is viewing our presence in Iraq as an invasion, which I suppose that, technically, it is. But if that’s so, we’re not the only ones. If this article is correct, there is another set of foreign invaders–thousands of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists–from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, perhaps the West Bank and Gaza, similar to the ones who colonized Afghanistan with the help of the home-grown Taliban.

Of course, there’s a distinction. Our invasion is to throw off a tyranny, after which we’ll leave, at least if we’re not asked to stay (as we were in Germany and Japan, and Korea). Theirs is to preserve one, or install another, and they have no intention of ever relinquishing power.

If it does come down to urban warfare in Baghdad, I suspect that these foreign invaders will hold out to the end, an end that may be brutally bitter. And the biggest fear that I have is not major US casualties (though there will be some), but massive Iraqi civilian casualties perpetrated by the kind of people who are not just indifferent to the loss of human life but, as we saw a year and a half ago, revel in it.