And a great article by Victor Hanson comparing Bush to Demosthenes.

Another good article by Ralph Peters on turning back Islamic extremism.

How To Judge A Chili-Cooking Contest.

Great article by Charles Krauthammer on the U.N.'s continuing uselessness.

Josh Chafetz has a great article on his "Immutable Laws of Maureen Dowd" in the Weekly Standard, called (oddly enough) The Immutable Laws of Maureen Dowd

Another great article by Mark Steyn in the Spectator.

Good article on European malaise and anti-Americanism, by Paul Johnson. From WSJ's OpinionJournal.

Outstanding anti-idiotarian manifesto by Eric S. Raymond.

A must-read. Really.

Leon Furth seems quite upset with the U.S. in this article in the WaPo. Unfortunately, he's not quite on the ball.

According to recent news stories, the Bush administration may have decided that if the United States ultimately invades Iraq, it will establish a military government under the control of an American military officer who will simultaneously run and redesign the country, on the model of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Japan after World War II. Whether this turns out to be the policy of the Bush administration, the fact that consideration of such an approach has reached this level warns us that there may be a dangerous intoxication with American power, and a serious loss of judgment as to its limits, among the most senior persons in our government.

So he's worried that we will reconstruct Iraq like we did to Japan after WWII, and this indicates a "dangerous intoxication with power"? Why is it so frightening now but wasn't back then? Why, if it worked so well in Japan (and Germany), does it now represent a "serious loss of judgement". Fuerth doesn't say, and one can't help but think that he doesn't actually know himself.

Or how about this gem in the next paragraph:

We would have assumed responsibility for the costs of reconstruction in Iraq. We would presumably be trying, convicting and punishing persons we deemed guilty of war crimes or crimes against humanity in courts of U.S. jurisdiction, most likely military, not before international tribunals.

(a) It's not like Iraq doesn't have plenty of oil that could be sold to pay for it's own reconstruction. Fuerth slams the U.S. for this a few sentences earlier, then promptly forgets about the inconvenient (for him) ramifications of this.

(b) The U.S. hasn't come out and said that we would be trying Iraqi leaders in our own courts, and Fuerth doesn't explain why this would be a bad thing anyway. After all, the war-crimes tribunals after WWII turned out ok, despite the lack of any sort of ICC. Bosnia is an even better counterexample, since that was a NATO operation which was followed up by UN war-crimes trials -- thus there is no particular reason that (a) if we try Saddam et al ourselves, it will somehow lack legitimacy or (b) that the U.S. will prevent the international community will be prevented from trying him and his kind. It's completely up in the air at the moment, and Fuerth is just making this stuff up to try and fabricate a case.

Here's another bizarre statement:

Above all, it is important to realize that if this is the administration's plan, then we are about to become the hegemonic power par excellence of the Middle East and beyond...

Well, we already are the hegemonic power in pretty much the whole world, so what's the difference?

We would become the guarantors of the balance of power.

This statement doesn't necessarily follow from the first. Being Hegemon simply means you're the BMF, it doesn't mean you have to prop up the current order.

And if the logic of that position inexorably carries us on into a direct confrontation with Syria, or with Iran, then that should be no surprise, because it will merely be the unfolding of the "axis of evil" speech, and the materialization of what is meant by concepts of the right to preemption and the need for dominance -- the hallmarks of the administration's doctrine for organizing our relations with the rest of the world.

Hmm, he says that like it's a bad thing.

One can imagine that if the president takes his time, plays out his hand with the United Nations, allows inspectors to return to Iraq and awaits the inevitable demonstration of bad faith by Saddam Hussein, he might be able to deal with Iraq with meaningful, rather than nominal international support; and he might then also be able to deal with the aftermath of a change of regime in the same way.

Of course, one can imagine quite a lot of things. I could certainly imagine that "One can imagine that if the president takes his time, plays out his hand with the United Nations, allows inspectors to return to Iraq and awaits the inevitable demonstration of bad faith by Saddam Hussein", that we would be in the same position we are now, with Fuerth et al arguing this same point, while Saddam shows the world his nice shiny nukes.