There's a fair amount of subtle smugness in the media yet; this article from England's Times is the latest in a series of reports that, disconnected from historical perspective, work to sow doubt in our ranks and to serve, if inadvertantly, as tools of incitement for enemies of Iraq's democratization. Some bloggers have sensibly commented and others have, indirectly, corroborated this article to a point.

To a point. Let's have some of that historical perspective: the murder rate in Japan in 1947 was over four times what it was in 1940. This was two years of occupation; not two months, nor in a country literally surrounded by an enemy morally indistinguishable from those just defeated. In 1952, according the Jean Stoetzel's Without the Chrysanthemum and the Sword, three in four of those polled in Japan thought that the nation's lack moral conduct, their loss of "giri" through deplorable behavior, crime and lawlessness, was near-irrevocable.

Trouble is never good news, but it's silly to furrow the brow over this stuff in Iraq so early in the post-war reconstruction. It's seriously disingenious to flutter about as if this brand of instability had never occurred (and been overcome) before. (And I find it interesting to note that the Japanese laid most of the blame for their societal troubles at their own feet - not the Americans').

Two months. From all accounts, the unrest is generally from Ba'athists (the forces we have been destroying) and, as found in the so-called Sunni Triangle, terrorists from the rest of the sickened Near East (the forces we will need to destroy).

I'm no opponent of keeping a critical eye on Iraq - yet do we need the impatience, shortsightedness and lack of easily obtained knowledge? The expectation for massive military, societal and economic conditions to right themselves as neatly as a miniseries is dumb; and deadly. Try arduously commentating on a marathon runner's pace, stride after stride after stride after stride after stride after stride after stride: you'll end up with thousands of shrill, histrionic, directionless and contradictory reports on an affair that takes a significant amount of time to appreciably develop. That's the mentality of modern journalism.

Except, of course, when journalists are mature and possess a drop of knowledge on the subject. Enter Victor Davis Hanson.