While the press whittles away at its story about ceasefires, withdrawals and Kofi Annan's finger-wagging, another Fallujah has been presented. This evening Fox News military analyst General Robert Scales described the Marines' slowly grinding the insurgents into pulp, removing their assets and sniping away at their ranks. He implored that "time is on our side." That concurs with Belmont Club, which speculated earlier today that the enemy, squeezed into a shrinking share of the city, has very few options indeed.
MORE: Through television reports, military spokesmen are still insisting that Marines moving out of the southeast industrial sector of the city are repositioning, not withdrawing.
AND MORE: Glenn Reynolds links to the concerns of American diffidence from Alaa and Andrew Sullivan, whom I read earlier this morning. What to think? From the start, most press agencies have misinterpreted every stage of the conflict, from the Blackwater atrocity to the action halt to the troop movements; mostly because the press is eager to identify circumstances as a failure or loss of control on the part of the Allies, but also due to a general lack of strategic military understanding. [Q. Why don't they put cool heads behind wire reports? A. Because newspapers sell better with a fresh calamity every morning! -ed] As the "ceasefire" demonstrated, appearances only describe part of the story.
My position on American restraint has been written. The enemies of a free Iraq, particularly Ba'athists hiding in shadows, are America's responsibility. But I read too much into the last apparent calm, and am resolved not to follow every news wave that predicts an inevitable conclusion to the matter in Fallujah — there will be only one and, frankly, we've been offered dozens. The press has cried wolf too many times. As for commentary, while there's opportunity in swiftness, there's virtue in assembling events into a narrative — and then evaluating the whole.
SPEAKING OF NARRATIVES: Victor Davis Hanson is vital reading for today. This is a war; our country has no choice but to win.
