While you've heard it everywhere but here, one more observation is warranted. As hoped for, Fallujah was a terrific loss for the Near East's fascists:

Sunni insurgents backing Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi have expressed alarm at the prospect of a defeat by the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

...Islamic sources said that for the first time in more than a year the Tawhid and Jihad group led by Al Zarqawi appears to have lost control over many of its insurgents in the Sunni Triangle. The sources said Iraqi and U.S. assaults on major insurgency strongholds in such cities as Baghdad, Fallujah, Mosul, Ramadi and Samara have resulted in heavy insurgency casualties and a break in the command and control structure.

And with the loss of an entire capitulative city, terrorists have no choice but to forcibly lodge themselves into another host city — such as Mosul, where proper Iraqi authorities face persistent, if desperate and ultimately ineffective, challenges. With President Bush in office for another four years, the specter of America volunteering its own defeat within six months is gone; with Fallujah a success of direct and decisive force, Allied will is again an unquestionable property. The only hope for authoritarians fighting against a democratic Iraq is a societal breakdown: submission or embrace. Neither is likely. Barbarous attacks on civilians and security forces leave Iraqis more resolute, even in spite of local setbacks, and the nature of insurgents is never obscured for too long:

Since many mosques are large, walled, complexes, they lend themselves to being military bases. Technically, this sort of use is forbidden under Islam, but in times of unrest in Iraq, mosques frequently become centers of military activity. So the government has dropped any pretense of mosques being off-limits. As a result, mosques are now regularly being raided. In southern Baghdad, a mosque was found to house a suicide car bomb workshop, which had seven cars rigged and ready to go. That's a weeks worth of car bomb attacks in Baghdad.

And that's the totality of the enemy whose allies in Iran are now facing direct warnings from American four-star generals. Iraq's social and political life continues to move forward, the natural foundation of civility we should have expected; the forces of rule through strength can again be recognized as obsolete, doomed to extinction.

'ARE YOU A CRIMINAL OR A TERRORIST? YOU WILL FACE PUNISHMENT': W. Thomas Smith, Jr., follows Allied troops working hand-in-hand with Iraq's finest in Iraq's difficult central region:

Col. Ron Johnson, commander of the 24th MEU, tells NRO that the operations have been seamless and effective. "We can tell by the reaction of the enemy," he says. "We can tell by the increase in their activity, for example the fever pitch at which they're laying IEDs [improvised explosive devices]. We're starting to suffocate them, and they're panicking. We have a large target list, and we're going to continue to stay after them."

Doomed to extinction.