HE LEARNED A DIFFERENT LESSON

Bush honing his smart weapons (ROBERT NOVAK, August 17, 2003, Chicago SUN-TIMES)

George W. Bush's main fund-raisers and contributors expected a pep talk from the president when they were his guests for a barbecue at Crawford, Texas, last weekend but instead received a long and enthusiastic portrayal of U.S. capability to remove ''evil'' regimes.

In a speech that lasted close to an hour, President Bush described the use of American military power in Iraq as ''history-making.'' He said the use of smart weapons to ''decapitate'' any regime's tyrannical leadership was no ''blunt ax.'' Instead, it showed dictators that they ''can't hide'' from avenging Americans.

A lot has been written the past few weeks about how post-war Iraq has chastened the Administration and left it unlikely they'd embark on another regime change--like in N. Korea or Syria. The folks writing such things don't seem to have learned the main lesson of Iraq, while the President has: it's really easy for us to topple enemy regimes. And the question isn't can we replace them with liberal democracies--we probably can't--but are we better off with them gone--we are. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 17, 2003 8:04 PM