LEE HARRIS WRITES:

It is one of the most difficult things for us to understand about those who are in the grips of a collective fantasy—how even the most powerful, the most irrefutable evidence will be ignored and suppressed in order to keep the fantasy intact.

And this is the greatest danger confronting the American mission to bring sanity to the Arab world—it may not want it.

This is why the next couple of days and weeks will be so critical for us and for the world.

If the collective Arab mind decides that the fall of Baghdad came about because a corrupt dictator had lost the loyalty of the people whom he had brutalized for thirty years, then sanity may begin to emerge. But if, on the other hand, this same collective mind begins to look for another consoling myth, it is sure to find one readily available. And if you doubt this, simply recall the Arab theories of 9/11.

Indeed. Read the whole thing.