A TOUGH WEEK in Iraq. I don’t blog much on day-to-day events there, because other people are doing that better anyway, and because I prefer to focus on issues — like the CERP issue — that have more long-term importance. But, even if this is nothing on the scale of Vietnam, Korea, or World War II, it’s real enough. Which is why I admire and respect the people who are over there working to make Iraq a success, and don’t want to see their efforts, and sacrifices, wasted.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has good thoughts:

Saddam always relied on the Somalia strategy. He believed – and probably still does – that the U.S. does not have the guts to stick this out and wear down the Sunni dead-enders now combined with Islamist terrorists. He planned on this kind of war of attrition from the minute he knew he was militarily finished. That makes our endurance all the more necessary. The slow collapse of American credibility in the 1990s will take time to reverse. And moments like yesterday are classic attempts to test our determination. Saddam and what he still represents must fail in full view of the world. And we have an irreplaceable opportunity to see it happen.

Yes.