The Beltway Retreat

The insurgents are hitting their targets--in Washington.

We need to be realist but not defeatist. We need to understand that there is a need of utmost urgency to deal with many of the problems of Iraq but we must not give in to panic.

So said Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih on Monday, in a BBC interview while in London for talks with Tony Blair. If only such statesmanship prevailed on this side of the Atlantic, where election politics and a spate of critical new books have combined to paint an increasingly desperate--and false--picture of what's happening in Iraq.