When people ask me now about the war in Iraq, I argue that the war itself was fine, it's the peace that sucks. Nation-building has at best been a mixed success everywhere it's been tried. One aspect of its failure is that it's almost impossible to do in countries that are ethnically diverse. Thomas Sowell points out today the problem. The analysis may not cheer conservatives, but the conclusions he draws will not give cheer to liberals either:

Free societies have prerequisites, and history has not given all peoples those prerequisites, which took centuries to evolve in the West.

However we got into Iraq, we cannot undo history--even recent history--by simply pulling out and leaving events to take their course in that strife-torn country. Whether or not we "stay the course," terrorists are certainly going to stay the course in Iraq and around the world.

Political spin may say that Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror, but the terrorists themselves quite obviously believe otherwise, as they converge on that country with lethal and suicidal resolve.

Whether we want to or not, we cannot unilaterally end the war with international terrorists. Giving the terrorists an epoch-making victory in Iraq would only shift the location where we must face them or succumb to them.

Which is exactly the message Mark Kennedy is giving voters.