James Fallows is the National Correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, where he has worked for more than twenty years. He is one of the most important and gifted investigative reporters of our time. During his long and storied career, Mr. Fallows has written extensively on such diverse topics as defense policy, economics, computer technology, politics, and immigration.
Over the past two years, Mr. Fallows has written a series of investigative articles in The Atlantic in which Mr. Fallows argues that the Bush Administration has squandered valuable resources and opportunities as a result of its drive to war against Iraq. In this Atlantic Monthly ($) interview, Mr. Fallows elaborates on his views regarding the mistakes that he believes that the Bush Administration has made in pursuing the Iraqi front in the war on Islamic fascism. It is a valuable and thought provoking piece from a serious reporter and thinker, and the following are several tidbits of the interview to arouse your curiosity.

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Victor Davis Hanson’s latest NRO op-ed reminds us that the fog of war often makes it difficult to evaluate progress during war. However, Professor Hanson points out that the difficulties of battle should not deter us from focusing on finishing the Iraqi stage of the war against Islamic fascism:

It is always difficult for those involved to determine the pulse of any ongoing war. The last 90 days in the Pacific theater were among the most costly of World War II, as we incurred 50,000 casualties on Okinawa just weeks before the Japanese collapse. December 1944 and January 1945 were the worst months for the American army in Europe, bled white repelling Hitler’s last gasp in the Battle of the Bulge. Contemporaries shuddered, after observing those killing fields, that the war would go on for years more. The summer of 1864 convinced many that Grant and Lincoln were losers, and that McClellan alone could end the conflict by what would amount to a negotiated surrender of Northern war aims.
It is true that parts of Iraq are unsafe and that terrorists are flowing into the country; but there is no doubt that the removal of Saddam Hussein is bringing matters to a head. Islamic fascists are now fighting openly and losing battles, and are increasingly desperate as they realize the democratization process slowly grinds ahead leaving them and what they have to offer by the wayside. Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and others must send aid to the terrorists and stealthy warriors into Iraq, for the battle is not just for Baghdad but for their futures as well. The world’s attention is turning to Syria’s occupation of Lebanon and Iran’s nukes, a new scrutiny predicated on American initiatives and persistence, and easily evaporated by a withdrawal from Iraq. So by taking the fight to the heart of darkness in Saddam’s realm, we have opened the climactic phase of the war, and thereupon can either win or lose far more than Iraq.
The world grasps this, and thus slowly is waking up and starting to see that if it walks and sounds like an Islamic fascist ? whether in Russia, Spain, Istanbul, Israel, Iraq, or India ? it really is an Islamic fascist, with the now-familiar odious signature of car bombings, suicide belts, and incoherent communiquÈs mixed with self-pity and passive-aggressive bluster.
For all these reasons and more, something like “See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya” is the absolute worst prescription for Iraq ? both for America and those Iraqis who are counting on us in their historic efforts to reclaim their country from barbarism. Amid the daily car bombings in Iraq, murder in Russia, and slaughter in the Middle East, we cannot see much hope ? but it is there, and we are winning on a variety of fronts as the world continues to shrink for the Islamic fascist and those who would abet him.

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