Maybe you don't want to read a single word in defense of the Iraq war. I understand: It's going to be a long haul, and its outcome will not be--even under the best of circumstances--cheery. But that leaves us with the other options (the Murtha, Clinton, Hagel, Biden, et cetera), the arguments for which are as phoney as some of George Bush's first arguments for American engagement. Their presumptions are simply false. In any case, Bret Stephens makes this argument in this morning's Wall Street Journal, and he makes it very persuasively. I know that you don't get this for free. That is, unless you have a Journal subscription online. But you can always go out to the newsstand, lay out a buck and have the article in front of you. If you buy today's WSJ, you'll also get a 3/4 of a page premium: Fouad Ajami's dazzling essay on why the Sunnis are being defeated in Iraq, and why it is right that they should be. It's my estimate that Saudi Arabia will accede to Shia dominion in Iraq; in any case, it hasn't many options. It certainly doesn't have battalions to fight it. Sunni Jordan has even fewer options, and it is not heroic. This is also the end of Egypt as a diplomatic intermediary. It has zero cards to play in Iraq. The Arabs know that increasingly it is standing on very wobbly knees. Soon, its nationhood will be questioned ... and not just by me. Sunni Egypt can't even function as a middleman between Israel and the Sunni Palestinians. But that gets me on to another subject.