Patience in Iraq

Niall Ferguson urges patience in Iraq. Excerpt:

In an important but under-reported speech in June 2003, the former leader of the British Liberal Democrat party, Paddy Ashdown, reflected on the "principles of peace-making" he had learned in his capacity as the international community's high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina. His seventh point was: "[To] avoid setting deadlines, and settle in for the long haul. . . . Installing the software of a free and open society is a slow business. It cannot be done . . . in a year or so. . . . Peace-keeping needs to be measured not in months but decades. What we need here . . . is 'stick-to-it-iveness' . . . the political will, the unity of purpose, and the sheer stamina . . . to see the job through to lasting success. That means staying on, and sticking at it, long after the CNN effect has passed."