From Dan's favorite hairy-backed scribe

John Podhoretz gives a column-length treatment of Rich Lowry's current National Review cover story:

What's missing here is what has been missing from the most hard-headed discussions of Iraq since the end of the 2004 election, and that is an understanding of just why President Bush formulated the freedom doctrine.

The problem is that the policies advocated by the "hell hawks" and by defeatist Democrats offer no real possibility of an end to the war against Islamic radicalism. It will go on forever.

And if it does, it seems certain that at some point in the next few decades, millions of people are going to die in a successful terrorist assault using weapons of mass destruction.

Why? Because there is no way to stop the delivery of such a weapon if the delivery system is a single person willing to die to get it done. The only way to prevent it is to change the terms under which such people live, to offer them something to hope for besides virgins in paradise.

Seen in this light, the Bush freedom doctrine isn't simply a starry-eyed exercise in ludicrous optimism. It's a real-world solution to a real-world problem.

I haven't read Lowry's original piece yet, but I will. If JPod's precis is accurate, it sounds as if it is a worthy summation of my feeling about the rational basis for the Iraq war.

Meanwhile, let's enjoy March Mayhem. The folks around central New York, positively despondent after the DePaul Debacle, are dreaming of a second 'Melo Miracle. Hey, I pull for SU, because it makes for a much more pleasant work environment!

(But I will pull for 'Nova over SU should it come to that.)