Ralph Peters hits the nail on the head again. We’re trying to fight a politically correct war, with too many half measures and second chances, and the bill is now coming due: The Road to Iraq’s Riots: Paying for Weakness.

April 6, 2004 — SEVEN American soldiers died in Baghdad on Sunday because we failed to respond to last week’s Fallujah attacks. Whatever our motives, we looked weak and indecisive. Additional enemies believed their moment had come.

In the Middle East, appearances are all.

Intelligence personnel are routinely warned to avoid mirror-imaging, assigning our values and psychology to an opponent. Imagining that our enemies think like us has cost us dearly in Iraq. The bill will go still higher.

Combined with the administration’s folly of trying to occupy Iraq with too few troops, our notion that patience and persuasion are more effective than displays of power has made the country deadlier for our soldiers, more dangerous for Iraqis and far less likely to achieve internal peace.

Americans value compromise; our enemies view it as weakness. We’re reluctant to use force. The terrorists and insurgents read that as cowardice.