Good points in an OpinionJournal editorial: The Fallujah Stakes.

Sooner or later the Baath remnants, jihadists and criminals who have used Fallujah as a sanctuary have to be killed. They can’t be bargained with, they can’t be reasoned with, because for them a peaceful transition to Iraqi control after June 30 means defeat. If the estimated 2,000 or so insurgents decide to allow Marine patrols, it will be because they have concluded it is safer to melt away to kill Americans another day rather than fight to the death in Fallujah now.

The killers facing Marines in Fallujah are those who melted away a year ago as coalition forces closed on Baghdad. Rather than fight and die then, they retreated to the Sunni heartland to regroup, rearm and organize the murder of both coalition soldiers and the Iraqis who are cooperating with us. The U.S. didn’t pursue those Saddamists at the time, and it decided in later months to let Fallujah more or less alone. We now know this was a mistake, and the Marine presence is a recognition that the city can no longer be tolerated as a terror sanctuary.

If nothing else, the Fallujah sanctuary repudiates the argument we’ve often heard that the U.S. would have been better to “wait” to begin the war last year. If we had, Senator Carl Levin and others argue, we might have had the French on our side (sure) and the extra forces would have made the fight easier. But delay would also have given the Baathists time to organize this guerrilla-style warfare nationwide. Instead of fighting them in Fallujah and Ramadi, as Marines now will, without the elements of speed and surprise, a year ago U.S. soldiers might have had to do the same in far more cities.