Bradley Gitz teaches history at a small college in Arkansas and writes a column for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He calls himself a libertarian, but he is a rabid hawk. In today's column, “Time for Ruthlessness”, he says what surely many conservatives are thinking, so I thought it was worth bringing it to wider attention:

"The paradox inherent in the American occupation is that we may need to demonstrate some of the brutality characteristic of Saddam Hussein to ultimately make Iraq a different and better kind of place than it was under him.... Saddam ruled Iraq in harsh fashion, but that harshness also served a purpose in terms of maintaining order. America needs to maintain order there, too, and one suspects that tanks will prove more useful in the short term for achieving that crucial objective than simply getting the electricity going or providing job opportunities."

Postscript: Andrew Bacevich says the appropriate comparision for Iraq is not Vietnam but Algeria.