Smart counterinsurgency

It's more and more exciting to see the unfolding changes in our military strategy in Iraq. The military under Gen. David Petraeus is escaping the old-think and is fighting the insurgents in new ways - one of which is to help them to fight one another.

Just as we allied with the evil Joseph Stalin in World War II to fight the Nazis, so we will have to hold our nose and work with some of our enemies against other enemies. We can't take on everyone at once, and we can't come to a solution in Iraq without co-opting some elements that in a fairer world we would otherwise destroy.

After finishing off the Nazis, we dealt with the Soviets. And after years of dogged persistence punctuated by screw-ups and defeatism, ultimately we were victorious. Let's lay off the criticism of the new counterinsurgency innovations and give the enemy-of-my-enemy experiment a chance to work.