Rattling of the teacups

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The coalition approach to Iraq was summed up a year ago by a British colonel. Explaining how they were trying to secure Basra without blowing up buildings and causing a lot of death and destruction, he said, "We don't want to go in and rattle all their teacups."

The avoidance of teacup-rattling remains a priority. Last week in Fallujah, American troops had rockets fired at them from a mosque. So they fired back, but with the state-of-the-art laser-guided weaponry that kills the insurgents but leaves the mosque virtually untouched. I would have been quite happy to see it blown up with the old-school nonlaser imprecise munitions. But leveling mosques is felt to be insensitive, so on we go, avoiding the rattling of teacups, whether Sunni or Shi'ite.

The problem with this deference to the locals is that, partly in consequence, most of the folks getting rattled are on our side.

So how bad are things in Iraq?

Answer: Not very. Fallujah is not the new Mogadishu, Sheik Muqtaba al-Sadr is not the new Ayatollah Khomeini and, despite what Ted Kennedy says, Iraq is not "George Bush's Vietnam." Or even George Bush's Chappaquiddick.

Here's a good rule of thumb: The Pentagon's demonstrated in two wars now that it has got beyond Vietnam. If a politician or pundit can't, pay him no further heed. If Mr. Kennedy wants to give rhetorical aid and comfort to the enemy, he could at least be less lazy about it.

Now here's the more important question: Are the Iraqi people on the American side?

Answer: No.

Let me flesh that out. Eleven months ago I was in Fallujah. What a dump -- no disrespect to any Fallujans reading this. I had a late lunch in a seedy cafe full of Sunni men. Not a gal in the joint. And no Westerners except me. As in the movies, everyone stopped talking when I walked through the door, and every pair of eyes followed me as I made my way to a table.

I strongly dislike that veteran-foreign-correspondent look where you wander around like you've been sleeping round the back of the souk for a week. So I was wearing the same suit I would wear in Washington or New York, from the Western Imperialist Aggressor line at Brooks Brothers.