I wonder if Bill Kristol has ever seen...

..."The Best Years of Our Lives?" It's one of my all-time favorite movies and I'd be happy to lend him the DVD. He could make some popcorn, take his shoes off, and watch it with his kids some time since it's suitable for the whole family. I'd like to draw his attention in particular to the scene in the drugstore where Fred Derry ( the ex-fly boy played by Dana Andrews) is talking to Peggy Stephenson, the daughter of Al, another returning serviceman. He's showing her the vanishing cream display, which includes a product that removes vanishing cream. In a low voice, he lets her in on a little secret, "If you don't use the vanishing cream, then you won't need the vanishing cream remover." They both enjoy a good laugh, but there's some wisdom in what he said.

I was reminded of this scene while watching Fox News Sunday this past weekend. Chris Wallace brought up the subject of the Iraq elections:

WALLACE: And that is the elections, the provincial elections, in Iraq yesterday. And it is amazing that the situation has gotten so much better there that an election in which millions of people voted, in which there was very little -- almost no incidence of serious violence we're talking about in the final moments of the show.

We don't know the results yet. There are early reporting that al- Maliki -- the prime minister's party has done well. But just the fact that this vote was held, and held so peacefully, and with the Iraqi security in the lead, not U.S. security -- how important in terms of the development of Iraq in its political stability?

KRISTOL: Oh, it's awfully important. Every brigade commander I've talked to who's come back from Iraq has said the key -- now that we won the war, basically, now that the surge succeeded -- and let's just remind everyone this would not have happened if the Democrats had had their way in 2007. We would have chaos and terror in Iraq, not a peaceful democratic election.

Neocons, like Kristol, love to bring up the surge and say I told you so. Conditions in Iraq have definitely improved in the last year or so and someday the neocons may achieve their dream of a Western-leaning, freedom-loving Iraq. I hope so; it would be good for America. But to paraphrase Fred Derry, if you didn't blunder your way into this war in the first place, you wouldn't have needed the surge to bring the violence back down to pre-war levels. And 4,000 Americans and untold tens of thousands of Iraqis would still be alive.