In a National Journal column posted at Reason’s Web site, Jonathan Rauch writes, “Spending the world’s goodwill on reform in the Arab world is the most dangerous course the Bush administration could have set, except for all the others.”

Unfortunately, Rauch doesn’t consider all the other options, at least not in the column. He thinks our options are to continue to support dictatorial Arab regimes or to engage in a policy never-ending war (or threat of war) to achieve “democracy,” which supposedly will be less anti-American.

But there is another option: retrenchment. Pulling the troops out of Saudi Arabia was a good first step. This doesn’t mean giving up the fight against Al Qaeda; it means redoubling that effort, and it means not giving Islamic extremists yet more reason for their “irrational” hatred of the United States.

Meanwhile, Steve Chapman takes a pretty strong stand today, criticizing the solution of regime change in Iraq as “Some solution. A full month after our great triumph, the critics are as critical as ever, the United States is still isolated and Iraq is in chaos. Instead of being cornered and cowed, Al Qaeda is on the offensive, deploying suicide bombers to slaughter Americans. And has anyone noticed that Afghanistan has slid back into anarchy?”

I’m dividied about what to do now that we’re in Iraq. Just withdrawing might only worsen things and leave the impression that we came, we saw, we conquered, we ditched the place. But it’s been very bumpy so far. Now the U.S. has managed to upset not just Islamic extremists but regular old Iraqis who have this odd insistence on food, water, electricity, gas, jobs.

And now we read that it may take years for the Iraqi oil industry to fully recover and really start bringing in the dough.

Good ol’ Afghanistan, at least, was dirt and resource poor so there was no pretension that we could turn it around lickety split.