George Will has joined the editors of National Review in re-thinking the war in Iraq. Specifically, Will takes aim at the fetish among some neoconservatives that democracy can take root in any culture no matter the climate or soil. I'm speaking metaphorically, of course.

In other words, the idea that there were a bunch of latter-day James Madisons and Thomas Jeffersons floating around Hussein's Baghdad just waiting to institute a constitutional republic if only the Americans overthrew their oppressor was pie-in-the-sky stuff. Bush, Will suggests, needs to rethink his foreign policy.

"Being steadfast in defense of carefully considered convictions is a virtue," Will writes. "Being blankly incapable of distinguishing cherished hopes from disappointing facts, or of reassessing comforting doctrines in face of contrary evidence, is a crippling political vice."