Here's his self-defense. You make the call. Via Jay Nordlinger of NRO, a CNBC interview with Maria Bartiromo:
BARTIROMO: . . . Do you think that you have misread [the Iraq situation] at all?
LEWIS: Yes, I think I was a little too optimistic, but what I misread, I think, was not so much what happens in Iraq as what happens here.
. . . BARTIROMO: What do you mean?
LEWIS: I mean, the response, the way that the media have reported what's happening in Iraq. I mean, I understand that one bridge destroyed makes a better story than ten bridges built. But nevertheless, the situation in Iraq, the standard of living, the improvement in general conditions to the Iraqi people, and the measure of support that we enjoy among the Iraqis — all these are far better than one would gather from simply following the media.
[Bartiromo asks Professor Lewis about Senator Kennedy's comparison of Iraq to Vietnam.]
LEWIS: I think that is a disastrous comparison. If you listen to the propaganda of the fundamentalists in Iraq and elsewhere, they have a litany that they keep repeating. They say, "The Americans have become degenerate. They are soft and pampered. They can't take it. Hit them and they'll run." And then they repeat: Vietnam, Beirut, Somalia, and all the other small episodes since which brought no effective response. Talking about Vietnam now will merely confirm them, tell them that they are right, because we all know how Vietnam ended, and that will assure them they have a good chance that this will end the same way. And they have just won a considerable success in Spain . . .
BARTIROMO: What has surprised you most about the events in post-war Iraq?
LEWIS: What has surprised me most is the indecision which is shown by us, not by them. You have to remember that we began with a rather unfavorable record. In '91, the time of the Gulf War, President Bush Sr. called on the Iraqi people to revolt against the tyrant. They did. They revolted against the tyrant. In the meantime, we made a cease-fire agreement with the tyrant and then sat and watched while he crushed the revolt . . . You can understand therefore that when we call on them again to revolt, they were rather more cautious. There is, shall we say, a well-grounded mistrust. They know also of the abrupt departures from Somalia, the departure from Vietnam. They don't want to become boat people . . .
BARTIROMO: . . . many have long believed that peace in the Middle East would first have to come between the Arabs and the Israelis. Do you believe that instead peace in Jerusalem will come through Baghdad?
LEWIS: I believe that the peace between the Arabs and the Israelis will come after, not before. At the moment, the conflict is an extremely useful safety valve. It is the licensed grievance all over the Arab world. When they're angry and resentful and embittered, which they all have very good reason to be, for the most part, against their own governments, this provides a means of expressing it, which does no harm to their own governments. Before the invasion of Iraq, people were saying, "We have to settle the Palestine question first and then deal with Iraq." That sent a clear message to Saddam Hussein: Make sure they don't settle the Palestine question.
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