In Wednesday?s Wall Street Journal, Johns Hopkins professor Fouad Ajami had an op-ed on the situation in Iraq that is simply must-reading for anyone trying to sort it all out from afar (both geographically and culturally). Unfortunately, the piece is not online unless you are a WSJ subscriber, so pass paper copies around your office or find yesterday’s edition in the library before it gets stored.

Among other things, Ajami explains why the Bush policy of deferring to Lakhdar Brahimi?s meddling in the transition to self-rule was such a serious mistake, fortunately one that the Shiites helped Bush avoid in the end by saying, essentially, ?hell, no? to Brahimi?s attempt to recapture Iraq on behalf of the pan-Arabist elites that tyrannize most of the region. He also notes that resolute if somewhat misunderstood military pressure is bearing fruit in Fallujah and Najaf while everyone is distracted by prison pictures.

Here?s a taste:

Mr. Brahimi hails from the very same political class that has wrecked the Arab world. He has partaken of the ways of that class: populism, anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, and a preference for the centralized state. He came from the apex of the Algerian system of power that turned that country into a charnel house, inflicted on it a long-running war between the secular powers-that-be and the Islamists, and a tradition of hostility by the Arab power-holders towards the country?s Berbers. No messenger more inappropriate could have been found if the aim was to introduce Iraqis to the ways of pluralism.

Mr. Brahimi owes us no loyalty. His prescription of a ?technocratic government? for Iraq ? which the Bush administration embraced only to retreat from, by latest accounts ? is a cunning assault on the independent political life of Iraq. The Algerian seeks to return Iraq to the Pan-Arab councils of power. His entire policy seeks nothing less than a rout of the gains which the Kurds and Shiites have secured after the fall of the Tikriti-Baathist edifice. The Shiites have seen through his scheme.

Basically, American leaders lack the discernment, common sense, and confidence in the future that Iraq?s Shiite clergy has.