A Little More Humiliation

Bret Stephens of the Jerusalem Post explains why Tom Friedman got it half-right when he talks of the importance of honor to the Arabs. While Friedman argues that we need to pay homage to that principle, Stephens thinks it's our job to break it. Charles Krauthammer makes a similar, but slightly different, point in this morning's Post. He seems to be saying that Hussein's humiliation works within that "culture of honor" to destroy both his personal myth and that of Baathism.

I think they're both right. It's much easier to destroy a man, or even a movement, within a political and social culture, than it is to radically change that culture. But the first step in doing so is thoroughly discrediting the products of that culture.