Occurs to me that my column today is vulnerable to the criticism that the Bush administration has sort of applied half-measures so far. Tom Ricks at WPost plays up the half-measures angle in his piece today. Limited cruise-missile strikes in Baghdad against very precisely caliberated targets to “send a message” to the Iraqis (granted, that message is: surrender or die). My response would be that the goal of this campaign is decisive–the elimination of the regime. And, even if we gave the Iraqis a chance to quit, we were always ready to apply decisive force, and are indeed beginning to apply it now.