And what have you done with him, you fiend?

Apparently, Mr. Cohen has been mugged by reality. He’s taking down le Carre, and the rest of the loony left, himself.

You would think from reading le Carre that Bush has twice made war on his neighbors, that he has used chemical weapons on his own people and that he murders his opponents — moderate Republicans as well as Democrats. Bush’s America is to be feared, not Hussein’s Iraq.

This is a more pernicious madness than the one le Carre says has seized the United States. It caricatures Bush. It explains nothing and, worse, it offers no alternatives. If there is an argument to be made against a war with Iraq, then what it is? Le Carre does not say. In general, the entire left does not say.

Instead, we get le Carre-like rants against Big Oil or — again le Carre — a “colonialist adventure.” As with the period before World War II, a certain segment of the left has simply stopped thinking. It cherishes peace so much it has substituted wishful thinking for hard analysis: What’s to be done? How do we deal with “poor mad little North Korea” with its poor mad little nuclear weapons and its medium-range ballistic missiles? And what do we do with Iraq?