At the height of the Cold War, the United States planned to respond to a Soviet nuclear attack with "mutual assured destruction": They wipe out our civilian population, we wipe out theirs. It's no surprise that the left bought into this concept, lock, stock and gun barrel, assuming during the Vietnam War years that American involvement in Southeast Asia represented cruelty, and there was no way to refine it.

This past month was refinement time, and the place was Iraq. Yes, civilian deaths sadly occurred, but destroyed military targets often sat next to undamaged civilian structures. "Smart bombs" and very smart missiles provided the opportunity for a refined war, yet human decisions were still key, with military planners selecting ordnance and time and direction of delivery to ensure the least possible chance of civilian damage. An emphasis on speed, mobility and flexibility allowed soldiers to go around potential dangers rather than roll over them.

The Sherman Doctrine died during the past month in part because of a political strategy to influence the world's opinion of the war. It died in part because of technological progress. It died in part because we recognized that Iraq's regime, and not most of its people, was to blame. But it also died because, as often as the Bible may be ignored in the United States and the United Kingdom, many American and British leaders had grown up within an ethos powerfully influenced by a biblical understanding of compassion.

"War is cruelty. You cannot refine it." Not so.